Early Childhood Education Commons^™

Barrington Bunny: Case Of The Curious Clouds A Narrative Picture Book For Symbolic Play And Stem Curriculum, Claudia Chung

Graduate Student Independent Studies

Adults constantly use their imagination to help them visualize, problem-solve, enjoy a book, empathize, and think creatively. Therefore, using one's imagination is a critical cognitive skill that can be used throughout life. And it is crucial for educators to encourage imagination, creativity and original ideas in childhood through pretend play, story, picture books, and narrative make-believe if we want our students to be mindful and functioning adults in society. Pretend play is also known as "symbolic play" because it involves the use of symbols. This type of symbolic thought is also needed for language and reading, as our words are …

When I Grow Up!, Alexia Smith

Diverse Families Bookshelf Lesson Plans and Activities

No abstract provided.

250— Play History: Common Trends In Preservice Teachers’ Play Histories, Karianne Santullo

GREAT Day Posters

This qualitative study investigates teacher candidates’ play histories/autobiographies. The study investigates the questions, (1) What kinds of play and creative experiences do the teacher candidates share in their autobiographies? (2) How will these play and creative experiences influence their integration of play as future Early Childhood Educators? (3) What implications do these findings have for the integration of play and play experiences for Early Childhood Teacher Education? Data sources include the teacher candidates’ “play history autobiographies.” The data is being analyzed using qualitative thematic analysis through coding for common themes. This poster session will share the initial analysis of the …

Technology In Education: The Ongoing Debate Of Access, Adequacy And Equity, Kristiana Roth

Graduate Student Independent Studies

Technology is intertwined in all aspects of our lives. Technology has evolved in ways that were once considered unimaginable. Yet, access to these advancements in technology are not adequate, especially throughout our education system. The purpose of this paper is to bring to light the significance technology can have on our education system today. This paper will reflect research which supports the integration of technology beginning in early childhood classrooms. This paper will also reflect on the injustices that exist in how educational technology is unequally distributed between socio-economic status. More is available to wealthy, white students. While people from …

A Survey Of Stem Literature In Elementary School Classrooms, Kaitlyn Duhaime

Honors Program Theses and Projects

In today’s classrooms, focus is being placed on teaching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). However, simply teaching a lesson is not enough: supplemental resources, such as books, are crucial for students to fully grasp what is being taught. Many teachers do not know what to look for in STEM children's books in order to ensure the books are beneficial and relevant to their students’ learning. This thesis will provide elementary teachers with guidelines and criteria by which to evaluate STEM children’s books. I will sample books from public libraries, such as Taunton, Bridgewater, and Brockton. I am choosing books …

Schwalbe, But Make It Sesame Street: Advocating For Children’S Sociological Education On Race And Ethnicity, Sonia Mathews

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

In this thesis, I aim to fill a hole in the existing discussion surrounding how we deal with social issues, specifically issues of race, when it comes to children. While there is ample sociological theory and legitimate research proving that children both experience and affect social constructions like race and ethnicity, this is not evident in both the way we teach children about social issues and what we teach them about the social world they are a part of. It is crucial to acknowledge and consider that once we recognize that children have these abilities to impact the social world, …

10,000 Dresses, Amy Gavitt

Diverse Families Bookshelf Lesson Plans and Activities

No abstract provided.

Discipline Policies And Preschool Special Education Students' Personal-Social Skills, Amanda L. Tamagni, Andrea M. Wilson

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Preschool special education students’ lack of personal–social skills is affecting their kindergarten readiness and placing them at risk for exposure to school discipline in a large school district in the Southeastern United States. The purpose of this quantitative investigation was to examine the relationship between the quality of school discipline policies and personal–social skills of preschool special education students within the focus district. Data collection included archived personal–social skills scores, as measured by the Battelle Developmental Inventory–2 (BDI-2), of 354 preschool special education students. Four trained educators rated the effectiveness of the schools’ discipline policies using the Teaching and Guidance …

Infographic: Closing The Gap Report 2020, Dominique Russell

Teacher infographics

Australia’s annual Closing the Gap Report communicates progress towards government targets for Indigenous Australians in areas like education, health and employment. In this infographic, we take a look at results detailed in the 2020 report related to education targets.

Creating Classroom Community To Welcome Children Experiencing Trauma, Katherina A. Payne, Jennifer Keys Adair, Shubhi Sachdeva

Occasional Paper Series

How elementary and early childhood classrooms engage with socio-emotional learning is deeply connected to creating a classroom community. Yet, much of socio-emotional learning curricula focuses on the individual child, rather than on the everyday interactions that build and sustain community. During the Civic Action and Young Children study, we spent a year in a Head Start preschool in Texas, where we noticed that although many children in the class struggled with varied difficult circumstances including poverty, homelessness, discrimination and threat of deportation, the teachers did not label them as homeless, illegal immigrants or poor. Additionally, children seemed to help one …

Looking For Trouble And Causing Trauma, Marquita D. Foster

Occasional Paper Series

The purpose of this paper is to examine the genuine but misguided efforts to address the behaviors of Pre-K students in a Texas public school. After espousing the concept of building strong children through correction, evaluation, and intervention in my role as assistant principal, I began to question how these methods tended to lead to pathologizing the behaviors of Black pre-kindergarteners in my school. In an attempt to find solutions to the children's perceived misbehavior, Pre-K teachers were charged with utilizing PBIS strategies and the RTI process for behavior. Social and emotional learning (SEL) was also considered. We discovered that …

