Loose Parts are natural or synthetic found, bought, or upcycled materials—acorns, hardware, stones, aluminum foil, fabric scraps—that children can move, manipulate, control, and change within their play.The next installment for the award-winning Loose Parts series offers inspiration and guidance on creating culturally sensitive and culturally sustainable early childhood environments. With the help of over 400 full-color photos this book guides readers to use their environment to promote a sense of wonder, curiosity, and joy, and allows children to explore their identity.

• EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE: Use Loose Parts to spark children's creativity and innovation. Provides inspiration and information about the ways everyday materials can support open-ended learning, enhance play, and empower children.
• INSPIRE: Loose Parts help children inspire imagination and creativity on their own terms and in their own unique way. Loose Parts create endless possibilities and invite creativity.
• CHILD CENTERED: Open-ended materials, environments, and experiences encourage problem solving and are child centered.
• LEARNING EXPERIENCES: Children involve themselves in concrete experiences using Loose Parts, which lead to explorations that occur naturally, as opposed to adult directed. However, adults do play important, intentional roles in preparing, guiding, and documenting open-ended learning experiences.
• MAKING CONNECTIONS: When children are encouraged to integrate play materials and areas in their own creative ways, they are experiencing open-ended learning.

Children living with uncertainty and insecurity often have difficulty focusing on learning. They might demonstrate disrespectful or defiant behaviors, act out, or act with aggression. As an educator, you may provide the only stability in their otherwise turbulent world.

Making It Better explains trauma-informed education, an approach that recognizes the impact of traumatic stress on children and its effect on the growing brain, and applies the latest neurological research to teaching methods, disciplinary policies, and interactions to support grieving children.

This book has more than 75 empowering and healing classroom activities to respond to the learning and behavioral needs of children who have experienced traumatic events or toxic stress-such as natural disasters, community violence, or abuse or neglect within the child's familial relations-and includes a collection of activities and strategies to help children heal and feel empowered.

Distressed children need absolute emotional security and an opportunity to engage in healing activities. With your help, children can begin to build resiliency and find renewed hope for the future. For children ages 3 to 8 years old.

ECERS-E is designed to be used with the Early Childhood Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R), an internationally recognized measure of quality in education and care written by Thelma Harms, Richard M. Clifford, and Debby Cryer. It not only complements the ECERS-R but extends the scales to provide additional insights into important aspects of literacy, mathematics, science and environment as well as practices related to issues of diversity. Given the current focus on emerging literacy and numeracy skills, the ECERS-E provides unique guidance on the kinds of environments that enhance learning in preschool settings. The curriculum domains within the scales bear important relationships to children's (age 3–5) cognitive and social/behavioral developmental outcomes.

Using the ECERS-E alongside the ECERS-R gives users a more complete picture of what a high-quality early childhood education program can look like. It can be used by program directors, teaching staff, agency staff, and in teacher training programs.
Convenient organization:
Literacy Items:

• Print in the environment
• Book and literacy areas
• Adults reading with children
• Sounds in words
• Emergent writing/mark making
• Talking and listening
• Mathematics Items:
• Counting and application of counting
• Reading and representing simple numbers
• Activities: Shape
• Activities: Sorting, matching and comparing
• Science and Environment Items:
• Natural materials
• Areas featuring science/science materials
• Activities: Non living
• Activities: Living processes
• Activities: Food preparation
• Diversity Items:
• Planning for individual learning needs
• Gender equality and awareness
• Race equality and awareness

Teaching students how to focus and self-regulate at a young age can provide them with skills that will help throughout their schooling and adult lives. Like anyone, they need easy-to-remember tools and strategies to calm their minds and focus on the moment. 194 pages.

• EASY TO INCOPORATE: A guide for busy elementary educators on how to easily incorporate mindfulness activities into existing curriculum
• INTERACTIVE, RESEARCH-BASED CURRICULUM: Helps Pre-K and elementary teachers integrate simple, ready-to-use stretching, breathing, and reflective exercises as well as other mindfulness practices into their daily classroom routines
• DIGITAL CONTENT: Includes digital content link with reproducible handouts from the book

Loose Parts are natural or synthetic found, bought, or upcycled materials—acorns, hardware, stones, aluminum foil, fabric scraps, for example—that children can move, manipulate, control, and change within their play. With more than 550 color photographs of many kinds of Loose Parts in real early childhood settings, classroom stories, and a dynamic overview, Loose Parts provides inspiration and information about the ways everyday materials can support open-ended learning, enhance play, and empower children. With Loose Parts, the possibilities are endless.

• EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE: Use Loose Parts to spark children's creativity and innovation. Provides inspiration and information about the ways everyday materials can support open-ended learning, enhance play, and empower children.
• INSPIRE: Loose Parts help children inspire imagination and creativity on their own terms and in their own unique way. Loose parts create endless possibilities and invite creativity.
• CHILD CENTERED: Open-ended materials, environments, and experiences encourage problem solving and are child centered.
• LEARNING EXPERIENCES: Children involve themselves in concrete experiences using Loose Parts, which lead to explorations that occur naturally, as opposed to adult directed. However, adults do play important, intentional roles in preparing, guiding, and documenting open-ended learning experiences.
• MAKING CONNECTIONS: When children are encouraged to integrate play materials and areas in their own creative ways, they are experiencing open-ended learning.

The Complete Resource Book is perfect to use as a planning guide or as a resource for responding to children's specific interests. The daily plans have circle time, music and movement activities, suggested books, and learning center ideas. The appendix is jam-packed with songs, recipes, and games. This book is like having a master teacher at your side for inspiration all year long.

Learn how early childhood educators can be trauma responsive for the whole classroom. Trauma-Responsive Strategies for Early Childhood offers an overview of trauma and its impact on young children, as well as specific strategies and techniques educators and administrators can use to create classroom and school communities that improve the quality of care for this vulnerable population. Katie Statman-Weil has synthesized research-based information in an accessible way. Focusing on the four different domains of cognitive, language, physical, and social-emotional, she uses vignettes to explore how trauma can be expressed in the classroom and what teachers can do about it. 216 pages