Demonstrates how to build a shadow box in order to make a variety of shadows and explains how the study of shadows led to the invention of the camera

Sklar's personal account of teaching dramatic writing, direction, and performance, to a group of 7th graders in the South Bronx, reveals the planning and execution of his lessons. It also addresses the reception such lessons received-including resistance. Teachers and Artists-in-Residence stand to gain much from this book, since it deals with real life dynamics in the classroom and necessary strategies for getting through a project in a thought-provoking, fun, and creative way for everyone participating. "I love this book. It's a great read, and it taught me a lot about playwriting, theater, and young people."-Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides.

Being kind is contagious as a new girl navigates the art of making friends in a picture book suited for children starting school or moving to a new place. When Sukie’s family moves and she has to start at a new school, she feels shy and lonely at first. But soon she learns that receiving small acts of kindness—someone saying hi, or saving a hoop for her—makes her feel braver, and that passing friendliness along is a good feeling, too. Before long, Sukie, Joe, Poppy, and Stan are all becoming friends! Young readers are invited to join them as they explore meeting new people, celebrating differences, being thoughtful, and standing up for one another.

Small World Play is a practical and informative book for practitioners and home-based professionals to use in their daily work with young children at all ability levels. It is designed to show how small world play contributes to the EYFS curriculum and to other important areas of children's lives. Explaining exactly what small world play is and why it is so important to all areas of children's development, it describes the different types of small world play, with toys, models, puzzles, construction kits and recycled materials, how to introduce children to small world play and how to encourage children to apply thinking skills more confidently. The themes included in the book cover: people and situations; animals and other living creatures; vehicles and machines; buildings, models and constructions; and recycled and found materials. Chapters are packed with ideas for resources, scenarios and narratives, to enable practitioners and children to share constructive and absorbing play, making this book a valuable guide to developing essential life skills, along with creativity and imagination.

A game-changing book on child development--and the importance of physical play--for this digital and screen age. For children to develop to their fullest potential, their sensory system—which, in addition to the big five of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell, includes movement and balance (vestibular), body awareness (proprioception), and internal perception (interoception)—needs to be stimulated from the time they are born. Their senses flourish when they explore their environment by touching new textures, including their food, running, jumping, climbing, and splashing outside. As an occupational therapist with a specialty in sensory integration, Allie Ticktin has seen an increase in cases of children who struggle to sit in circle time or at their desk upright and who are delayed in walking, talking, and playing by themselves and with their peers. In the recent past, kids spent their days playing outside and naturally engaging their sensory system and building key developmental skills. But with increasing time pressures for both kids and parents, children are spending more time in front of screens and less time exploring and interacting with their environment. The good news is that boosting your child’s sensory development doesn’t take enormous amounts of time or supplies, or any special skills. Here, Ticktin discusses the eight sensory systems and how a child uses them, and offers easy, fun activities—as well as advice on setting up a play area—that will encourage their development so that your little one will be better able to respond to their emotions, build friendships, communicate their needs, and thrive in school. That’s the power of sensory play.

Separated from his family when they were forced to flee their home, a young East African boy named Deo lives alone in the Lukole refugee camp in Tanzania. With scarce resources, bullies have formed gangs to steal what they can, and one leader named Remy has begun targeting Deo. But when a coach organizes the children to play soccer, everything begins to change for Deo. And for Remy. By sharing the joy of play, –no one feels so alone anymore.” Readers everywhere will be inspired to read how play can change lives.

Booklist Star A tender and powerful affirmation that Black lives have always mattered. Black lives matter. That message would be self-evident in a just world, but in this world and this America, all children need to hear it again and again, and not just to hear it but to feel and know it. This book affirms the message repeatedly, tenderly, with cumulative power and shared pride. Celebrating Black accomplishments in music, art, literature, journalism, politics, law, science, medicine, entertainment, and sports, Shani King summons a magnificent historical and contemporary context for honoring the fortitude of Black role models, women and men, who have achieved greatness despite the grinding political and social constraints on Black life. Frederick Douglass, Toni Morrison, Sojourner Truth, John Lewis, Langston Hughes, Louis Armstrong, Maya Angelou, Aretha Franklin, and many more pass through these pages. An America without their struggles, aspirations, and contributions would be a shadow of the country we know. A hundred life sketches augment the narrative, opening a hundred doors to lives and thinking that aren’t included in many history books. James Baldwin’s challenge is here: “We are responsible for the world in which we find ourselves, if only because we are the only sentient force which can change it.” Actress Viola Davis’s words are here, too: “When I was younger, I did not exert my voice because I did not feel worthy of having a voice. I was taught so many things that didn’t include me. Where was I? What were people like me doing?” This book tells children what people like Viola were and are doing, and it assures Black children that they are, indisputably, worthy of having a voice. Have I Ever Told You Black Lives Matter? is a book for this time and always. It is time for all children to live and breathe the certainty that Black lives matter. Endorsements: “A beautiful and powerful story and a way to engage and teach children—on Black history, which is American history, and on the legacy of Black struggle and achievement in this nation.” —Khary Lazarre-White, Executive Director & Co-Founder, The Brotherhood/Sister Sol, and author of Passage “The world needs this yesterday.” —James Forman Jr., Pulitzer Prize – winning author of Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America “Fantastic.”—Janai S. Nelson, Associate Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund “Black children grow up being treated differently because of the color of their skin. This loving and positive book acknowledges that reality while also celebrating the resilience of Black people and the accomplishments, leadership, and fortitude of Black Americans. We need this book.”—Dr. JudyAnn Bigby, Director of the Harvard Medical School Center of Excellence in Women’s Health and former Secretary of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Helping young people learn through play is the focus of this publication, aimed at teachers and future teachers of children from birth through age eight. Current research presented here examines the positive effects of play on children's social/emotional, cognitive, and physical development. The reader will learn how to assess a child's learning through play, making play a more practicable teaching mechanism. They also will learn step-by-step recommendations for establishing a classroom that promotes play and developing play-based programs designed for children in specific age groups: infants and toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarten children, and primary-age children. Incorporating play into the program of special needs children not only is addressed in each age-specific section, the author pays particular attention to this topic in a stand-alone section. Educators also will value the list of recommended Web sites for further research on the subject, as well as lists of materials and books perfect for play centers.

Rulers of Literary Playgrounds: Politics of Intergenerational Play in Children’s Literature offers multifaceted reflection on interdependences between children and adults as they engage in play in literary texts and in real life. This volume brings together international children’s literature scholars who each look at children’s texts as key vehicles of intergenerational play reflecting ideologies of childhood and as objects with which children and adults interact physically, emotionally, and cognitively. Each chapter applies a distinct theoretical approach to selected children’s texts, including individual and social play, constructive play, or play deprivation. This collection of essays constitutes a timely voice in the current discussion about the importance of children’s play and adults’ contribution to it vis-à-vis the increasing limitations of opportunities for children’s playful time in contemporary societies.