Engagement and integration increase when children have an opportunity to investigate something of great interest to them and have a say in what they learn about the topic. Helm explains how to use webs to introduce required concepts and skills and integrate standards in the project approach. She walks readers through five steps to making an…

Emotions have an impact on teacher effectiveness, behavior, cognition, and motivation, as well as on children's behavior. The authors discuss emotional intelligence and offer a teacher self-assessment tool to help teachers reflect on and improve their sensitivity. They include suggestions for making the classroom an emotionally intelligent…

Working with the South Carolina Department of Education, the authors surveyed prekindergarten and kindergarten teachers whose schools participated in a quality rating system to see what they did to get ready for the observation and what they thought of the evaluation process. The authors also asked them what they thought about the quality of their…

The field of early childhood education is growing tremendously, with states designing and implementing prekindergarten programs and universal preschool throughout the country. This is good news for families of young children as well as for the field. With the resulting increased demand for teachers, however, come serious implications for teacher…

Gossiping staff in early childhood programs models destructive behavior and harms families' trust in the professionalism of the program. Bruno identifies some of the causes and motives for gossip and examines its occurrence in early care and education settings. She offers step-by-step strategies to help supervisors set and enact policies that…

Guiding children in finding social acceptance is on of the most important parts of the early childhood teacher's job. Opening the column with an anecdote from a pre-K teacher, Gartrell discusses what teachers can do when children cause conflicts on purpose and how teachers might prevent such conflicts.

This article focuses on a small experiment initiated by two three-year-old preschool children without the instruction or supervision of a teacher, while playing in the yard. During their playtime, they began to color the blacktop with chalk. They thought of a brilliant idea of pouring water over the chalk drawings and after the water dries up,…

Teaching Preschoolers about the environment is hard. Many complex concepts are involved: the interactions among everything on the planet--air, land, water, and all living things; the systems that determine weather and climate, food supply, energy resources, and the quality of life for every plant and animal; systems operating on a planetary scale…

Inadequacies in preschool accommodations need not hamper true educational goals. A resourceful teacher can offset some of the disadvantages found in double session preschools by exercising her ingenuity and imagination. (Author/WY)

Examines ways in which early childhood teachers and directors waste time during the course of the working day and provides suggestions as to how time wasting can be avoided. (Author/PW)

In this article, the author reviews the research on young children's emerging writing and presents a comprehensive synthesis of this research on emergent writing. She discusses children's early writing knowledge; writing skills development; the social process of learning to write; teacher support; and a supportive environment. She also lists six…

Points out the benefits for teachers and their supervisors of using the enabler model of supervision in conjunction with the Child Development Associate credentialing process. Provides guidelines for implementing the model. (RH)

Reprints speech originally given in 1947 to the National Association for Nursery Education (now NAEYC) to reflect on the organization's first 25 years. Speech examines accomplishments of the field, identifies challenges for the future, and recommends steps for the organization and the profession. (KB)

Divorce is viewed as a national tragedy, particularly for its impact on young children, who lacked any control over the situation yet were most susceptible to its emotional pain and uncertainty. Children lost the security of a home, predictable routines, and loving family members. Innocent lives were transformed forever, often for the worse.…

Early childhood educators are going to class online in ever increasing numbers, yet many questions remain about appropriate uses of technology, learning effectiveness, learner support, and faculty development in this emerging environment for teacher education and professional development. This article explores teaching and learning online through…