Understand the value of connecting animals and children From family pets and wild animals to toys, stuffed animals, and media images, animals are a central part of every child’s landscape. This book examines the reasons why children should interact and connect with real animals, and it identifies the rich learning that results. You’ll find heaps of foundational support and practical ideas to create authentic experiences that bring children and all kinds of species of animals together—including many adaptations if live animals are not permitted in your setting. Connecting Animals and Children in Early Childhood Examines the basic qualities that make animals so appealing to children Explains how animals impact children’s cognitive, social-emotional, and inter- and intrapersonal development and growth Includes an overview of the many ways animals are present in children’s lives Introduces authentic experiences with animals that are supportive of children’s understanding and learning, and respectful to both animals and people Provides real-life examples of how to bring animals into your classroom with suggestions for planning, ideas for finding the right pet, and resources for making experiences meaningful, relevant, and joyful for children Patty Born Selly is executive director of the National Center for STEM Elementary Education at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota. As the founder of Small Wonders, an educational consulting company offering services to schools, faith-based communities, and other organizations, Patty has developed hundreds of classes to help programs incorporate nature, science, and green education.

Read and find out about how animals cope with winter in this colorfully illustrated nonfiction picture book. This is a clear and appealing book for early elementary age kids, both at home and in the classroom. Introduce kids to basic science ideas as part of discussions about the seasons and animals. Have you ever seen a butterfly in the snow? Probably not. Butterflies can't survive cold weather, so when winter comes, many butterflies fly to warmer places. They migrate. Woodchucks don't like cold weather either, but they don't migrate; they hibernate. Woodchucks sleep in their dens all winter long. How do these and other animals handle the cold and snow of winter? Read and find out in the proven winner Animals in Winter! This is a Level 1 Let's-Read-and-Find-Out, which means the book explores introductory concepts perfect for children in the primary grades. The 100+ titles in this leading nonfiction series are: hands-on and visual acclaimed and trusted great for classrooms Top 10 reasons to love LRFOs: Entertain and educate at the same time Have appealing, child-centered topics Developmentally appropriate for emerging readers Focused; answering questions instead of using survey approach Employ engaging picture book quality illustrations Use simple charts and graphics to improve visual literacy skills Feature hands-on activities to engage young scientists Meet national science education standards Written/illustrated by award-winning authors/illustrators & vetted by an expert in the field Over 130 titles in print, meeting a wide range of kids' scientific interests Books in this series support the Common Core Learning Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) standards. Let's-Read-and-Find-Out is the winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Science Books & Films Prize for Outstanding Science Series.

"At the pet show, there are so many different types of pets. With dogs and cats, horses and chickens, hamsters and chinchillas--and many, many more--this book celebrates animal companions of all shapes and sizes"--

Animal abuse has been an acknowledged problem for centuries, but only within the past few decades has scientific research provided evidence that the maltreatment of animals often overlaps with violence toward people. The variants of violence, including bullying or assaults in a schoolyard, child abuse in homes, violence between adult intimate partners, community hostility in our streets and neighborhoods, and even the context of war, are now the subject of concerted research efforts. Very often, the association of these forms of violence with cruelty to animals has been found. The perpetrators of such inhumane treatment are often children and adolescents. How common are these incidents? What motivates human maltreatment of animals? Are there cultural, societal, neighborhood, and family contexts that contribute to cruelty to animals? How early in a child's life does cruelty to animals emerge and are these incidents always a sign of future interpersonal violence? Are there ways of preventing such cruelty? Can we intervene effectively with children who already have a history of abuse and violence? Children and Animals: Exploring the Roots of Kindness and Cruelty presents the current scientific and professional wisdom about the relation between the maltreatment of animals and interpersonal violence directed toward other human beings. However, the author, Frank R. Ascione, a noted expert in these areas, writes in a style and presents the findings in a language that will be understandable to parents, teachers, counselors, clergy, animal welfare professionals, foster parents, mental health professionals, youth workers, law enforcement professionals, and anyone else whose work or interest crosses into the lives of children and adolescents.

