Personal and social development is an important area which influences children's learning journey in all levels of education. Examining the impact of the arts on children's development, there are several studies that adopt this focus. However, the majority of them focus on either primary or secondary education or on specific personal and social…

The present study reports findings on pre-service teachers' thinking during planning and implementing play-based art activities. "Thinking" (in the present study) is informed by discourses emphasising art teaching and learning in relation to play and theoretical assumptions conceptualising planning as "practice of knowing."…

This research examines a multi-year investigation of preschoolers' experiences participating in a media-driven exploration of informal play experiences as a means to engage children as artists, researchers, and documenters of their own worlds. In this writing, I will explore the ethical issues that arise for adult researchers engaged in…

A day-care centre is a place where a child spends most of his/her week nowadays. A day-care centre as an institution of early childhood education has often been studied from the early childhood educators' point of view or within a wider societal context. The children's voices have not been heard much. The purpose of this article is to describe, on…

This study was designed to identify the roles that drawing played in the process of children's acquisition of science concepts. Seventy pre-service teachers through four semesters from a Midwest University in the USA developed lesson plans on science concepts and then taught them to 70 young children ages 4-7, respectively. This experience was…

This article reflects on the significance of a series of encounters with a baby doll in an early years' classroom during an artist residency. The article takes an event when a small group of children encounter a baby doll as its starting point. By connecting this shared lived moment with Deleuze and Guattari's idea of machinic production and…

The "Handbook of Research Methods in Early Childhood Education" brings together in one source research techniques that researchers can use to collect data for studies that contribute to the knowledge in early childhood education. To conduct valid and reliable studies, researchers need to be knowledgeable about numerous research…

The purpose of the study was to examine whether teacher beliefs would play a role in their actual practices while teaching target language in early phases of primary education, principally, in kindergarten and first grades in a state school. As it is a very broad research area, the researchers exclusively analyzed teaching practices and teaching…

Describes constructive play and its importance to child development. Outlines the developmental changes in constructive play in young children, and identifies the benefits of this type of play for young children. Discusses the learning experiences of constructive play with art materials in early childhood settings, and describes strategies for…

Explores the extent to which social cognitive aspects of preschool children's free play behaviors varied according to two classroom contextual variables: (1) presence in different learning centers and (2) number of children and adults in those centers. Results incdicated that children behaved differently according to these variables. (Author/AS)

Argues that children need play time to explore the world because it is valuable, irreplaceable, spontaneous, and provides situations where children can learn with all their senses. Examines play in terms of its role in exploration, imagination, creative activity, work, learning, knowledge expansion, art, and the culture of children. (Author/SD)

Continuing pressures on all of education to fully prepare children for the role of citizen intensifies the need for early childhood educators to respond to the questions of what is taught and what content young children are learning. Designed as a resource for early childhood educators, this book offers an overview of various theories, research…