If you have a degree in early childhood education, you’ve probably spent hours and hours studying theories galore of child development. Piaget, Freud, Erikson, Dewey, Gesell, Montessori, Vygotsky and on and on and on. And hey, I love those guys (well… some more than others). They each have something to teach us about how young children […]
Tag Archives: early childhood education
I’ve talked about ways in which we as teachers can support children’s creative thinking, but it’s also important to help our students learn to support each other’s creativity. Children learn by watching us, of course – and they watch how we listen and show interest when new ideas are shared. But there are more ways […]
Five-year-old Hannah was looking closely at a daisy growing on the edge of the playground. When I walked over to her, she remarked, “Flower petals are like fingers.” “Well, not really,” I pointed out. “Fingers can pull and hold things, and petals can’t.” The conversation stopped there, and I wondered later – had Hannah’s thinking […]
When Yoda Taught Pre-K By Abby Connors (in Teachers Net Gazette) Recently, a team of archaeologists in the Dagobah system discovered an ancient parchment. Estimated to date from at least four million years B.C., or as researchers stated, “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away,” it is written in a language resembling a clumsy […]
“We do a lot of improv here.” – Buttercup the Hedgehog in “Toy Story 3” This is my favorite scene in the wonderful movie “Toy Story 3.” Woody the cowboy has just arrived at the home of […]
Creative thinkers are filled with curiosity. They want to know how things work – and how to make them work better. They want to know why things break and fall apart and run down – and how to fix them. They want to know about light, color, line, tone, and rhythm – and how to […]
11 Strategies to Support Children’s Creative Thinking We often think of creativity as being kind of magical – a touch of inspiration, the voice of an inner muse – something you either have or you don’t. Creativity isn’t something that can be taught. Or can it? Of course it can! Creativity is a process of generating […]
“The way to have good ideas is to have lots of ideas, and throw away the bad ones.” Linus Pauling Linus Pauling, one of the only two people in history to win two Nobel Prizes (the […]
Music (and Science) For Young Children 