Celebrate the essence of one way we are all special and different from one another--our skin color This bilingual (English/Spanish) book offers children a simple, scientifically accurate explanation about how our skin color is determined by our ancestors, the sun, and melanin. It's also filled with colorful photographs that capture the beautiful variety of skin tones. Reading this book frees children from the myths and stereotypes associated with skin color and helps them build positive identities as they accept, understand, and value our rich and diverse world. Unique activity ideas are included to help you extend the conversation with children.

Katie Kissinger, MA, is an author, activist, educator for social justice, and an early childhood education college instructor. She is founder and a board member of Threads of Justice Collective, an informal group of educators who work together to promote social and cultural justice for all children and families. Katie lives near Portland, Oregon.

Chris Bohnhoff earned a degree in English from Carleton College and then attended the Rocky Mountain School of Photography. Chris takes pictures in his hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and beyond.

Use loose parts to spark children's creativity and innovation

Loose parts are natural or synthetic found, bought, or upcycled materials that children can move, manipulate, control, and change within their play. Alluring and captivating, they capture children's curiosity, give free reign to their imagination, and motivate learning.

The hundreds of inspiring photographs showcase an array of loose parts in real early childhood settings. And the overviews of concepts children can learn when using loose parts provide the foundation for incorporating loose parts into your teaching to enhance play and empower children. The possibilities are truly endless.

In this book, early childcare professionals will gain an understanding of the theories of attachment as well as the background and research of the prominent minds behind them. This book explains the core elements of each theorist's work and the ways these elements impact and support interactions with babies, including the topics of bonding, feeding practices, separation anxiety, and stranger anxiety.

Carol Garhart Mooney, also the author of the best-selling Theories of Childhood, has worked as a preschool teacher and college instructor of early childhood education for over thirty years.

As the field of early learning continues to grow and evolve, we must consider the impact of our approaches to working with adults and children. Early childhood professionals and leaders need to reconcile their responsibilities in never-ending administrative tasks, ensuring program quality, and supporting the growth of others. Creating a Culture of Reflective Practice: The Role of Pedagogical Leadership in Early Child Programs is a comprehensive practical look at creating systems, structures, and protocols for supporting people in large and small organizations, individuals working as mentors, coaches or pedagogical leaders to invite educators into a thinking and learning process about their work.

Readers will develop the skills and mindsets that can enhance their performance and effect organizational change. Creating a Culture of Reflective Practice offers stories and structures connected to four principles of pedagogical leadership with specific ideas to enhance the work of educational leaders.

With new chapters and updates from early childhood leaders Deb Curtis and Margie Carter invite early childhood educators to learn the art and skill of observation.

The art of observing children is more than merely the act of watching them--it is also using what you see and hear to craft new opportunities in your classroom. This resource provides a wealth of inspiration and practice. It will help early childhood educators learn to observe in new ways, witness children's remarkable competencies as they experience childhood, and find new joy in their work with children.

The third edition updates include

Working in the Reggio Way helps teachers of young children bring the innovative practices of the schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy, to American classrooms. Written by an educator who observed and worked in the world-famous schools, this groundbreaking resource presents the key tools that will allow American teachers to transform their classrooms, including these:

Organization of time and space
Documentation of children's work
Observation and questioning
Attention to children's environments

This workbook also contains interactive activities for individual or group reflection.

Julianne Wurm works as an instructional reform facilitator in the San Francisco Unified School District. She lives in San Francisco, California.

This best-selling resource provides clear, straightforward introductions to the foundational theories of John Dewey, Maria Montessori, Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget, and Lev Vygotsky. Each chapter highlights a theorist's work and includes insight on how the theory impacts teaching young children today. Discussion questions and suggested readings are included to help you gain an understanding of what it means to apply each theory to your work with children.

Theories of Childhood, Second Edition:

Builds the bridge between theory and best practices in early childhood education
Supports your genuine enjoyment with children by helping you understand more about the ways they grow and learn
Includes new understandings of Vygotsky's work
Applies the five theories to the realities of the twenty-first century

Carol Garhart Mooney has been an early childhood educator for more than forty years. She is also the author of Theories of Attachment, Use Your Words, and Swinging Pendulums.

