Help your preschooler get ready for a great start. Follow the lovable Lulu on a trip through the Grand Zoo. An iguana, quetzal, unicorn, and other critter friends make reading and writing ABCs so much fun! Kids will enjoy learning the names of the animals that start with the letters of the alphabet. They will also practice tracing letters and numbers, learning shapes and colors, identifying same and different, matching, sequencing, and following directions. Lulu's jokes and fun facts add smiles and learning opportunities. Examples include "What kind of cat lives in the ocean?" and "Butterflies have transparent wings and taste with their feet." Find a lively selection of reading readiness, early math, and beginning science activities in our zoo-tastic Preschool Scholar; the skill focus is listed at the bottom of every page for easy reference. Bold, colorful illustrations help little learners stay focused and motivated, and when they are all done, they can fill out the completion reward certificate and display it with pride! A Parent Guide inside the front cover offers helpful tips for maximizing, the learning and Activities to Share inside the back cover suggest fun, easy, creative activities that get kids stretching their senses and critical thinking skills. This workbook is an excellent size for tucking into a tote or backpack and turning road trips and wait times into learning opportunities.

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

Hooray! It's time to go to preschool. And that means it's time for . . . Having fun Making friends Learning about the world Sharing with others Using your manners Playing games Running, jumping, and swinging Imagining and creating Snacks and naps Drop-off and pick-up More, more, more! EsmÉ Raji Codell and Sue RamÁ introduce very young children—and their parents and caregivers—to the world of preschool in this cheerful and welcoming book that is guaranteed to make the first day (and every day) a bit less scary and a lot more fun!

Help preschoolers get ready for reading, writing, and numbers! This gigantic, 320-page book of creative, colorful activities will make learning feel like play. An A+ adventure unfolds, as kids encounter sensational squares and rocking rectangles, a giant newt reading the newspaper and a dinosaur playing the drums. Bold, bright colors and illustrations ease little ones into learning without feeling overwhelmed. Lessons focus on must-know readiness basics, including colors, shapes, the alphabet, basic phonics, early math, and more, and activities appear in order of increasing difficulty, so preschoolers stay challenged until the end, constantly expanding their skills. When all done they can fill in their name on their very own reward certificate! Along the way, tear-out pages make for easy sharing. School Zone products give kids their own Anywhere Teacher learning, anywhere and anytime!

This volume provides an up-to-date collection of key aspects related to current preschool bilingual education research from a socio-linguistic perspective. The focus is on preschool bilingual education in multilingual Europe, which is characterized by diverse language models and children's linguistic backgrounds. The book explores the contemporary perspectives on early bilingual education in light of the threefold theoretical framework of child's, teachers', and parents' agencies in interaction in preschool bilingual education. Five significant theoretical concepts are promoted in this volume: the ecology of language learning, an educational partnership for bilingualism, a notion of agency in early language development and education, language-conducive contexts, and language-conducive strategies. The volume examines preschool bilingual education as embedded in specific socio-cultural contexts on the one hand and highlights its universal features on the other. The book is a fundamental read for scholars and students of second language teaching, preschool education, and bilingual education in multilingual and multicultural societies.

Looking at and listening to picture and story books is a ubiquitous activity, frequently enjoyed by many young children and their parents. Well before children can read for themselves they are able to learn from books. Looking at and listening to books increases children’s general knowledge, understanding about the world and promotes language acquisition. This collection of papers demonstrates the breadth of information pre-reading children learn from books and increases our understanding of the social and cognitive mechanisms that support this learning. Our hope is that this Research Topic/eBook will be useful for researchers as well as educational practitioners and parents who are interested in optimizing children’s learning.

Presents plenty of practice for children to recognize the sounds of letters that begin words.

Decades of research point to the need for a universal preschool education program in the U.S. to help give our nation's children a sound cognitive and social foundation on which to build future educational and life successes. In addition to enhanced school readiness and improved academic performance, participation in high quality preschool programs has been linked with reductions in grade retentions and school drop out rates, and cost savings associated with a diminished need for remedial educational services and justice services. This 2006 book brings together nationally renowned experts from the fields of psychology, education, economics and political science to present a compelling case for expanded access to preschool services. They describe the social, educational, and economic benefits for the nation as a whole that may result from the implementation of a universal preschool program in America, and provide guiding principles upon which such a system can best be founded.

The long-awaited new edition of NAEYC's book Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs is here, fully revised and updated! Since the first edition in 1987, it has been an essential resource for the early childhood education field. Early childhood educators have a professional responsibility to plan and implement intentional, developmentally appropriate learning experiences that promote the social and emotional development, physical development and health, cognitive development, and general learning competencies of each child served. But what is developmentally appropriate practice (DAP)? DAP is a framework designed to promote young children's optimal learning and development through a strengths-based approach to joyful, engaged learning. As educators make decisions to support each child's learning and development, they consider what they know about (1) commonality in children's development and learning, (2) each child as an individual (within the context of their family and community), and (3) everything discernible about the social and cultural contexts for each child, each educator, and the program as a whole. This latest edition of the book is fully revised to underscore the critical role social and cultural contexts play in child development and learning, including new research about implicit bias and teachers' own context and consideration of advances in neuroscience. Educators implement developmentally appropriate practice by recognizing the many assets all young children bring to the early learning program as individuals and as members of families and communities. They also develop an awareness of their own context. Building on each child's strengths, educators design and implement learning settings to help each child achieve their full potential across all domains of development and across all content areas.

Your child will enjoy exploring all of the educational activities in this workbook. The pages are packed with fun-filled exercises, colorful illustrations, and simple directions for hours of learning. The interesting lessons focus on essential readiness basics, including early math skills, beginning reading skills, basic kindergarten skills, and more.