Read a sample chapter of this book!

Keep track of your teaching plans, whether you use an emergent, project-based approach or a variety of curriculum resources.

Focused Early Learning provides a simple and innovative framework for organizing teaching plans into a realistic, classroom-based format that focuses on the unique needs of each child. Field-tested with teachers across the country, this easy and adaptable planning tool covers many facets of early childhood education. It helps you develop a rich classroom environment with specified learning areas; build relationships with children and families; integrate academic learning; respond to children's interests; and coordinate planning with assessment processes.

See also Focused Portfolios.

"Gaye Gronlund, an experienced teacher of young children as well as a noted consultant, offers teachers a 'how-to' book solidly grounded in developmentally appropriate practice. Its strategies for planning for children's learning are systematically organized to make the teaching task more manageable.

"Acknowledging teachers as decision-makers, the author offers them a framework for organizing their thinking about children's learning in a rich classroom environment and for building respectful, caring relationships among adults and children in early childhood programs. Teachers are invited to observe what happens, reflect on its quality, and decide what to do next.

"This planning framework translates good practice into systematic analysis, in a form very usable by teachers of young children. Teachers will find it enlightening as well as practical in its emphasis on organizing environments, planning activities, and reflecting on outcomes. It is highly readable, with many illuminating stories from real teachers trying out the framework for themselves.

"In response to the current 'push-down' of academics, this book makes it clear that 'Quality programs are children 3 to 5 years of age are academic programs' and offers teachers a variety of strategies for demonstrating this fact within settings designed for active, not passive, learning. This outline for planning, observing and reflecting can be used for communicating to parents and supervisors as well, deflecting potential criticism by demonstrating professional thinking about teaching and about children's learning."
—Elizabeth Jones, faculty, Human Development, Pacific Oaks College, coauthor of Emergent Curriculum and The Play's the Thing

Learn more at www.focusedportfolios.com.