This book is designed to assist pre-service and in-service classroom teachers in weaving music, visual arts, drama, and movement into the elementary school curriculum--thereby stimulating the learning process, enriching other subject areas, and providing opportunities for creative expression and self-fulfillment. Featuring content informed by the National Standards for the Arts, the book provides the basic tools and activities that teachers need to gain confidence in using the arts in their elementary classrooms.

Includes an access code for online materials.

For Elementary and Middle School Curriculum Development and Methods classes. Unlike texts that focus on either the "how" or "what" of teaching, Curriculum and Instructional Methods for the Elementary and Middle School explores both the "how" (instruction) and "what" (content), and provides an integrative approach to ensure teachers a broad knowledge base when they enter the classroom.

Stimulating Maturity through Accelerated Readiness Training (S.M.A.R.T.) is a program that helps children's brains and bodies get ready to learn. It provides the foundation for the required basic readiness skills, so critical for successful learners. The program consists of fun physical activities for developing and/or enhancing large and fine motor skills, balance and coordination, visual efficiency, eye-hand coordination and much more. Once these readiness skills are in place, children have the necessary tools to be able to attend and learn, making them ready for school and to become life-long learners.

This volume assembles a range of writers from diverse backgrounds and geographies to examine five broadly-defined areas in elementary education: foundational issues; social and sexual development; curriculum; the family; and gay/lesbian educators and their allies.

Rethinking Elementary Education collects the finest writing about elementary school life and learning from 25 years of Rethinking Schools magazine. The articles in this collection offer practical insights about how to integrate the teaching of content with a social justice lens, seek wisdom from students and their families, and navigate stifling tests and mandates. Teachers and parents will find both inspiration and hope in these pages.

Bolstered by new standards and new initiatives to promote STEM education, engineering is making its way into the school curriculum. This comprehensive introduction will help elementary educators integrate engineering into their classroom, school, or district in age-appropriate, inclusive, and engaging ways. Building on the work of a Museum of Science team that has spent 15 years developing elementary engineering curricula, this book outlines how engineering can be integrated into a broader STEM curriculum, details its pedagogical benefits to students, and includes classroom examples to help educators tailor instruction to engage diverse students. Featuring vignettes, case studies, videos, research results, and assessments, this resource will help readers visualize high-quality elementary engineering and understand the theoretical principles in context. Book Features: Frameworks to help teachers create curricula and structure activities. A focus on engaging the diversity of learners in today’s classrooms. Experiences from the nation’s leading elementary education curriculum that has reached 13.3 million children and 165,000 educators. Go to eie.org/book for videos, assessment tools, reproducibles, and other instructional supports that enliven the text.

Children in today's world are inundated with information about who to be, what to do and how to live. But what if there was a way to teach children how to manage priorities, focus on goals and be a positive influence on the world around them? The Leader in Meis that programme. It's based on a hugely successful initiative carried out at the A.B. Combs Elementary School in North Carolina. To hear the parents of A. B Combs talk about the school is to be amazed. In 1999, the school debuted a programme that taught The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopleto a pilot group of students. The parents reported an incredible change in their children, who blossomed under the programme. By the end of the following year the average end-of-grade scores had leapt from 84 to 94. This book will launch the message onto a much larger platform. Stephen R. Covey takes the 7 Habits, that have already changed the lives of millions of people, and shows how children can use them as they develop. Those habits -- be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek to understand and then to be understood, synergize, and sharpen the saw -- are critical skills to learn at a young age and bring incredible results, proving that it's never too early to teach someone how to live well.

The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis--and the seemingly endless cycle of multigenerational poverty. It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware. But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.