Sandra Hesterman

Chapter 9 highlights the importance of play in young children’s science learning. During playful events, children can explore, discover, investigate and experiment, thus promoting critical thinking and scientific inquiry. Play pedagogies that promote children’s learning through playful activities are discussed. Four case studies are presented to highlight how EC professionals can encourage children’s scientific exploration and thinking through play.

Play is important to children's learning. When young children have interrupted time to playfully and independently explore, discover, investigate and experiment in stimulating, safe and varied environments, critical thinking and scientific inquiry are promoted. Notably, facilitating on-the-spot observations related to the 'nature of science' during play provides diverse opportunities to support children to construct scientific knowledge as a process of inquiry. This chapter describes the importance of play in early childhood and the 'nature of science' in the early years. This is followed by four case studies that highlight how studying scientific phenomena can be facilitated through play. Each case study describes the context of the children's play and how the educator/teacher expands on this to encourage their scientific explorations and thinking. The development of the case studies occurred in a school inspired Reggio Emilia educational philosophy.

Since the 1980s Australia has experienced increased demand for childcare services due to increased female work participation rates (Mastrullo and McCinally 2016; Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia 2005). This has resulted in the growth of the early childhood sector in the form of centre-based day care (CBDC) services both in number and scale of service provision. However, access to affordable early childhood education and care (ECEC) services is not equal across the country. Attendance may be dependent on family income, geographical accessibility, parents’ preference for various service types, such as CBDC, family day care (FDC), and kindergarten/preschool, as well as the availability of places within the service...

Our research examines early literacy development in a case study of five Aboriginal supported playgroups in Western Australia. Our discussion centres around the meaning of literacy in the twenty-first century, with particular emphasis on pedagogies for multiliteracies. Multiliteracies is understood in this research to align closely with Malaguzzi’s Hundred Languages of Children (Malaguzzi, 1998). We focus on meaning-making for young Indigenous1 children and their families who participated in supported playgroups. We provide an overview of the literature specifically concerned with multiliteracies and offer a critique of various approaches to early literacy learning that, we will argue, constrain rather than enhance children’s literacy acquisition.

ESD is not a particular programme or project, but rather an umbrella for many forms of education, those promoting human effort to rethink lifestyle challenges that relate to environment, society, culture and economy (Dyment et al., 2014; UNESCO, 2016). The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) provides the following definition of ESD and specifies its status: Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is a vision of education that seeks to empower people to assume responsibility for creating a sustainable future.

This chapter provides a brief overview of contemporary Western Australian early childhood education during a period of reform. It describes, through the lens of a University lecturer, the complexities early childhood teachers experience as they try to implement Australia's first national Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) in a policy environment of Australia's first national curriculum (for students aged 5-17 years) and an already overcrowded state-education early years curriculum. It also considers how the lack of practical support for teachers is crippling the crusade for nationally consistent, high quality experiences and programs in children's education. Finally the chapter examines some leadership and advocacy. initiatives that can facilitate the early years reform agenda. In this chapter the term 'teacher' refers to those who have completed a University degree in early childhood education (ECE). The term 'educator', as identified in the EYLF, includes early childhood practitioners (working directly with children in early years settings) who do not have early childhood teacher/education University qualifications.

The Year 1 classroom in which the following scenario took place is located at Bridgewater Central School, an independent coeducational school. The school's philosophy and approach were inspired by the Reggio Emilia schools in Italy. In the class there are 24 students aged 5-7 years and two qualified teachers, Amy and Reece. Both teachers aspire to implement social constructivism principles to support student learning and promote The Hundred Languages of Children (Malaguzzi 1994)...