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This book challenges and inspires early childhood professionals to advocate for change in the field while giving them the research underpinnings and tools they need to take real action and bring back active, play-based learning for the development and education of the whole child. Including chapters on debunking myths in early childhood education, advocacy basics, and strategies for speaking up, it dispels the fears associated with speaking up and banishes all doubts about the need to advocate bravely and widely, proving the need to change course and providing practical and actionable steps for speaking to decision makers and convincing them to pursue change.
To help students experience joy and discovery, while also preparing them for future schooling, we need to understand the connection between how they develop and how they learn. Pica brings decades of experience in education to advocate for this change.
Written as a follow-up to the bestselling What If Everybody Understood Child Development?, this book includes:
“Rae Pica’s powerful, thought-provoking book provides rare and uncommon sense. This should be mandatory reading for all new teachers. Our kids would be MUCH better off if we practiced the way this book suggests we do, and so would the educators around them.”
~ Eric Jensen
Movement is not misbehavior! Current policies in the early childhood field ask teachers to treat children as though they exist from the neck up—even though research clearly demonstrates that the mind-body connection is vital to development. Rae Pica advocates for active learning, not only because it’s developmentally appropriate but because doing so promotes a calmer, friendlier, and less challenging learning environment.
Section I provides theory, research, and language to advocate for active learning. Section II offers suggestions on how to create a positive learning environment, and Rae offers some of her own past missteps in hopes that readers will be able to learn from her mistakes. Section III contains 200 ready-to-use movement activities that can be easily implemented into the day. Most require no materials, and every activity includes “Curriculum Connections,” so readers can understand and clearly explain why the children aren’t “just playing.”
So many wonderful practical ideas and full of sensible advice….Feeling energised already!
Dr. Lala Manners, author, The Early Years Movement Handbook
Available in paperback and as an e-book!
Teachers often look for new ways to teach concepts. Active Learning Across the Curriculum by Rae Pica is a wonderful addition to any elementary teacher’s professional library. “Movement is a young child’s preferred mode of learning,” is exactly right and an integral part of an early childhood classroom. This book has multiple ways of using developmentally appropriate practices to ensure children understand basic concepts. It also goes a step further as it addresses such issues as “personal space.” As an early childhood advocate, I would highly recommend this book for novice teachers and masters alike as they search for fresh ideas.
Becky Villareal, Retired Teacher
Rae Pica has it just right! In Active Learning Across the Curriculum, fun and fresh activities jump off the page, and we dive into irresistible best practices in six content areas. Strikingly, this gifted author makes such great sense of extensive research in the field that we are at once absorbed into a way of thinking—rich in content, rationale and robust pedagogy. Thank you sincerely, Rae Pica, for this opportunity to join you in delivering on promises and practices, which forever enhance the lives of young children. Your astute book—crisp, concise and consistent—is, indeed, easy to pick up and hard to put down. Kudos! With great appreciation!
Sally Durbin, National Board Certified Teacher
In this collection, Rae Pica keeps kids front and center as she provides thought-provoking commentary and actionable insights on topics such as the Common Core, the self-esteem movement, and standardized testing. Sure to inspire discussion, this pocket-size powerhouse of educational philosophy includes
Get ready for fun! These new and classic games, each with a noncompetitive twist, are sure to get children moving, laughing, and learning. You’ll find everything you need to know to play over 100 great games. Every game provides benefits for the whole child by supporting cognitive, social/emotional, and physical development. Perfect for rainy days, sunny days, and every day, the games in this book offer heart-rate-raising, team-building, friend-filled fun!
Jump into Literacy combines children’s love of active games with over 100 lively literacy activities. These joyful games will engage the whole child in moving and playing as a way to develop the literacy skills needed for reading and writing. Each activity is complete with a literacy objective, a materials list, instructions, and extension activities. Most of the activities include suggestions for related music and children’s books. From “The Alphabet in Action” to “Floorwriting” and “Follow That Letter,” the activities in Jump into Literacy bring active, authentic learning to the classroom!
Winner of an Earlychildhood NEWS Directors’ Choice Award, an iParenting Media Award, & a NAPPA Award from National Parenting Publications!
Bring science to life by helping children learn about their bodies, animals, the seasons, weather, and much more. The activities in each chapter are organized by level of difficulty, and each incorporates fun, exciting science experiences with movement. Most activities require few or no materials and include related children’s books or music to extend the learning. The science skills index is an invaluable reference tool, giving teachers flexibility to plan around children’s interests.
Activities such as The Mirror Game, Dinosaur Stomp, and Water and Ice will actively engage children as they explore science concepts!
Jump into Math is the perfect way to turn children’s love of active games into learning opportunities! The activities in each chapter are organized by level of difficulty, and each one incorporates fun, exciting math experiences with movement. Most activities require few or no materials and include related children’s books or music to extend the learning. The math skills index is an invaluable reference tool, giving teachers flexibility to plan around children’s interests.
Activities such as Light and Heavy Word, The Number Hunt, and Three-Legged Creatures will actively engage children as they explore new math concepts!
