- Jenny Portillo-Nacu
What Is Playful Learning and Why Does It Matter? Research shows that play is critical to children’s development and learning, especially throughout their early childhood years. Unfortunately, play has gradually been pushed out of classrooms to make time for more teacher-directed learning experiences. Playful learning is often described as having...
- David Jacobson
Birth-Third projects often begin with a focus on aligning community-based preschool and kindergarten. For the leaders of Lowell’s Birth-Third initiative, it was important from the outset that their project be broader in scope, spanning the...
- David Jacobson
Last Tuesday representatives from six Massachusetts communities came together at the Turnaround with Wraparound Showcase to share their experiences improving the services and supports they provide to children and families. Select schools in Fall River,...
- David Jacobson
There have been a number of exciting Birth-Third developments in Massachusetts in the last month or so. I will occasionally do a news round-up to highlight pieces that I think will be of special interest...
- David Jacobson
Last week’s post described how both Somerville and Springfield have developed professional learning initiatives that bring together prekindergarten and kindergarten educators. The work of Somerville’s Kindergarten Readiness Group and Springfield’s Birth-Third PLC begins to suggest...
- David Jacobson
Somerville is graciously sharing a video of David Kirp’s talk about the Union City, NJ success story: https://vimeo.com/89543325. In addition to Kirp’s book, Improbable Scholars, see PreK-3rd’s Lasting Architecture: Successfully Serving Linguistically and Culturally Diverse...
- David Jacobson
Joint Professional Learning for Preschool and Kindergarten Teachers Birth-Third is about improving the quality of education and care at three developmental levels—ages 0-3, 3-5, and 5-9—while improving alignment across these levels. A central alignment challenge...