Creative Resources for the Early Childhood Classroom

I spent months looking through Preschool/Kindergarten curriculum and found this to be the best by far. I bought the 4th edition and this is what is new in this edition - according to the book. 1 - "New themes and activities - Over 100 activities with 3 new themes: feet, frogs, amd worms. Each thematic unit begins with a curriculum web. This webbing is designed to inform teachers of the major subconcepts that can be included under each theme." An example of this for the unit of ants would be - Ants: Colors - black, brown, rust, gray, red Kinds - carpenter, weaver, leaf cutter, fire, cornfield, thief, army Homes - underground, earthen mounds, inside trees or hollow plants Foods - insects, fruits, plants Growth stages - egg, larvae, pupae, adult Roles - queen, soldier, worker, male Importance - eat large number of insects, food source for birds, frogs and other animals Body Parts - Head, antennas, eyes, mouth parts, trunk, 6 legs, wings (males and queens) I really liked this breakdown b/c it gave me the ability to teach in a well rounded method to ensure the kids were learning more than just the color and what they ate. We did all of this and bought an ant farm (Ant Hill - Living Ant Habitat) and my 2 and 4 year olds can tell you all about ants and are now so intrigued by them b/c they understand them! This ant hill was great. It is made for preschoolers and it doesn't tip. 2 - Revised and additional bulletin boards. 3 - New and Expanded reference materials - books and multimedia. Each unit is broken down into different activities. They are as follows - Arts and Crafts Cooking Dramatic Play Field Trip/Resource People Fingerplays Group Time Large Muscle Math Music Science Sensory Social Studies Books to read Mulitmedia to listen to or watch This book is amazing and full of wonderful information that is straight forward to teach and easy for little ones to learn. The price did seem a little high but considering how well rounded it is...I didn't need to purchase anything else.

I used this book in student teaching. I pulled many ideas from it to create my long/range plan. I use it everyday for starter ideas. Herr/Libby-Larson represent my biggest influences (other than my student teaching teacher) on my current practice. From the wonderful, interactive bulletin boards to the tons of hands-on activities to the graphic organizers, this book will meet all of your needs if you just needed one book. Along with Bredekamp/Copple's DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE PRACTICE IN EARLY CHILDHOOD and Steffen Saifer's THE EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHER'S MANUAL: PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS TO PRACTICALLY EVERY PROBLEM, this book should represent your first three members of your professional teaching library.

This book provides tons of great ideas for activities for your preschooler. I am a stay at home mom using these ideas to keep my kids busy. The book is organized by themes. Each theme has songs, fingerplays, arts/crafts, play ideas, science subjects, etc. to tie into that subject. You can do as little or as much of it as you want. It also provides a list of story books to accompany each theme. It's well thought out and organized.

This is the best Early Childhood book I own! In addition to what others have mentioned, some of the aspects I particularly appreciate are: ~Resources every source is documented, giving unending possibilities to pursue ~Books! at the end of each unit is a list of books relevant to the topic ~Webbing each unit begins with a flowchart, listing many aspects or branches of the main theme. (This is a tremendous help in beginning to think through how to personalize the units) ~INTERACTIVE Bulletin Boards while the bulletin boards are a bit repetitive (similar concepts for all the boards, but the objects involved change with the themes), kids tend to pay more attention to these Interactive boards than to traditional ones.

Creative Resources provides activities and ideas to support high quality ECE curriculum. CR helps you set up engaging learning centers such as math, science, art, drama, puzzles and games, and "creative" writing.