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Curriculum and Guidelines

     
 
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Why High-Quality Education in Early Childhood Matters

High-quality education and childcare from birth through five years can make a lifelong difference. Several longitudinal studies have shown that children who receive childcare with quality education before they start school reap benefits in the following decades compared to their peers who don’t go through quality education programs before age five.

The Carolina Abecedarian Project

The Carolina Abecedarian Project conducted by the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill started with a simple design to see if at-risk children born between 1972 and 1977 from families in poverty could benefit from a high-quality childcare education between birth and five years.

Using LearningGames curriculum with a specific emphasis on language development, childcare providers worked with the children for five full years, longer than previous studies. The 200 games in the curriculum became a success and eventually was published as a book series called The Creative Curriculum Learning Games and still available today.

Follow up studies of this group of children occurred at ages 5, 8, 12, 15, 21, 30, and mid 30s. Through elementary and secondary school, the students who had the high-quality early childhood education intervention had higher IQ scores, higher achievement test scores in math and reading, fewer experiences in being held back a grade or placed into special education classes.

Even as adults at the follow up studies at 21 and later, those who had the high-quality education in early childhood had higher scores in math and reading, more years of education, higher rates of having a bachelor’s degree, a greater chance of having a skilled job, more likely to delay parenthood, and a greater chance of having a job.

Their health into their 30s was also better compared to those who did not go through the childhood education program. Those in the studies had lower rates of prehypertension and a lower risk of heart disease over the following decade. Men from the study had lower rates of combined hypertension and obesity compared to a control group.

Negative benefits for children participating in the childhood education intervention included lower rates of teen parenthood, being less likely to smoke marijuana, and less likely to have depressive symptoms compared to those without the early education.   

Even teenaged mothers of the young children who participated in early childhood education benefited. Once their children reached 4.5 years of age, the teen mothers had lower chances of having more children and higher chances of being self-supporting. They were also more likely to have finished high school and post-secondary training.  

This study emphasizes the necessity for quality childcare and education for children starting at birth, before the preschool years.

The Perry Preschool Project

In the Perry Preschool Project, a group of 123 three and four-year old African-American children from low-income families and at high risk of failing in school were split into two groups, one that went through a preschool program with the HighScope active learning method and one that did not attend preschool.  Children participated in the preschool program from 1962 through 1967 with follow-up studies conducted in the years after.

After following the groups of children from the program for years, researchers found that a higher percentage of those who went through the preschool program had higher rates of high school graduation, lower rates of mental impairment, and lower grade retention rates.

Even by age 40, differences in the two groups remained observable. More people in the preschool group had jobs at 27 and 40, higher median incomes, greater numbers of home ownership, a higher rate of owning a second car, and more likely to have a savings account.

As adults, those who were in the preschool group had lower incidences of drug use, fewer arrests, and shorter prison sentences if they were convicted.

The study authors conclude from the results that “all young children living in low-income families” should have access to quality preschool programs. Giving children a high-quality early childhood education can set them on a positive trajectory with benefits for decades.

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Curriculum for Early Childhood Education Classrooms

Your childcare center prepares children for school. Solid curriculum and teaching can give the children in your care a good foundation of learning to build upon.

The following sources provide you with lessons, teaching strategies, and guides for improving what and how you teach children.

Guidance for Using Picture Books or Classroom Kits from Workforce Solutions Childcare Expansion Speaker Series
Teaching with Poetry Books

Poetry can be a valuable way for children to participate in word play and reinforce content while cultivating community. Reading poetry with a sense of expression can build children's fluency skills and foster a joy for language. Poems can also strengthen students' comprehension skills as they close their eyes to "paint a picture" in their heads with images that they visualize from the words being read aloud.

Poems can be read individually, in small groups, and/or together in a whole group. Students can create illustrations to accompany poems. Reading poetry can also inspire children to create their own poems, or perhaps write their own book of poetry. Options and possibilities!

Teaching with Picture Books
Teaching with STEM Picture Books

Picture books with a STEM theme can inspire children to learn about the world around them. Key vocabulary can be previewed before the read-aloud. Children can work on projects individually, or collaborate in small groups, inspired by the STEM picture book theme. STEM picture books invite the reader to explore, problem solve, and make discoveries as they construct an understanding of new concepts and build their knowledge.

Mathematizing Read-Alouds

Picture books that focus on math concepts can promote children's mathematical thinking. Children can be invited to ask questions and consider what they notice as they discuss mathematical vocabulary, real-world connections, the author's writing style, and generate observations. Content-area math vocabulary can be displayed on a word wall. "Mathematizing" read-alouds can serve as inspiration for children to create their own picture book, or use technology to create an extension project, inspired by the mentor text.

Making Connections with Picture Books

Picture books can provide a lens through which we can navigate change. Children can discuss topics that the characters are experiencing, making a range of connections (text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to world). These connections can be placed on post-it notes, or on an anchor chart, to inspire discussion.

Picture Books with a Service Learning Connection

These picture books can also inspire children to make a difference in the world around them. Children can learn about how individuals in the text are taking action to improve their community and neighborhood, as they brainstorm what they can do to spread acts of kindness. These can be placed in a kindness jar, or displayed on an audit trail, as a space for students to represent their thinking.

Resources in Classroom Kits from the Workforce Solutions Childcare Expansion Speaker Series

The following are resources included in a complete classroom kit, provided to participants in the Workforce Solutions Childcare Expansion Speaker Series. You can also view one of these classroom kits in a Workforce Solutions Career Center nearest you. Only selected books will be included in Career Center kits. Class materials, such as markers and Post-It Notes, are part of the kits for COOGS speaker series session participants.

