Connecting Emergent Curriculum and Standards in the Early Childhood Classroom

The most pressing challenge in early childhood education today is to find a way to meet the standards within a developmentally appropriate approach. In this book, two active early childhood educators provide teachers with resources to bring content alive in the daily, action-based pre–K and Kindergarten classrooms, and explore ways to document it. The book includes lists of key content ideas—coordinated with learning standards in science, mathematics, social studies, and the communication arts—to guide teacher observations of, and interactions with, young children. Chapters focus on ways to extend children’s emerging use of content in the block, manipulatives, water and sand, drama, expressive arts, and literacy centers, and link to the development of themes.

Book features include :

• Lists of key ideas in the content areas.
• Examples of conversations that nurture children’s emerging content understandings.
• Vignettes from the field illustrating teachers’ experiences of embedding content into center activities, along with photographs.
• Sample forms for documenting children’s learning as they meet the standards in a variety of contexts.

Sydney L. Schwartz is a professor emerita of Queens College of the City University of New York. Sherry M. Copeland is an experienced early childhood teacher, teacher trainer, advocate, and director of early childhood programs.

“This valuable resource is rich in practical suggestions.”
—Selma Wassermann, professor emerita, Simon Fraser University

“This book is a celebration of exemplary early education!”
—Doris Fromberg, Hofstra University

“This book should be made available to every early childhood and elementary preservice and inservice teacher. It gives teachers the tools to show not only how much children are learning as they build their understandings in active and interactive ways, but also how remarkable the process of learning is.”
—Frances Rust, Professor Emeritus, New York University

Forms and Content Appendices