Researchers have suggested that a paucity of research exists on refugee youth in early childhood education settings. Arguing that children's stories provide educators a valuable resource for understanding the meaning children make of initial cross-cultural experiences, this article presents a narrative inquiry into the stories and artwork of three…

This study examined children's drawings to explain children's conceptual understanding of plant structure and function. The study explored whether the children's drawings accurately reflect their conceptual understanding about plants in a manner that can be interpreted by others. Drawing, survey, interview, and observational data were collected…

Visual arts, such as drawings, are attractive to most young children. Marks left on paper by young children contain meaning. Although it is known that children's oral language could be enhanced through communication with adults, rarely is there a series of dialogues between adults and young children about their drawings. Often heard instead…

When her director first asked her to teach an art class in the infant room, the author must admit that she thought her director was crazy. She nodded and smiled, pretending confidence, all the while thinking, "Teach art to infants? What does that even mean?" But when a teacher is trying to get a job at one of the best early childhood…

In this article, I present a reexamination of the myth of inherent creativity in early childhood to elucidate how still-dominant discourses of optimization such as child development, individualism, expression, creativity, and visual realism exert limiting pressures on understandings of the art and visual culture that children consume and create.…

Children delight in "giving voice" to their drawings. If provided the opportunity, children can express powerful and imaginative ideas and make meaning through visual and verbal modes. When adults spend time talking with children about their artwork, they see glimpses of imagination at work, as well as effective uses of language. This article will…

In this article, I will examine the use of picture books as a means of supporting the intellectual pursuits of young children. Theoretical frameworks will be discussed as they pertain to the integration of these books in the Municipal Infant Toddler Centers and Preschools of Reggio Emilia and Pistoia, Italy. The pedagogical framework of these…

Countering the position that colorblindness is desirable for teachers and children, this article encourages early childhood education teachers to engage in conversations about race and racism with young children. We discuss why the early childhood years are important for interrupting racism and make suggestions for helping children develop tools…

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…

Navin and Mark are playing at the computer in their preschool classroom. Like the rest of their classmates, these four-year-old children fearlessly experiment with computer as they navigate through the art program they are using. As they draw and paint on the computer screen, Mark and Navin talk about their creation. "Let's try the stamps" insists…

This response to Marni Binder reflects upon two examples of (im)migrant children's artwork and challenges the dominant notion that (im)migration experiences--and their subsequent portrayals--can be fit into neat slots. The authors position multimodal composing opportunities as affording children a vital instrument for deploying their full semiotic…

Children's artwork displays are a distinct and key feature of early childhood classrooms. The artwork produced by young children in the classroom is often linked to the educational program. After the completion of the art projects, early childhood educators face the challenge of displaying the children's artwork. With minimal research available on…

Early literacy instruction is receiving increasing emphasis. Many teachers of young children recognize that skills such as identifying and forming letters and practicing oral language skills are important (Helm & Katz, 2010). At the same time, teachers also report feeling pressure to focus on intensive drill and practice of isolated skills such as…

This study seeks to determine how and to what extent the core principles of the early childhood education programme at Levinsky College of Education in Israel were applied by a third-year student teacher in a traditional fieldwork placement. At the beginning of the school year, the student planned to engage two small groups of children in her…