Early Language And Literacy Skills Of Spanish-Speaking Dual Language Learners, Alejandro Rodriguez, Marc Goodrich, Maggie Harms, Lisa Fitton

UCARE: Research Products

The purpose of this study is to examine the early language measures that are the best predictors of English reading achievement and to determine whether assessing DLLs’ Spanish language skills contributes to the prediction of English reading achievement. Preschool and kindergarten often represent DLLs’ first significant exposure to English, and development of English language proficiency is strongly linked to English reading achievement (Storch & Whitehurst, 2002). Because DLLs may not be exposed to English consistently prior to preschool or kindergarten, they often enter kindergarten with lower levels of English proficiency than their monolingual peers. This makes it difficult to identify …

The Early Childhood Years: Building Blocks For Life, Gwen R. Marra

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"In the early childhood years, so much growth and development occurs. It truly is the foundation for the formal learning that happens later in life."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­education in the formative years from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/the-early-childhood-years-building-blocks-for-life/

Fathers’ Perceived Co-Parenting And Children’S Academic Readiness Among Chinese Preschoolers: Longitudinal Pathways Through Parenting And Behavioral Regulation, Lixin Ren, Rebecca Y.M. Cheung, Courtney Boise, Xuan Li, Jieqiong Fan

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

Co-parenting quality has frequently been linked to young children’s social–emotional functioning, but limited research has focused on the relationship between co-parenting and children’s early academic skills, or the underlying mechanisms through which co-parenting influences children’s development. Using data collected from urban China, the present study examined how fathers’ perceptions of co-parenting quality was related to their preschool-aged children’s academic readiness (i.e., receptive vocabulary, reading, early math; N = 336), and whether father’s parenting practices and children’s behavioral regulation mediated the link between co-parenting quality and child outcomes. Findings suggested that the relation between co-parenting quality and children’s academic readiness was …

Positive Communication Across The Lifespan: Early Childhood Aces To Vias, Adam Pyecha

College of Arts and Letters Posters

Felitti et al., (1985; 1998) developed Adverse Childhood Experiences test (ACEs), after researching adults suffering from obesity and addictive overeating. Positive correlations were linked with traumatic childhood experiences, such as severe physical, sexual and mental abuse with those participants struggling with obesity. ACEs is widely accepted in the field of psychology, proving individuals with higher ACEs scores indicate higher probability for mental illness and high risk deviant like substance abuse and felony crime. Identifying students with high ACEs before entering grade school may give educators and institutions the ability positively alter character and behavior outcomes of these victimized children. Nicholson, …

Stories That Shape Us, Lauren Dubas

Honors Program: Expanded Learning Clubs

This club is a Mythology Club that explores popular greek myths through fun and interactive activities. These actives are designed with 4th and 5th graders in mind, and are meant to provide an interesting way to interact with the mythology material presented during each lesson. The lessons do not build off of one another, and can be used in any order and still retain understanding of that myth.

Research Into Practice: Exploring Teacher Practices With Young Gifted Learners, Andrea Lauren Heming

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This research study investigates teacher practices with young gifted learners and provides recommendations to increase the effectiveness of the Primary Talent Pool through examination of the program as it is implemented in four Kentucky school districts. Gifted coordinators were interviewed and primary (kindergarten-third grade) teachers were surveyed. Though each school has different methods for meeting the needs of high potential learners, there are commonalities across all seven schools represented. The present findings indicate teachers feel confident in their ability to recognize high potential in academic areas. Teachers are comfortable using differentiation, and often differentiate to support gifted learners.

Don't Bug Me: Everything Young Kids Need To Know About Coronavirus--In Verse!, Rhea Paul

Community Reflections

A story in verse for young children (3-8) about coronavirus. Narrated by the author, Rhea Paul. Press the "Slide Show" button at the top of the screen, then in the menu that appears, hit "Play from Beginning" all the way to the left.

Nebline, April 2020

NEBLINE Newsletter Archive from Nebraska Extension in Lancaster County

Preparing Water for Use in an Emergency

Extension Postponements, Cancellations & Changes

Census Reminder

Create a Culture of Wellness with Nebraska Extension

RECIPE OF THE MONTH

Warm Spring and Weed Growth

Creating Capable Children

Empathy Over Sympathy

Those Pesky Fruit Flies

Preventing Conflicts With Tree Squirrels

Six Annual Flowers for Sunny Locations

Hiring a Lawn & Landscape Professional

Garden Guide: Things to Do This Month

HEART OF 4-H

At 4-H Lock-In, Teen Council 4-H’ers “Inspire Kids to Do”

New in 4-H at Super Fair

4-H/FFA Livestock Identification Help Nights, June 2 & 9

4-H Senior Ellie Babcock’s Third Year Showcasing …

Time To Play: The Relationship Between Time Spent Playing And Educational Outcomes In Peru, Jasmine Davidson

Economics Honors Projects

Every day, children around the world are playing. There has been plenty of research on the importance of different kinds of play, but very little on the importance of the quantity of play. Understanding the relationship between educational outcomes and the amount of time spent playing would allow parents to better structure their children’s time and would settle the debate between psychologists and economists on whether play has inherent value for a child’s future outcomes. I focus on Peru because conducting this research in a developing country context broadens the current research mostly focused on high-income countries. Using child-level, longitudinal …