You likely have dreams for your early childhood environment that are greater than rating scales, regulations, and room arrangements. Designs for Living and Learning has been a favorite resource among educators and caregivers for more than a decade, and this new edition is packed with even more ideas that can be used as you create captivating environments that nurture children, families, and staff while supporting children's learning. With hundreds of all-new colorful photographs of real early learning settings and a multitude of simple and practical concepts for creative indoor and outdoor spaces and learning materials, this book truly is a source of inspiration as you learn how to shape welcoming spaces where children can learn and grow.

Expanded chapters include new information reflecting current trends and concerns in early childhood, such as the use of repurposed and nontraditional materials, children in the outdoors, alternative ways to think about providing for learning outcomes, facing and overcoming barriers and negotiating change, and the impact of environmental rating scales in Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS). Two new chapters are included, one highlighting the transformations of environments with before and after photos and outlines of the process, and the other with examples of soliciting children's ideas about the environment.

Deb Curtis and Margie Carter are internationally acclaimed experts in early childhood. They host three-day institutes and professional development seminars for early childhood professionals; consult with early childhood programs across North America, Australia, and New Zealand; and have written many books together.

Give children the social and emotional tools they need to grow and thrive on their own

All children--not just those with challenging behaviors--require guidance as they develop the social and emotional skills they will use the rest of their lives. This resource provides everything you need to help children build and use six essential life skills: attachment, belonging, self-regulation, collaboration, contribution, and adaptability. Developed and tested in the classroom, this strength-based approach includes strategies, examples of supportive interactions, and special activities to help you manage challenging behaviors and strengthen social and emotional development in all children. Reflecting significant changes in early childhood education, this second edition of Beyond Behavior Management aligns each life skill with early learning standards and addresses cultural awareness and its impact on child development. With these essential life skills, children will exhibit more prosocial behaviors, work better as a classroom community, and become excited and active learners.

Jenna Bilmes is an early childhood consultant and an instructional designer for WestEd Child and Family Services. She is a frequent presenter to teachers, administrators, and counselors nationally and internationally.

Loose parts capture children's curiosity, give free reign to their imagination, and encourage creativity. This form of play allows infants to be in control and recognize the power of their bodies and actions. A variety of new and innovative loose parts ideas are paired with beautiful photography to inspire safe loose parts play in your infant and toddler environments. Captivating classroom stories and proven science provide the context for how this style of play supports children's development and learning. This book is perfect for Montessori and Reggio-inspired programs and educators.

Children's Lively Minds is filled with stories about real children exploring schema, followed by reflection and questions about what children might be learning. Schema theory is happening in your work with young children whether you know it or not. Understanding it and putting intention behind it, can help families and teachers ease frustration with young children's repetitive behavior and allow adults to better support brain development.

Caring for Self: A Workbook for Early Childhood Educator Wellbeing supports early childhood educators in addressing the intricacies of their health--emotional, physical, cognitive, and social--in the increasingly complex and changing landscape of early childhood education. Go beyond the shallow aspects of self care like manicures and vacations and focus on the more fundamental, emotional parts of well-being. Increase your professional and personal wellbeing by strengthening your foundation of professional skills, reflective practice, and emotional support.

Every day, early childhood caregivers leave the field after experiencing workplace stress and burnout. Without adequate support and training, caregivers lack the ability to engage in the emotional work of caring for young children and their families. This workbook offers a three-pronged approach to mitigating compassion fatigue: building healthy relationships, establishing boundaries, and having a sense of agency. It teaches skills to help midgait burnout and compassion fatigue by building self-care and resiliency practices and helps caregivers identify their emotions around challenges, recognize barriers and bridges to meeting their professional goals, and implement tools for self-care and mentoring to increase their effectiveness while decreasing workplace stress.

Through abundant reflective questions and activities, this workbook helps the profession reflect on the meaning of well-being, identify emotions in the work, and engage in professional skills of self-stewardship to foster well-being. It walks through steps of reflection, identifying and accessing emotional support, and professional skill development in pursuit of well-being. It culminates in a six-step problem-solving pathway for identifying and resolving problems that arise in professional practice and the emotions that accompany them.

Stimulate and engage children's thinking as you integrate STEM experiences throughout your early childhood program. These engaging, developmentally appropriate activities maximize children's learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Each experience combines at least two STEM disciplines and incorporates materials and situations that are interesting and meaningful to children while ensuring educators understand the science concepts underpinning the activity.

