Every Head Start teaching team needs to plan learning experiences and use teaching strategies in a thoughtful and intentional way. Teachers will continue to use developmentally appropriate approaches within the context of achieving positive child outcomes in the eight domains of child development. Five guidelines support teaching teams as they move into the new era of accountability that requires teaching with intentionality and purpose.
Seeing the Big Picture in Head Start (available on the ECLKC)
Domain 3: Mathematics
Domain 3 of the Head Start Child Outcomes Framework identifies domain elements and indicators that describe long-term learning goals in mathematics for children ages three-to-five years old. Teaching teams realize that language, literacy, and mathematical problem solving are important building blocks of school readiness. Teachers learn about effective classroom strategies that enhance children’s understanding of numbers and operations, geometry, patterns, measurement, and position in space.
Domain 3: Mathematics (available on the ECLKC)
Domain 7: Approaches to Learning
Research on school readiness indicates that children's approaches to learning are powerful predictors of their later success in school. Teachers build children's approaches to learning throughout the program day and across all kinds of planned and spontaneous experiences. Resources include strategies that promote and stimulate learning situations for children's development.
Approaches to Learning (available on the ECLKC)
Domain 2: Literacy
Domain Element: Early Writing
Children begin to understand that writing is a way of communicating; they use scribbles, shapes and pictures to represent their ideas. .
Domain Element: Early Writing (available on the ECLKC)
Domain 4: Science
Domain Element: Scientific Skills and Methods
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics -- Early Childhood Mathematics Education: Promoting Good Beginnings (April 2002)
This is a joint position of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).
Domain Element: Scientific Skills & Methods (available on the ECLKC)
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and National Association for the Education of Young Children Early Childhood Mathematics Education: Promoting Good Beginnings (April 2002) A joint position of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)
http://www.nctm.org/about/content.aspx?id=6352
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Curriculum Focal Points for Prekindergarten
The curriculum focal points and related connections are the recommended content emphases for mathematics in prekindergarten. It is essential that these focal points be addressed in contexts that promote problem solving, reasoning, communication, making connections, and designing and analyzing representations.
http://www.nctm.org/standards/focalpoints.aspx?id=300
Epstein, Ann S. 2007. Chapter 4: Mathematics and Scientific Inquiry (pp. 41 -- 65) [PDF, 167KB] in The Intentional Teacher: Choosing the best strategies for young children’s learning. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children
This document is attached and we have received copyright permission from the National Association for the Education of Young Children to use this chapter from the book, The Intentional Teacher.
