As cultural diversity is increasingly celebrated in classrooms, multicultural learning in music education has become more essential and meaningful. Therefore, this article emphasizes the integration of Cantonese nursery rhymes into early childhood music classrooms by providing a detailed lesson plan and some teaching suggestions. This effort aims…

Engineering is receiving unprecedented attention in early childhood and elementary classrooms. Teachers of young children may recognize the ways young children act as natural engineers as they design and create with materials from the classroom or playground. Everyday experiences such as choosing the type of bag: paper, plastic, or a reusable…

Orators of folk literature and nursery rhymes entertain, inform, and persuade their audiences through the straightforward plots in those genres. Because nursery rhymes recitations usually happen in groups, they help children acquire the mechanics of oral communication and promote communal bonding. Although nursery rhymes have a simpler form than…

Regardless of where schools are located, teachers face the challenge of teaching and mentoring children, not only in academic achievement but in social emotional development. When faced with challenges, young children are especially vulnerable because they lack the life experience and developmental maturity to adequately cope. Relying on the lead…

As they are naturally curious about the world around them, young children ask lots and lots of questions. In classrooms today, however, there seems to be little space for these student-generated questions as teachers are more likely to pose the questions. Research indicates that question generation is an effective strategy to motivate young…

Since children develop the critical language and early reading skills necessary to enter kindergarten between birth and age five, reading aloud is one of the most influential steps librarians, teachers, parents, and caregivers can take to foster preschoolers' literacy skills. Early exposure to books heavily influences vocabulary knowledge, which…

Many U.S. classrooms today have at least some children with limited abilities to understand and express themselves in English. Two critical factors spell success or failure for teachers who have dual language learners (DLLs) in their classrooms: the teacher's understanding of and respect for the initial difficulties in learning a second language…

Throughout the world, young children are introduced to some form of nursery rhymes. In Japan, the first type of rhyme a child encounters is called "warabeuta"--songs created through play. The English translation fails to accurately capture the degree to which "warabeuta" include body movement, touch, and interaction with other…

This paper gives an account of the developments in the intensive psychotherapy of a seven-year-old boy with global development delay. It also describes the adaptations to technique and the changes in the setting that were required to support the work, which was undertaken in a special school. The importance of the regularity of sessions in helping…

Several teachers share their ideas for classroom activities. These include: (1) combining science and art on Earth Day; (2) implementing an inexpensive incentive scheme to get students to bring their signed papers back to school on time; (3) involving students in a virtual zoo; (4) planting real grass in Easter Bunny baskets; and (5) creating own…

"Grandfather Moose" rhymes, written to follow the Mother Goose tradition, are short, appealing, easy-to-memorize sign language nursery rhymes which employ visual poetic devices such as similar signs and transitional flow of movement. (CB)

Offers examples of the kind of story exploration the author carries out with adults or children to discover as much about the story as they can. Notes that nursery rhymes are effective for this exploration. (RS)

The risk and resilience framework (Stanley, 2003) views developmental outcomes as the consequences of young people's responses to the risk and protective factors that are operating in their social settings. Students in the School of Education at The University of Waikato at Tauranga can have the opportunity to apply the framework to models and…

When carrying out investigative work in the primary school, one often considers how familiar the children are with the context. This usually means considering the practical and life experiences the children have already had. However, it is also valuable to consider the children's literary experiences. Think about all the stories, novels, folk…

The author shares activities for use in the primary classroom that require active participation with nursery rhymes through dramatization. The activities involve repeated readings, reading in context, and examining rhyming components, and help to develop young children's phonemic awareness and oral language skills.