In an environment that encourages co-construction and participatory practices, and especially in an educational environment saturated with media and images in which children are considered to be valid and competent contributors to knowledge construction, children's visual literacy becomes increasingly important to the development of educational…

In this article, we explore the implementation of a time-based intervention in a garden-based science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics curriculum with a 3rd-grade science class that flipped the overdetermined functions of time and overdependence on predetermined learning outcomes to cultivate a disposition of sensitivity to the…

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."…

Despite a 100-year-old history and the existence of schools in nearly every country in the world, Waldorf education is a little known and poorly understood educational model that was developed in Europe by Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner. For many years it existed in the United States in the form of private schools. Few of their teachers or…

This photo essay focuses upon the literacy practices of two groups of preschoolers as they built, illustrated, and dictated stories in response to their participation in a "Castle Project." Data, including literacy artifacts, photodocumentation, sociodramatic play scenarios, and conversations are qualitatively analyzed, coded, and…

Oliver Herring, the creator of TASK, defines it as: "[a]n improvisational event with a simple structure and very few rules... TASK's open-ended, participatory structure creates almost unlimited opportunities for a group of people to interact with one another and their environment. TASK's flow and momentum depend on the tasks written and…

An important part of the Progressive Education movement, the playground, influenced John Dewey's educational philosophy of learning. "The playground, particularly during the Progressive reform movement of the early 1900s benefited from the widespread belief that play was child's work. Dewey portrayed children as miniature adults who…

This issue explores the nature of childhood by offering selections that re/imagine the idea of the child as art maker; inquire about the relationships between children and adults when they are making art; and investigate how physical space influences approaches to art instruction. Readers are invited to join a dialogue that questions long-standing…

Young Children and the Arts: Nurturing Imagination and Creativity examines the place of the arts in the experiences of young and very young children at home and in out-of-home settings at school and in the community. There is great need for development of resources in the arts specifically designed to introduce babies and toddlers to participatory…

In light of criticisms that many early childhood programs fail to engage children's minds, this study suggests that children need programs in which they can: (1) explore experience in visual ways; (2) experience aspects of different cultures; (3) extend their thinking; and (4) develop their imagination. That art and play can provide suitable…