In the lead up to National Reconciliation Week (27 May–3 June) and in celebration of the 2022 theme ‘Be Brave. Make Change’, we reached out to Aboriginal artist and early childhood professional, Emma Stenhouse to share part of her journey, experiences and wisdom. Emma describes herself as Indigenous artisan, Ngarrindjeri woman, artist, weaver, printmaker, designer […]
Music plays an essential part of infant sensory development. Julia Rennick shares various forms of music that might be used with babies and toddlers as a way of fostering relationships. This piece may be helpful for educators when considering the connection between infant and toddler learning, their programs and how music can be used to […]
Professional love, also known in the academic literature as teacherly love or pedagogical love, is a wonderful addition to any early childhood education and care profession, particularly where infants and toddlers are present. Defined by Page (2018) as “a term to comprehend the reciprocal pedagogic relationship which develops in positive interactions between primary caregiver, child […]
How do you talk about early childhood education and care? The words we use daily to describe early education matter. Professional language is one way to advocate and begin the changes necessary to support the work we do every day. If we use this professional language every day with children, families and our community—in documentation, […]
Inspired by the comments on my previous post, I wanted to write about the practical ways in which educators can facilitate teaching of music in early learning settings. There is growing evidence about the numerous benefits of teaching children music. In early learning settings, music can be used as a learning tool to facilitate growth […]
Through Australia’s bushfires, COVID-19 and a number of other highly stressful events in the past few years, educators, learning communities, families and children have shown resilience and supported each other’s mental health and wellbeing. However, the uncertainty, rapid change and accompanying feelings we might have experienced—anger, grief, loss, shame or the feeling of being overwhelmed, […]
Each year hundreds of Australians receive Australia Day Honours for the outstanding service and contributions they make to everyday life in Australia. This year, three notable Australians, The Honourable Jay Weatherill, Megan Mitchell and Professor Lester-Irabinna Rigney, were honoured for their contributions to early childhood education. The Honourable Jay Weatherill, AO, received his Officer of […]
Catharine Hydon and Kerrie O’Neill share nine compelling reasons why now is the time for students studying early childhood education and care to be in services doing placement. It’s been bubbling for months but do you realise the gravity of the problem? The niggling concern identified by the pre-service sector that many students have not […]
KAREN HOPE shares what she has learnt about being ‘creative’ during the pandemic and engaging with children over Zoom, as well as the resources she has found useful—specifically from Nick Cave and the Reggio Emilia Educational Project. Early childhood educators and children have spent so much time this year online. We Zoom in and out. […]
Has 2020 had an impact on children’s learning? Catherine Beckingham, an early childhood teacher from Melbourne talks about the interruption of children’s learning this year, what they’ve learned from spending time at home and what’s next. Catherine also mentions early childhood learning theories by Vygotsky and Bronfenbrenner, specifically broad learning such as social and cultural. Many parents […]
