![]() Spatial: pictures of all kinds, drawing, painting, and collage (paint, colored chalk, pens, collage materials, paste, play dough etc.) easels, puzzles, pegboards, parquetry sets, telescope, microscope, different colored materials to look through, maps, geometric shapes, cameras buttons, coins, rocks, color swatches), number blocks of different sizes and shapes, scale to weigh things, measuring tape, measuring cups, calendars, clocks, and other time-related materials, cash register, play computer, magnets, lacing, beads, pattern puzzles, pattern blocks, abacus Logical-mathematical: things to count, sort and classify (e.g. Linguistic: children’s books of all kinds, magazines for cut out, alphabet letters of different sizes and shapes, storytelling area, drawing implements and paper to practice emergent literacy alphabet stamps, dolls that speak in different languages, word blocks, magnetic letters Here is just a sampling of the kinds of materials that should be in any early childhood education program (I’ve used Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences in organizing categories). Anything less than this is developmentally inappropriate, threatens to deprive the child of a solid multi-sensory experiential foundation for all future learning, and causes deterioration in brain connections that are related to art, music, nature, intuition, social interaction, physical expression, and a range of other culturally-valued domains. Every early childhood education program should have free play as its central focus. If you fill the young child’s time with academic activities and other preparations for elementary school, then you take away something that can never again be reclaimed: the magical years of play. However, there are only these few precious years of life when the child’s brain is buzzing away at twice the metabolic level of an adult, and when the young child is open to a wide range of perceptions, senses, feelings, and other experiences. ![]() There are no critical periods in early childhood during which a child must have exposure to formal reading and math, or computers, or they will never develop these capacities later in life. This is a distressing trend, inasmuch as it makes young children do things (formal reading and math, computer instruction) that they are not developmentally ready for, and that take precious time away from letting children be children. Increasingly we’re seeing early childhood education programs veering toward formal academic learning.
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