Many teachers want to provide meaningful science activities and instruction in their classroom that benefit all young children. This is consistent with the increasing focus on enhancing science experiences and instruction in preschool classrooms. Recommendations for how to engage in early childhood science activities are available, as are science…

A growing body of research incorporates children's perspectives into the research process. If we are to take children's perspectives seriously in education research, research methodologies must be capable of addressing issues that matter to children. This article engages in a theoretical discussion that considers how a posthuman research…

This article examines what key aspects primary teachers highlight when they describe their use of out of school learning in the science subjects. The empirical study is made in the form of a semi-structured interview with primary teachers (N=15). Compared to earlier research in the area the results highlight the importance of clear learning aims…

This study deals with detecting the difficulties that prospective teachers encounter in recognising and analysing children's ideas in the domains of social studies and science. It qualitatively analyses the reports written by 94 third-year Early Childhood Education degree students, while they were taking courses on "Teaching the natural…

This article describes how a farm-based class in the Great Lakes region investigated how plants and animals prepare for winter. Two groups of children, ranging in ages from three to five years old, had a farm, pasture, gardens, forest, and a pond available for exploration. A low teacher-to-child ratio was maintained, with one teacher to…

Kids on Earth is a free online collection of interviews with children and teenagers, 8 years old to 15 years old, living around the world and sharing details about their lives, hopes, dreams, and interests. It is a unique tool for learning about the world and the young people who live in it.

The article examines the relationship between the development of the subculture of childhood and the evolution of out-of-school education. It identifies the historical stages of the influence of the subculture of childhood on the nature of extracurricular learning and development. We analyze the concepts of the "subculture of childhood"…

Play-based learning is of growing interest in many English-medium primary schools throughout Aotearoa New Zealand. I share my insights from researching play as learning, and supporting teachers with curriculum design and pedagogy in play-based contexts. Although play is a slippery concept and its value often underestimated, the evidence of the…

Parents of children with Autism spectrum disorders often report elevated levels of stress, depression and anxiety compared to parents of children with other developmental disorders. The present study investigated experiences of mothers of children with autistic disorder, both boys and girls. The results show that mothers report problems related to…

Objective: Grounded in Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler's theoretical model of parents' motivations for involvement in their children's education, the aim of this study was to examine the associations between Latino parents' perceptions of involvement and the home literacy environment, as well as children's oral reading fluency (ORF). We further…

In this paper, I study the narrative structure of comics as a means to describe the ways that indeterminate modes of representation can allow the reader to imagine that which in childhood can never be fully expressed. Analyzing a number of panels from Gilbert Hernandez's graphic novel, "Marble Season," I describe a conceptual link…

This study investigates children's multimodal perspectives on their school experiences in two diverse, international contexts. The research shares data from 45 Canadian and Tanzanian children, and focused on the children's use of multimodal methods to share what mattered to them at school. The children's significant interest in their outdoor…

A large body of work in educational economics displays the tenuous relationship between school inputs and cognitive achievement. Among others, the inability to establish a strong link has been attributed to the difficulty of controlling for attributes such as ability, motivation, and interest. Against this background, and inspired by work in…

This article describes how American and Japanese kindergartners see play and what teachers can learn from them. The authors share their findings from analyzing photos and interviews from 44 American children in the southeastern United States and 55 Japanese children in the main island of Japan, all aged five to six years. In the study, children…

Farm- and nature-based early childhood education programs have a unique potential to provide young children with skills and experiences that build a strong foundation for future learning and environmental stewardship, but can also to extend positive impacts to families. In this paper, we work to bridge the gap between research and practice by…