In this research article, Haeny Yoon and Tran Nguyen Templeton explore the challenges of listening to children in both classrooms and research that purports to center young children. Through two stories from their respective studies, Yoon and Templeton highlight the complexities of following children's leads given the competing agendas situating…

Children's interests are a common foundation for early childhood curricula. Yet, little research is available about the fundamental nature of children's interests and analytical ways to recognize and engage with these. Early work on children's interests adopted a psychological perspective and associated interests with activity choices. Recent work…

This project/report partnered researchers with teachers from two centres to explore and theorise understandings of children's inquiries and working theories. This project investigated the following questions: (1) What is the nature and content of infants', toddlers' and young children's inquiries and working theories in relation to their everyday…

Three concepts critically important in developing curricula for young children are play, thinking/creativity, and sustained interest. Through play, children explore the world; practice discovered relationships; and establish meanings for concepts, words, ideas, and actions. Teachers should actively focus on the learning potential of play.…

Discusses how to integrate young children's interests into classroom learning activities. Emphasizes the need for early childhood educators to be creative and open-minded when encountering unexpected interests and classroom situations. (KB)

This paper discusses the nature of language knowledge and the manner in which children come to acquire this knowledge. Among the topics discussed are language production and the ability to understand sentences never heard before, sentence formation, children's construction of rules, children's language creativity, language acquisition and age,…

Noting that a creative approach to early childhood education allows teachers to reinforce the foundation of achievement by encouraging and expanding upon children's play activities, this book provides teacher-developed ideas and strategies for creating learning communities in the early childhood classroom. The beginning chapter introduces creative…