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First Friday Q&A: How Do You Help Teachers Understand DAP?

by Filed Under: Child Development & DAP Leave a Comment

I received a fantastic question for First Friday Q&A:

I was reading your article on DAP and was impressed. I am running a preschool in Mumbai, India and would like to conduct a workshop for my teachers on DAP . I would like to understand how I can help teachers understand what is DAP and what that means in their classrooms.

I love speaking on this topic — but that’s part of the problem.  I talk about this for an hour and just cover some of the basics.  So what I do I say with just a few minutes?  Here’s where I’d start:

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Allowing Children to Bloom in Season

by Filed Under: Building Readers, Child Development & DAP, Uncategorized 8 Comments

Bloom

My grandmother had a very green thumb.  As my grandfather toiled away at getting alfalfa fields to grow and cows to give milk in a high desert climate, she turned their front yard into an explosion of color and scent.  There were bright California poppies, delicate bleeding heart bushes, a huge swath of daisies, roses that were fuller and brighter than anything at the store, fascinating four o’clocks, little purple pansies (which she loved to sing about), and my favorites: the lilac and snowball bushes.

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Why Play Pretend When We’re Trying to Build Readers?

by Filed Under: Building Readers, Child Development & DAP, Learning through Play and Experience, Uncategorized 6 Comments

Pretend Play and Reading

I noticed my 2 1/2 year old walking around the back yard the other day with a small rectangular rock nestled in the palm of his hand.  I watched as he excitedly moved it around as he energetically bounded around the lawn, obviously in his own world.  I wondered where his imagination had taken him.  Then I heard the giveaway:  “Boop! Boop!”  He was holding the rock out, extending his arm toward a ride along car in the yard.  “My boop-boop!”  He said as he looked up with a huge grin of satisfaction, having clearly just set the alarm on his toy car with his own personal key fob.

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