Poor design and wasted funding characterize today's American playgrounds. A range of factors--including a litigious culture, overzealous safety guidelines, and an ethos of risk aversion--have created uniform and unimaginative playgrounds. These spaces fail to nurture the development of children or promote playgrounds as an active component in enlivening community space. Solomon's book demonstrates how to alter the status quo by allying data with design. Recent information from the behavioral sciences indicates that kids need to take risks; experience failure but also have a chance to succeed and master difficult tasks; learn to plan and solve problems; exercise self-control; and develop friendships. Solomon illustrates how architects and landscape architects (most of whom work in Europe and Japan) have already addressed these needs with strong, successful playground designs. These innovative spaces, many of which are more multifunctional and cost effective than traditional playgrounds, are both sustainable and welcoming. Having become vibrant hubs within their neighborhoods, these play sites are models for anyone designing or commissioning an urban area for children and their families. The Science of Play, a clarion call to use playground design to deepen the American commitment to public space, will interest architects, landscape architects, urban policy makers, city managers, local politicians, and parents.

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.

Turning passion into practice as a professional early childhood educator Early Childhood Education: Becoming a Professional is an inspiring introduction to the world of early childhood education, preparing the teachers of tomorrow to reach their full potential in their schools and communities. Written by a diverse and experienced author team, this text engages readers to connect contemporary educational and developmental theory and research to developmentally appropriate practices and applications that are easily implemented in the classroom. In response to today′s ever-changing educational environment, the text focuses on both the importance of taking personal and professional responsibility, as well as today′s issues in diversity—from supporting children with exceptionalities to supporting children and families in broader cultural contexts.

Build the body-brain connection with step-by-step activities that help children develop physical, cognitive, social, and emotional foundations for early learning and school readiness. Early childhood educators will find clear information on creating the move-to learn environment, managing safety, and optimizing the connections between language development, movement, and readiness for formal learning. An observational tool lets teachers pinpoint children’s specific developmental stages and assess progress. The easy-to-follow, full-color format includes diagrams and photos along with teaching tips to advance and automate children’s foundational physical capabilities while providing incremental challenge. Grounded in best practices and current research, Move, Play, and Learn with Smart Steps is both a hands-on resource for any classroom teacher, care provider, or parent and an ideal tool for coaches, mentors, and professional development trainers. Digital content includes customizable forms from the book.

Dialogue between film and theatre studies is frequently hampered by the lack of a shared vocabulary. Stage-Play and Screen-Play sets out to remedy this, mapping out an intermedial space in which both film and theatre might be examined. Each chapter’s evaluation of the processes and products of stage-to-screen and screen-to-stage transfer is grounded in relevant, applied contexts. Michael Ingham draws upon the growing field of adaptation studies to present case studies ranging from Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan and RSC Live’s simulcast of Richard II to F.W. Murnau’s silent Tartüff, Peter Bogdanovich’s film adaptation of Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, and Akiro Kurosawa’s Ran, highlighting the multiple interfaces between media. Offering a fresh insight into the ways in which film and theatre communicate dramatic performances, this volume is a must-read for students and scholars of stage and screen.

Laura Mize, pediatric speech-language pathologist and founder of www.teachmetotalk.com, details the hierarchy of imitation skills she teaches to therapists in seminars throughout the country and in her best-selling therapy manuals and DVDs. Many times therapists and parents don’t see success with late talking toddlers because the child needs an “in-between” step to help him learn the next component for expressive skill development. Our professional plans can also fail when we use techniques that are too clinical for parents to be able to remember and practice at home. This eight level approach is contained in Building Verbal Imitation in Toddlers.

Lives in Play explores the centrality of life narratives to women’s drama and performance from the 1970s to the present moment. In the early days of second-wave feminism, the slogan was “The personal is the political.” These autobiographical and biographical “true stories” have the political impact of the real and have also helped a range of feminists tease out the more complicated aspects of gender, sex, and sexuality in a Western culture that now imagines itself as “postfeminist.” The book’s scope is broad, from performance artists like Karen Finley, Holly Hughes, and Bobby Baker to playwrights like Suzan-Lori Parks, Maria Irene Fornes, and Sarah Kane. The book links the narrative tactics and theatrical approaches of biography and autobiography and shows how theater artists use life writing strategies to advance women’s rights and remake women’s representations. Lives in Play will appeal to scholars in performance studies, women’s studies, and literature, including those in the growing field of auto/biography studies. “ A fresh perspective and wide-ranging analysis of changes in feminist theater for the past thirty years . . . a most welcome addition to the literature on theater, in particular scholarship on feminist practices.” —Choice “Helps sustain an important history by reviving works of feminist theater and performance and giving them a new and refreshing context and theorical underpinning . . . considering 1970s performance art alongside more conventional play production.” —Lesley Ferris, The Ohio State University

In this fantasy adventure, Fletcher and Scoop are Apprentice Adventurers from the ancient establishment of Blotting's Academy on Fullstop Island. This is the place where all story characters are trained. The trouble is, they can't remember how they got there. It's the first day of term, but the two apprentices soon realise something is wrong. Things are going missing, including their own memories, and Scoop has the unsettling feeling that something is creeping in the shadows. As the children search for answers, they become entangled with the life of the Storyteller, the islands creator and king. They journey to his wedding banquet and find themselves uncovering a hidden past. What is their connection to this mysterious man? And is there more to him than meets the eye? ,

Play is an underlying theme of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) but it is often a challenge for practitioners to provide a play based curriculum. This book investigates the values and beliefs that underpin play and demonstrates through case studies how play opportunities can be observed, planned and assessed in a meaningful context for the child. Organized into four sections that mirror the EYFS, this book takes you through the curriculum framework demonstrating how play underpins each of these principles and is the common thread that links them together. Chapters include: - celebrating children′s play choices - ways to work with parents - inspiring environments for inspirational play - the role of play in supporting key relationships - creative play for flexible learning Incorporating the voices of Early Years practitioners, this book takes the unique approach of analysing the academic theory, showing how this can be put into practice and then suggesting activities to facilitate reflective practice and professional development. Useful to all those studying on any Early Years course, the book is particularly relevant to those leading practice in early years settings and those working towards Early Years Professional Status (EYPS).