Combines research and practice on integrated developmentally appropriate curriculum that helps theorists, researchers, parents, and teachers understand how to match early childhood teaching practices to the integrated manner that young children naturally think and learn.

If you've ever thought that standards-based teaching and required content prevent you from integrating subject areas, then here's a book that will change the way you think and alert you to exciting new possibilities in your approach to teaching. Learn how to identify the connections in your standards that provide the basis for interdisciplinary units. Explore all types of integrated curriculum and how they bridge content standards to authentic, relevant learning experiences. And understand how to create interdisciplinary units that provide data-based evidence of student learning. A planning template and detailed examples of successful integrated curriculums are included to help you implement integrated curriculum in practice. Discover how you can make learning more exciting for students--and rewarding for you.

Translate the new standards into meaningful curriculum! This updated edition of Susan Drake’s classic text serves as a road map through the Common Core State Standards, giving you the flexibility to design an integrated curriculum that’s right for your students. Focusing on multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches, Drake provides guidance on: Unpacking the Common Core State Standards Planning assessment tasks Designing instructional strategies Developing daily activities Helping students connect essential questions to enduring understandings Included are new examples of exemplary programs, discussion questions, a sample completed interdisciplinary curriculum, and activities for building your own standards-based integrated curriculum.

A complete planning model with goals, themes and activities for theme-based teaching.

It is increasingly recognised that the medical education curriculum should re-integrate basic sciences and clinical disciplines. This would enhance students' ability to integrate previous and future learning, link theory and professional standards to practice, and adapt to change.

Play provides young children with the opportunity to express their ideas, symbolize, and test their knowledge of the world. It provides the basis for inquiry in literacy, science, social studies, mathematics, art, music, and movement. Through play, young children become active learners engaged in explorations about themselves, their community, and their personal-social world. An Integrated Play-Based Curriculum for Young Children offers the theoretical framework for understanding the origins of an early childhood play-based curriculum and how young children learn and understand concepts in a social and physical environment. Distinguished author Olivia N. Saracho then explores how play fits into various curriculum areas in order to help teachers develop their early childhood curriculum using developmentally and culturally appropriate practice. Through this integrated approach, young children are able to actively engage in meaningful and functional experiences in their natural context. Special Features Include: Vignettes of children’s conversations and actions in the classroom Suggestions for activities and classroom materials Practical examples and guidelines End-of-chapter summaries to enhance and extend the reader’s understanding of young children By presenting appropriate theoretical practices for designing and implementing a play-based curriculum, An Integrated Play-Based Curriculum for Young Children offers pre-service teachers the foundational knowledge about the field, about the work that practitioners do with young children, and how to best assume a teacher’s role effectively.

The curriculum of elementary schools is a very important factor in the education of children. Students need to understand and express themselves in a language which can be the Mother Tongue only at the elementary level. Curriculum development is an important part of the education process, ensuring that classes at all levels, from early childhood to post-secondary, are best designed to help students be successful in learning the material and gaining the skills needed to continue to advance. Evaluation essentially is the provision of information for the sake of facilitating decision making at various stages of curriculum development. This information may pertain to the program as a complete entity or only to some of its components. Evaluation also implies the selection of criteria, collection and analysis of data. It includes obtaining information for use in judging the worth of a programme and procedure. It is a comprehensive term and transcends standardized tests covering all means of ascertaining the results of construction. A curriculum framework is an organized plan or set of standards or learning outcomes that defines the content to be learned in terms of clear, definable standards of what the student should know and be able to do. The supporters of learner-centered Curriculum give importance to individual development and they wants to organize the curriculum according to the needs and interest of learners, there are fundamental differences in this approach and the subject-centered design. The curriculum framers for elementary schools should also associate the parents and specialists while developing the curriculum for elementary education.

Creating Curriculum in Early Childhood explores the backward design model of curriculum development, equipping readers with the tools and methods they need to effectively apply backward design in the early childhood classroom. Clear yet comprehensive chapters walk new and veteran educators through an effective method for curriculum design that promotes meeting standards through intentional teaching while engaging children in developmentally appropriate, interest-based education focused on big ideas and conceptual understanding. Featuring desired results, assessment methods, and teaching techniques specific to birth to age eight, this critical guide also includes practical tips for educators new to the method. Designed to help students and practitioners alike, this powerful textbook combines early childhood philosophy and developmental research with highly practical descriptions, rationales, and examples for developing curricular units using backward design.

The general public often views early childhood education as either simply “babysitting” or as preparation for later learning. Of course, both viewpoints are simplistic. Deep understanding of child development, best educational practices based on development, emergent curriculum, cultural competence and applications of family systems are necessary for high-quality early education. Highly effective early childhood education is rare in that it requires collaboration and transitions among a variety of systems for children from birth through eight years of age. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Contemporary Early Childhood Education presents in three comprehensive volumes advanced research, accurate practical applications of research, historical foundations and key facts from the field of contemporary early childhood education. Through approximately 425 entries, this work includes all areas of child development – physical, cognitive, language, social, emotional, aesthetic – as well as comprehensive review of best educational practices with young children, effective preparation for early childhood professionals and policy making practices, and addresses such questions as: · How is the field of early childhood education defined? · What are the roots of this field of study? · How is the history of early childhood education similar to yet different from the study of public education? · What are the major influences on understandings of best practices in early childhood education?