Early Childhood Studies: Enhancing Employability and Professional Practice explores essential aspects of best practice within children's services in order to enhance employability skills, identifying how and why key aspects of best practice have emerged within children's services. The key elements of professional practice at the centre of the multidisciplinary work in today's children's services are considered, including: * different childhoods; * child development; * enhanced learning; * professional skills; * inclusion; * holistic practice. Each chapter draws together practical teaching experience with sound academic analysis to support those training to work in the early childhood sector, and those already practising, to raise their employability potential by identifying and evaluating best practice.

Around the world, school districts and institutions are exploring ways to provide quality education to their students. With this, there is a deeper need for multiculturalism in classrooms, as many students are from varying cultures and speak different languages. Early Childhood Education From an Intercultural and Bilingual Perspective provides emerging research on the use of play, toys, and games as tools for meaningful multicultural and bilingual education. By highlighting topics such as cross-cultural psychology, classroom management, and second language acquisition, this publication explores the importance of culture in games and play. This book is an important resource for educators, academicians, researchers, and students seeking current research on the role of intercultural education in society and modern approaches to early education.

Based on the popular Patterns of Power invitational approach to grammar instruction, Patterns of Wonder sets the stage for introducing PreK-1 emergent writers to the power of language and writing. It's no secret that emergent writers thrive in classrooms filled with inquiry, play, and wonder, but how can we invite our youngest writers into the conventions of language, engage them in authentic writing experiences, and capitalize on their natural curiosity around what writers do? Building on the same playful qualities of the invitational process introduced in their bestselling Patterns of Power series, Whitney La Rocca and Jeff Anderson turn their instructional lens to our youngest writers, sharing new ways we can invite them to experiment, have fun, and take risks with writing and language.In this valuable resource, Whitney and Jeff: Introduce the Patterns of Wonder Phases of Emergent Writing as a way to reflect on the work young writers are doing and plan for effective, scaffolded instruction. Outline an adjusted invitational process, adapted especially for use with emergent writers. Position grammar and concepts about print instruction across three overlapping levels of support: oral language, illustrating, and writing. Include over 50 sample lessons that pinpoint and build cumulatively across the most common needs of emergent writers. Feature over 200 engaging picture book recommendations to stir curious classroom conversations. Grounded in play, conversation, and most of all, wonder, Patterns of Wonder brings Whitney and Jeff's irrepressible excitement for inquiry and writing instruction to the ways we support our Pre-K, Kindergarten and 1st grade emergent writers.

A male educator explores the joys of working with children in this inspirational account.

Manuel Kichi Wong shares his personal journal entries that consider the challenges and obstacles of being a male educator in a field dominated by women. Whether it's cooking, cleaning, changing diapers, dealing with parents, or interacting with children, he does whatever it takes to get the job done.

Find out what it really means to pursue a career as an early-childhood educator. Wong discusses ways to

-apply different methods to help children learn;- work with children in various settings, including at school and at home;-balance the demands of your job and personal life; and-communicate better with parents and fellow teachers.

He also provides candid stories about the questions a man fields when he is an early-childhood teacher. Life in this profession isn't easy, but the joys of giving and of working and being with children make it all worthwhile.

Infants and toddlers-the so?called "touchscreen generation"-are living in a screen mediasaturated world. They are the target market for ever?growing numbers of apps, TV shows, electronic toys, and e?books. Making sense of the complex issues associated with screen media in the lives of children under 3 can be challenging for the adults who care for them. There is a strong need among teachers (and parents) of infants and toddlers for guidance related to the appropriate role of screen media in early care and education. Unlike most other books about technology in early childhood, this book focuses specifically on infants and toddlers. It explores why and how infant and toddler teachers need to be techwise in order to understand the implications of screenmedia for children's learning and development. The book serves as a single, accessible resource to relevant research findings from the fields of pediatric medicine, child development, developmental psychology, social and behavioral sciences, and brain science. It provides infant/toddler teachers with a comprehensive approach and strategies to guide their decisionmaking and promote practices that are evidence?based, family?centered, culturally responsive, and collaborative. It is a call for teachers to think carefully and act wisely when making decisions about screen media-both the technology that they are encountering now and the technology they will encounter in the future-in order to optimize the learning and healthy development of infants and toddlers.

The Standards for Mathematical Practice are written in clear, concise language. Even so, to interpret them and visualize what they mean for your teaching practice isn't always easy. In this practical, easy-to-read book, Mike Flynn provides teachers with a clear and deep sense of these standards and shares ideas on how best to implement them in K-2 classrooms. Each chapter is dedicated to a different practice. Using examples from his own teaching and vignettes from many other K-2 teachers, Mike does the following: Invites you to break the cycle of teaching math procedurally Demonstrates what it means for children to understand-not just do-math Explores what it looks like when young children embrace the important behaviors espoused by the practices The book's extensive collection of stories from K-2 classroom provides readers with glimpses of classroom dialogue, teacher reflections, and examples of student work. Focus questions at the beginning of each vignette help you analyze the examples and encourage further reflection. Beyond Answers is a wonderful resource that can be used by individual teachers, study groups, professional development staff, and in math methods courses.

"As we were getting drinks one day, a little girl said, "Mrs. Noser, when this fountain runs out of water, can you fill it with Kool-Aid?""

It is no secret that a group of five-year-olds have the ability to provide an interesting and entertaining perspective on life. Just ask Carol Porter Noser, a veteran kindergarten teacher who for thirty years listened in on the amusing and endearing comments made by her students.

Noser considers teaching young children to be one of the best jobs in the world. After one of her students asked her one day, "Do you have a job?" and another asked her, "Do you work?" she soon realized that they all instinctively knew she loved to teach. From early on, Noser jotted down the silly, sad, and funny comments her students made, eventually compiling a collection after she retired. As she shares one witty anecdote after another, she provides a glimpse into the very active and imaginative minds of five-year-olds who never let anyone forget how smart they really are about what is important in life.

From rather open discussions about their family, to the misuse of words, to questions about God, the children profiled in Kindergarten Conversations share their innocent and honest views of the world.

Child's Play: Introducing Music and Literacy through Picture Books provides students with a wide variety of picture book suggestions to enrich childhood education programs and curriculum. The literacy components within each picture book support children's development of speaking, reading or viewing, listening, writing, and movement. Music components build children's recognition and understanding of dynamics, form, melody, rhythm, style, texture, and timbre or tone color. The picture book suggestions reflect diverse authors, illustrators, story characters, and contexts, and are organized into five distinct themes: animals, people, movement, objects, and mindfulness. Each chapter is further divided into five separate ages and developmental stages, offering recommendations for infants, toddlers, pre-schoolers/pre-kindergarteners, kindergarteners, and early elementary school students. Readers are provided with learning objectives and activity suggestions for each picture book, encouraging future and practicing educators and providers to engage their students and help develop their literacy and music skills. Featuring kid-tested, teacher-approved picture book references, Child's Play is an ideal supplementary resource for courses and programs in childhood education and development.