Early Childhood Curricula

Cesarone, Bernard, Childhood Education

This column summarizes recent ERIC documents and journal articles, and highlights some World Wide Web resources, that describe, evaluate, or compare various curricula or instructional methods, such as Creative Curriculum, High/Scope, the Montessori Method, Waldorf Schools, and Direct Instruction. For details about ERIC and ordering ERIC documents, please see the information following these abstracts.

ERIC Documents

ED464718 DEVELOPING CONSTRUCTIVIST EARLY CHILDHOOD CURRICULUM: Practical Principles and Activities. Early Childhood Education Series. Rheta DeVries, Betty Zan, Carolyn Hildebrandt, Rebecca Edmiaston, & Christina Sales. 2002. 250pp. (Not available from EDRS; write Teachers College Press, P.O. Box 20, Williston, VT05495-0020.) This book provides a constructivist interpretation developmentally appropriate pre-school and kindergarten curriculum, incorporating descriptions how activities evolve over time and how children's reasoning is transformed. Arguing that the criticism by the National Association for the Education of Young Children of inappropriate "work" in early childhood education has had the effect of giving all work a bad name, the authors stress that both play and work can engage children's interest, experimentation, and cooperation, and meet the criteria for constructivist activities. Part 1 focuses on theoretical and practical foundations of constructivist early childhood curriculum, while Parts 2 and 3 offer detailed descriptions of classroom activities and principles of teaching.

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Publication information: Article title: Early Childhood Curricula. Contributors: Cesarone, Bernard - Author. Journal title: Childhood Education. Volume: 80. Issue: 1 Publication date: Fall 2003. Page number: 48+. © 2009 Association for Childhood Education International. COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group.

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