As researchers and educators increasingly recognize how critical early childhood mathematics and science learning is in laying the foundation for children's later STEM education, this second edition of Teaching STEM in the Early Years is a much-needed resource for every early childhood classroom. It will encourage you to think differently about STEM education, and you will see how easy it is to accommodate curriculum goals and learning standards in math and science activities. This edition provides updated research and references and adds

• Ideas for incorporating literacy with STEM activities, including children's book recommendations
  
• STREAM It segments that incorporate reading and art into STEM with art and music extension to activities
  
• Suggestions for varying the difficulty of activities for a variety of learners
  

Understand the important milestones of development in children in five developmental domains: physical and motor, social and emotional, communication and language, cognitive, and approaches to learning. Learn strategies to observe and document children's progress and develop partnerships and establish communication with families. Updated for alignment with state standards.

Offering an alternative approach to standardization and data-driven mandates, this book puts children at the center of planning your curriculum. Rather than a prescriptive curriculum, by using The Thinking Lens(R) protocol, teachers can translate educational theories into concrete ideas for working with children and families. Learn to create a welcoming classroom culture, develop routines for self-regulation, and use Learning Stories to enhance experiences for the children in your care.

This book has been updated to examine how to work with mandated curriculum, rating scales, and assessment tools, while practicing reflective teaching.

Margie Carter holds a MA from Pacific Oaks College and has worked as a preschool, kindergarten, and primary school teacher, curriculum developer, High/Scope trainer, child care director, and college instructor.

Deb Curtis holds a MA in human development from Pacific Oaks College and has worked as an infant/toddler caregiver, preschool and school age child care teacher, CDA trainer, Head Start education coordinator, college instructor, and assistant director of a child care program.

Carter and Curtis have published six books together, including Designs for Living and Learning and The Art of Awareness.

Over 400 full-color photographs beautifully illustrate the ongoing need for educational pedagogy that

Loose Parts 3 contains inspiration and guidance on how to create culturally sensitive and culturally sustainable early childhood environments through six key terms: aesthetic, authenticity, equity, dynamic, praxis, and critical reflection. Use your environment to promote a sense of wonder, curiosity and joy, and allow children to explore their identities.

Intentional teaching begins with focused observations and systematic documentation of children's learning and development. This book explains why observation is one of the best methods to get to know each child well, track progress, and plan individualized curriculum. It also provides tools and techniques to help you strengthen your observations, create portfolios with rich documentation, and support each child. You will also learn how to share your findings with families and grow as an observer through review and reflection activities.

Learn answers to common questions about observation, including
Why should I use observation in my classroom?
What does effective observation and documentation look like?
How do I fit observation in so that it doesn't take away from teaching and interacting with children?
How do observation and documentation work with early learning guidelines?

An interactive CD-ROM with nineteen vignettes of children in action provide opportunities to practice observing children and capturing what you see.

Gaye Gronlund is an early childhood consultant who trains educators, administrators, and policy makers across the country. She is a well-known keynote speaker and staff development presenter and the author of six Redleaf Press books. Gaye holds a master's degree in adult learning and early childhood education.

Marlyn James is the early childhood program director and the education department chair at Flathead Valley Community College in Kalispell, Montana. She presents at local, state, and national conferences and coauthored Early Learning Standards and Staff Development with Gaye Gronlund. Marlyn holds a master's degree in human development.

In the newest installment of the wildly popular, award-winning Loose Parts series, Lisa Daly and Miriam Beloglovsky focus on including families and competency building. With inspiring full-color photographs Loose Parts 4 is organized around competencies and life skills children need for success in the future: knowingness, engagement, risk, connections, leadership, innovative thinking, and creativity.

Lisa and Miriam explain the value of loose parts, detail how to integrate loose parts into the environment and children's play, and specifically focus on loose parts for children in family environments--helping educators engage families and extend learning beyond the classroom.

Schemas take the place of noun-based topics in project work, increasing children's creativity and complex thought. Schemas give educators insight into children as they work out problems and increase their understandings through play. The authors ask: How might we build a curriculum using play schemas? How might we interweave our children's play with play schemas and create projects? Featuring gorgeous and abundant photos, Actions of Play shares the stories of their programs and their documentation and action research as play schemas became the bedrock of their curricula.