Toddlers need—and love—to move! Young children are ready to use their muscles and minds as they stretch, dance, wiggle, explore, and learn. This physical education program incorporates more than 50 developmentally appropriate activities designed to help toddlers channel their energy in creative, beneficial ways as they develop habits that encourage lifelong health and fitness and success in all areas of learning.
Age focus: 18 months-3 years. Softbound book, 128 pgs., and CD, 23 tracks.
Give children opportunities to explore all kinds of movement, to find and use their own personal rhythms, and to feel good about participating in physical activity. This curriculum incorporates more than 80 developmentally appropriate movement activities designed to help preschoolers and kindergartners develop habits that encourage lifelong health and fitness and success in all areas of learning.
Everything you need to get started is here, including:
Age focus: 3-5. Softbound book, 160 pgs., and CD, 27 tracks.
Physical education is a critical part of every early childhood curriculum. Children need to move to channel their energies in creative, beneficial ways and to learn habits for lifelong health and fitness. Early Elementary Children Moving & Learning provides more than 100 developmentally appropriate activities that contribute to a well-rounded curriculum in any classroom or program.
The book contains
Age focus: 6-8. Softbound book, 232 pgs., and CD, 28 tracks.
Enhance your classroom with 200 movement-inspiring activities for children ages four to eight. Wiggle, Giggle, & Shake encourages children to think and solve problems, to recognize and explore their feelings, and to participate physically in their own learning. Explore 38 popular classroom themes, such as transportation, seasons, holidays and celebrations, animals, and occupations, with these simple, fun movement activities. Wiggle, Giggle, & Shake is a creative resource for engaging young children’s imaginations, as well as their bodies!
Thanks to transitions that are both fun and educational, the minutes between planned activities become moments that children actually look forward to. Filled with movement activities, games, fingerplays, chants, and songs, Teachable Transitions offers a variety of ways for your preschoolers to move through their day. Organized by categories such as “Arrival,” “Outside,” “Snacks & Lunch,” and “Cleanup,” each transition is presented in an easy-to-follow “Ready, Set, Go” format!
Written for the parents of children birth to age five, A Running Start offers techniques for raising a child with the right balance of free play and structured activity. Pica shares:
Reviews for the 5th edition of this textbook:
“It is well-written, easy to read, and supplies enough information that my students are able to grasp the basics of music and movement with young children. It does not continually repeat topics throughout the text as some textbooks do. Each chapter has its own defined characteristics and personality, yet they all support the main topic of music and movement education.”
“This is the most relevant textbook out there for an early childhood music and movement course! It includes all the important components for the class and students seem to enjoy reading the book.”
“As a fifth edition, [the] author stands on her own shoulders, in addition to those of many other great names in the history of music and movement methodology, in providing a rich resource for long-term application across the full spectrum of early childhood and elementary movement activity. Research is so richly interwoven into the narrative that it could serve as a review of literature on many different related subjects. I will use this as a text book for my methods classes and as a resource for my own teaching for many years to come, I am sure.”
“Your book reassured me that it is OK for me to let (my daughter) be a kid and not give into the super kid’s mentality many parents have. THANK YOU!!!!”
“I absolutely LOVED your book–this message is so very important. There have been a couple of other books on the subject, but yours was better researched and covered the topic more fully and clearly!”
“In this highly readable book, it’s obvious that Rae Pica understands the dilemmas and needs of parents today. With her warm and reassuring style, she offers a clear picture of the research and theory behind what’s essential in childhood – along with sound advice and practical suggestions.”
“Useful ideas, songs, and movements to keep kids alert and engaged between activities. Excellent!”
“This is the best child development book I have ever read! This book is straightforward and applicable. My favorite part of your book is the section, “What’s a Teacher to Do?” The advice given in these sections is extremely useful in the classroom. it is so refreshing to read a book that gives practical application to use to solve the problems!”
Rae Pica has it just right! In Active Learning Across the Curriculum, fun and fresh activities jump off the page, and we dive into irresistible best practices in six content areas. Strikingly, this gifted author makes such great sense of extensive research in the field that we are at once absorbed into a way of thinking—rich in content, rationale and robust pedagogy. Thank you sincerely, Rae Pica, for this opportunity to join you in delivering on promises and practices, which forever enhance the lives of young children. Your astute book—crisp, concise and consistent—is, indeed, easy to pick up and hard to put down. Kudos! With great appreciation!
Teachers often look for new ways to teach concepts. Active Learning Across the Curriculum by Rae Pica is a wonderful addition to any elementary teacher’s professional library. “Movement is a young child’s preferred mode of learning,” is exactly right and an integral part of an early childhood classroom. This book has multiple ways of using developmentally appropriate practices to ensure children understand basic concepts. It also goes a step further as it addresses such issues as “personal space.” As an early childhood advocate, I would highly recommend this book for novice teachers and masters alike as they search for fresh ideas.
“For those of us who believe that ‘play is the right of every child,’ this collection of non-competitive, non-embarrassing, non-eliminating, and yet fun and instructional games for young children, is highly welcomed in the early childhood community! I love the way Rae describes why each game is important in terms of cognitive, social/emotional, and physical benefits thus helping teachers articulate to parents and administrators that play is an ‘essential part’ of any curriculum for young children.”
“What a pleasure to read common sense wisdom about what young children need!”
