As elementary schools expand to include Prekindergarten (PreK), many elementary school physical education teachers are surprised to find PreK classes on their teaching schedule. Equally, many PreK classroom teachers are recognizing the need for quality movement opportunities for their students and are searching for resources that can help all…

Children's food preferences are strongly associated with their consumption patterns. Children tend to choose foods with which they are familiar. It is proposed that the earlier and broader the experience with food, the healthier the child's or adult´s diet. In a focus group we developed a toolkit consisting of a training course for kindergarten…

As the first level of schooling, preschools are part of the educational system in Iceland. All preschools operate according to Preschool Act. No. 90/2008 and the National Curriculum Guidelines, where the emphasis is on children's learning through play and high-quality practice. The aim of this study was to shed light on how the first wave of…

The importance of a Piagetian approach is recognized in South African early childhood educational practices and teacher training, but the reality of the implementation of teaching and learning in the domain of early years opposes his philosophy in many ways. Our Early Childhood Education policies strongly advocate a Piagetian approach such as the…

The study aimed at assessing Problems of Social Skills in Early Childhood Education Program in Ethiopia. Descriptive survey research design was employed through using stratified random sampling procedure to collect the survey data from 280 teachers recruited from early childhood education programs across three cities: Dire Dewa (130 teachers; 10…

Young American children in today's public schools live in a world in which tensions around about identity (i.e., ethnicity and race, gender continuums, language backgrounds and proficiencies, cultural values and beliefs, economic resources, schooled experiences, literacy, and im/migration history) are part of everyday conversation. However, many…

Based on many years' work designing introductory, immersive, aesthetic experiences that lead to problem-based learning (PBL) tasks for student teachers (called "INTRO"), we problematize the concept of creativity and playfulness in Early Childhood Teacher Education (ECTE). The article reports on our analysis of students' experiences of…

Synthesizing research with practice in a meaningful manner continues to be a challenge, particularly in relation to securing the place of play in the school setting. The struggle for early childhood teacher educators in dealing with the realities of this research-to-practice dilemma requires constructive action. A theoretical framework that is…

The purpose of this study was to identify the different incidents of critical thinking in five preschool classrooms in one school, and the instructional strategies preschool teachers employed in the development of children's critical thinking. The participants in this study were five self-contained preschool teachers and their corresponding…

Low-income preschool children face risks to their social-emotional development that can affect them later on. Although there are promising approaches to promoting preschoolers' social-emotional skills, the evidence base is limited, particularly on their effectiveness when implemented at scale. The Head Start CARES demonstration evaluated the…

For centuries, educators and psychologists have advocated "play" as the ideal activity for the development of young children. Actually, play has been found currently to be the central pedagogy in the learning of young children in 21 countries in the world. However, the quality of play-based pedagogy is becoming a key concern across…

The purpose of this study was to determine if levels of teacher education and experience would influence how teachers respond to children's play needs in a preschool classroom. The interactions of eight teachers--three of whom were categorized as high education/high experience, three as low education/high experience, and two as low education/low…

This study compares the attitudes of preschool teachers and students between the Netherlands and Germany towards typical play activities in preschool. The data were responses to short video clips of preschool children's play and elicited the respondents' attitudes through questionnaires. The data were analysed by classifying the written responses…

Kindergarten has changed radically in the last two decades in ways that few Americans are aware of. Children now spend far more time being taught and tested on literacy and math skills than they do learning through play and exploration, exercising their bodies, and using their imaginations. The implications of these radical changes in early…

Kindergarten has changed significantly in the last two decades: children now spend more time being taught and tested on literacy and math skills than they do learning through play and exploration, exercising their bodies, and using their imaginations. Many kindergartens use highly prescriptive curricula geared to new state standards and linked to…