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Hands-On Learning!

More Than 1000 Activities for Young Children Using Everyday Objects

By: Gwen Snyder Kaltman

Organized into 16 themes, this resource features more than 1,000 hands-on activities using inexpensive, readily available objects to engage young children’s senses.

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Product Details

Grade Level: PreK-K
ISBN: 9781412970952
Published By: Corwin
Year: 2009
Page Count: 152
Publication date: April 22, 2009

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Description

"The book is a wonderful brainstorm of activities, making this an extremely useful and user-friendly resource for early childhood professionals."
—Michelle Barnea, Early Childhood Consultant

"This text will quickly become a favorite for busy teachers wanting to provide engaging learning activities in their classrooms."
—Roxie Ahlbrecht, Second-Grade Teacher
Robert Frost Elementary School, Sioux Falls, SD

"An excellent supplement to any curriculum and to an early childhood teacher's bag of tricks. The activities are bound to engage young children's curiosity as they explore everyday objects with a new perspective."
—Judy Zimmerman, Executive Director
Mailman Segal Institute for Early Childhood Studies, Nova Southeastern University

Plan lessons from a child-centered perspective!

Teachers of young children are always looking for fresh, hands-on activities to engage their students and build their knowledge of the world through firsthand experiences with objects. This innovative resource guides teachers in developing tactile lessons utilizing inexpensive, readily available objects.

Ideal as a supplement to a primary curriculum as well as for learning centers, this volume includes more than 1,000 sample activities using materials such as cotton balls, paper, and wheels. The activities are organized into 16 themes and grouped into the areas of literacy, mathematics, science, social studies, physical development, and creativity. Reflected throughout the book is a unique approach that:

Presents a new and simple way to design themes and activities that guarantees hands-on learning experiences
Complements any curriculum
Offers suggestions on how to modify activities to respond to children's developmental levels
Includes an additional list of over 60 generic tactile activities that can be adapted for a variety of content areas

Hands-On Learning! is an ideal resource for early childhood educators seeking to provide positive experiential learning opportunities for young students.

Author(s)

Gwen Snyder Kaltman

Gwen Snyder Kaltman has spent more than 25 years working with young children, their parents, and teachers. She is the author of Help! For Teachers of Young Children: 88 Tips to Develop Children's Social Skills and Create Positive Teacher-Family Relationships and More Help! For Teachers of Young Children: 99 Tips to Promote Intellectual Development and Creativity. She has been a preschool teacher, director, college instructor, and educational trainer in various parts of the country and has also been a validator for the National Academy of Early Childhood Programs, the accreditation division of the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Kaltman has worked with young children in Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Tennessee, and Virginia. She has trained teachers working in Head Start programs in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and rural Georgia and in child care centers and preschools in the suburbs of New York City and Washington, DC. She has observed preschool classes in such diverse places as China, Easter Island, Greenland, India, Malta, Mongolia, Tibet, Tanzania, Venezuela, and native villages above the Arctic Circle and along the Amazon and Sepik rivers.

She earned her BS and MEd in early childhood education from the University of Maryland.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Introduction

Part I. How to Create Hands-On Learning Opportunities

1. A New Way to Design Themes and Activities for Young Children

2. Suggestions for Developing Hands-On Activities: Literacy, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Physical Development, and Creativity

3. Boxes as a Theme: Highlighting Some of the Specific Learning That Can Occur With Each Activity

Part II. Themes and Activities for Hands-On Learning

4. Balls

5. Cotton Balls

6. Hats

7. Index Cards

8. Mail

9. Mittens and Gloves

10. Paint and Paintings

11. Paper

12. Ribbons

13. Shoes and Footwear

14. Spoons

15. Toilet Paper and Other Cardboard Rolls

16. Water

17. Wheels

18. Wood

Afterword

Appendix: A Letter to Families Explaining the Importance of Hands-On Learning

Reviews

“The book is a wonderful brainstorm of activities. The author provides a list and explanation for each activity, making this an extremely useful and user-friendly resource for early childhood professionals."

Michelle Barnea, Early Childhood Consultant

“This text will quickly become a favorite for busy teachers wanting to provide engaging learning activities in their classrooms.”

Roxie Ahlbrecht, Second-Grade Teacher
Robert Frost Elementary School, Sioux Falls, SD

“The wealth of suggestions and materials that are readily available to teachers make this a worthwhile resource for educators, who can pick and choose the activities to incorporate into their curriculum.”

Susan Schipper, First-Grade Teacher
Charles Street School, Palmyra, NJ

“There cannot be enough resources for teachers who desire to encourage play-based, hands-on learning—and they all should! Gwen Kaltman’s book is practical and puts common household materials in the service of learning.”

James Clay, Director
School for Friends, Washington, DC

"An excellent supplement to any curriculum and to an early childhood teacher’s bag of tricks. The activities are bound to engage young children’s curiosity as they explore everyday objects with a new perspective.”

Judy Zimmerman, Executive Director
Mailman Segal Institute for Early Childhood Studies, Nova Southeastern University

Other Titles in: Teaching Methods & Learning Styles | Elementary Teaching Methods | Literacy, K-12

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This book is not available as a review copy.