This is the first book to examine children's many connections to animals and to explore their developmental significance. Gail Melson looks not only at the therapeutic power of pet-owning for children with emotional or physical handicaps, but also the ways in which zoo and farm animals, and even certain television characters, become confidants or teachers for children--and sometimes, tragically, their victims.

Focusing on the socialization of the human use of other animals as resources in contemporary Western society, this book explores the cultural reproduction of human-nonhuman animal relations in childhood. With close attention to the dominant practices through which children encounter animals and mainstream representations of animals in children's culture - whether in terms of the selective exposure of children to animals as ‘pets’ or as food in the home or in school, or the representation of animals in mass media and social media - Our Children and Other Animals reveals the interconnectedness of studies of childhood, culture and human-animal relations. In doing so it establishes the importance of human-animal relations in sociology, by describing the sociological importance of animals in children's lives and children in animals’ lives. Presenting a new typology of the various kinds of human-animal relationship, this conceptually innovative book constitutes a clear demonstration of the relevance of sociology to the interdisciplinary field of human-animal relations and will appeal to readers across the social sciences with interests in sociology, childhood studies, cultural and media studies and human-animal interaction.

The lives and futures of children and animals are linked to environmental challenges associated with the Anthropocene and the acceleration of human-caused extinctions. This book sparks a fascinating interdisciplinary conversation about child–animal relations, calling for a radical shift in how we understand our relationship with other animals and our place in the world. It addresses issues of interspecies and intergenerational environmental justice through examining the entanglement of children’s and animal’s lives and common worlds. It explores everyday encounters and unfolding relations between children and urban wildlife. Inspired by feminist environmental philosophies and indigenous cosmologies, the book poses a new relational ethics based upon the small achievements of child–animal interactions. It also provides an analysis of animal narratives in children’s popular culture. It traces the geo-historical trajectories and convergences of these narratives and of the lives of children and animals in settler-colonised lands. This innovative book brings together the fields of more-than-human geography, childhood studies, multispecies studies, and the environmental humanities. It will be of interest to students and scholars who are reconsidering the ethics of child–animal relations from a fresh perspective.

Play is a paradox. Why would the young of so many species--the very animals at greatest risk for injury and predation--devote so much time and energy to an activity that by definition has no immediate purpose? This question has long puzzled students of animal behavior, and has been the focus of considerable empirical investigation and debate. In this first comprehensive and state-of-the-art review of what we have learned from decades of research on exploration and play in children and animals, Power examines the paradox from all angles. Covering solitary activity as well as play with peers, siblings, and parents, he considers the nature, development, and functions of play, as well as the gender differences in early play patterns. A major purpose is to explore the relevance of the animal literature for understanding human behavior. The nature and amount of children's play varies significantly across cultures, so the author makes cross-cultural comparisons wherever possible. The scope is broad and the range multidisciplinary. He draws on studies by developmental researchers in psychology and other fields, ethologists, anthropologists, sociologists, sociolinguists, early childhood educators, and pediatricians. And he places research on play in the context of research on such related phenomena as prosocial behavior and aggression. Finally, Power points out directions for further inquiry and implications for those who work with young children and their parents. Researchers and students will find Play and Exploration in Children and Animals an invaluable summary of controversies, methods, and findings; practitioners and educators will find it an invaluable compendium of information relevant to their efforts to enrich play experiences.

The original edition was the first book to provide a comprehensive overview of the ways in which animals can assist therapists with treatment of specific populations, and/or in specific settings. The second edition continues in this vein, with 7 new chapters plus substantial revisions of continuing chapters as the research in this field has grown. New coverage includes: Animals as social supports, Use of AAT with Special Needs students, the role of animals in the family- insights for clinicians, and measuring the animal-person bond. - Contributions from veterinarians, animal trainers, psychologists, and social workers - Includes guidelines and best practices for using animals as therapeutic companions - Addresses specific types of patients and environmental situations

"Novelist and essayist Brian Doyle describes encounters with astounding beings of every sort and shape in this collection of short vignettes. The book gathers previously unpublished work along with selections that have been published in Orion, The Sun, and The American Scholar, among others"--