Whether you are a future or current early childhood educator, prepare yourself to teach your young children with this exceptionally comprehensive and applied textbook! The content will prepare you well with the background knowledge and practical skills required to plan for, implement curriculum across the content areas, and successfully teach young children, ages 3-8, in today's diverse, challenging, and exciting environment. With a depth of background knowledge not usually seen in a text containing practical, highlighted strategies, unit and lesson plans, suggested activities, recipes, and more, A Practical Guide to Early Childhood Curriculum, 9th edition, emphasizes the importance of a child-centered curriculum that encompasses the whole child -- physical, social, emotional, creative, and cognitive -- with an underlying purpose of guiding pre-service and practicing teachers to explore how young children learn; what they can learn; and the specific concepts, ideas, and strategies that are developmentally appropriate. Core chapters provide coverage of social studies, language development, literacy development, science, problem-solving and math, music and movement, creativity, art, and dramatic activities. Features of this popular text include: * A developmental approach to teaching young children by teaching how to plan experiences in accordance with the developmental needs of the children in the classroom or center. * A strong focus on the cognitive areas of the curriculum and effective methods of curriculum implementation. * Addition of National Standards and a plethora of helpful ideas address key concepts throughout the text. * Updated references throughout with many new references added to update and support the current text. * A condensed historical perspective and developmentally appropriate practice have been included in chapter one. * A new Chapter Three addresses a variety of assessments, their purposes, and how to assess young children. * An entire realignment of chapters in this new edition reflects the updated content and some titles have been changed to more appropriately identify the content they cover.