The Whole Child: Developmental Education for the Early Years

The Whole Child is a practical methods book that explains how to teach young children in ways that foster healthy development.  This text focuses on the “whole child” and what they need from the learning environment in order to thrive. It pictures the child as being made up of “selves” – emotional, social, physical, creative, and cognitive–and then examines each of those selves in turn.  The physical self includes not only large and fine muscle development, but also the handling of routines because such things as eating, resting, and toileting contribute much to physical comfort and well-being. For the emotional self, the book considers ways to increase and sustain mental health, to cope with crises, to use discipline to foster self-control, to cope with aggression, and to foster self-esteem. Included for the social self are ways to build social concern and kindliness and learning to value the cultures of other people. The creative self covers the areas of self-expression through the use of art materials and creativity as expressed in play and applied in thought. Finally, the cognitive, or intellectual, self is considered in terms of language and literacy development–the development of reasoning and thinking skills via the emergent approach, and the development of specific reasoning abilities.

ISBN: 978-0137153053

Author: Joanne Hendrick and Patricia Weissman