  • Post-It Note super sticky easel pads (to create anchor charts) Anchor charts are visuals created by students and teachers to show the most important information.
  • Markers (Broad Line for Drawing on Easel Pads)
  • Post-It Notes for student noticings to place on anchor charts
  • Composition notebooks for writing activities or to take notes during workshops

Books included in each classroom kit:

  • Hop to It: Poems to Get You Moving (by Sylvia Vardell & Janet Wong)
  • The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations: Holiday Poems for the Whole Year in English and Spanish (by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong)
  • Things We Eat (by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong)
  • What is a Friend? (by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong)
  • Be a Maker (by Katey Howes)
  • Mimic Makers: Biomimicry Inventors Inspired by Nature (by Kristin Nordstrom)
  • What's in Your Pocket? Collecting Nature's Treasures (by Heather Montgomery)
  • Measuring Penny (by Loreen Leedy)
  • Actual Size (by Steve Jenkins)
  • Ten Beautiful Things (by Molly Griffin)
  • Harlem Grown: How One Big Idea Transformed a Neighborhood (by Tony Hillery)
  • The Word Collector (by Peter Reynolds)
Resources for Early Childhood Professional Development

(Hanah - On the website, link the individual files in these worksheets to separate webpages)

Community Building Activities

Favorite Place Activity

I Am From Activity

Mathematizing Read-Alouds

Hintz, Allison, and Antony Smith. “Mathematizing Read-Alouds in Three Easy Steps.” The Reading Teacher, vol. 67, no. 2, 2013, pp. 103–08. https://doi.org/10.1002/TRTR.1182.

Kruger, Mollie Welsh, and Grace Enriquez. “Math and Picture Books: Story, Math Anxiety, and Building Joy.” The Reading Teacher, vol. 76, no. 6, Apr. 2023, pp. 735–39. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.2202.

Shape Activities

Let’s Practice!

Vocabulary Resources

Word Jars

Teaching Vocabulary PowerPoint

Literacy Resources

Choice Boards for Literacy Exploration

Playing with Poetry

Cultivating Visual Literacy Skills

Online Literacy Resources

The following online sources can help you to enhance literacy skills in the children at your early childcare facility:

  • Reading Rockets: This site focuses on literacy with tips for teachers on how to teach reading and writing to young children.
  • American Library Association (ALA) Recommendations: If you want a starting point for finding books to include in your childcare facility’s library (a process also called collection development), check out the recommendations and award-winning book lists from the American Library Association.
  • Notable Books List from Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC): For early childhood educators, the list of books on this site for younger readers – PreK through 2nd and for all ages -- birth through 8th -- will be of most use. This listing includes award-winning or other outstanding books.
Online Sources on Montessori Teaching Philosophy

Montessori teaching is a philosophy that requires specific training to learn. If you are interested in becoming a Montessori teacher, the following are the two largest, best-recognized organizations that offer accreditation of training programs and schools:

https://amshq.org/

https://montessori-ami.org/

If you’d like to look over Montessori lessons, materials, or schools for inspiration for your own classroom, check out the resources below:

https://www.instagram.com/ourmontessorilife/

https://www.instagram.com/ibelieveinmontessori/

https://www.instagram.com/missymontessori/

https://www.instagram.com/westside_montessori/

Listing of Texas Education Agency-Approved Preschool Curriculum Sources and Assessment Tools
Approved Curriculum Sources

The first nine pages of the following PDF include all sources approved by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for use with prekindergarten children, in English and Spanish. Selected programs completely conform to the state’s standards (TEKS). Approval for the list expires at the start of the 2028-2029 school year. The listing includes prices to help childcare providers find an option that fits into their facility’s budget.

https://tea4avfaulk.tea.texas.gov/ematevi/EMATREPORTS/RptInst/EM_CURR_ADPN.pdf

Approved Assessment Tools

To ensure that children learn and retain information from the lessons taught, you’ll need to assess them at various times. The following link includes the TEA-approved assessment tools for early childhood education with the price per student, content, and feasibility of use.

https://tea.texas.gov/academics/early-childhood-education/appendixhfinallistofpre-krecommendations.pdf

Free Mini Lessons from Vroom

Get ideas for creating your own lessons or find time fillers between activities with mini lessons from Vroom. These free ideas can help you to make every moment children spend at your facility a chance for learning and enrichment.

CIRCLE Infant and Toddler Curriculum

CLI Engage offers free digital CIRCLE infant and toddler curriculum. You must have a CLI Engage account to access this information. If you would like printed copies of the curriculum, you must purchase them. 

The curriculum package includes soft scripting, flexible lessons, and planning guidance for children from 0 to 36 months. Additionally, the entire curriculum is available in English and Spanish.

This curriculum aligns with Texas Infant, Toddler, and Three-Year-Old Early Learning Guidelines, Texas Rising Star standards, and Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework.

FrogStreet Pre-K Curriculum

Some providers across southeast Texas already use FrogStreet’s pre-K curriculum for their early childhood classrooms. This paid system ranks among the TEA-approved choices for young learners.

Caretakers of younger children can find separate curricula for infants, toddlers, and three-year-olds from FrogStreet, too.

The Creative Curriculum

Another state-approved pre-K curriculum used by area childcare providers is The Creative Curriculum. Like FrogStreet, The Creative Curriculum also has Infants & Toddlers and Preschool curricula. The Creative Curriculum’s LearningGames series was the program used for high-quality learning in birth through five for The Carolina Abecedarian Project that resulted in benefits for participants decades later.

HighScope Curriculum

The HighScope curriculum aligns with Texas’s preschool and infant, toddler, and three-year-olds curriculum and is state approved. You must purchase this set of curriculum from the company to use it. HighScope’s active learning approach to teaching young children was the program used by the Perry Preschool Project.

Teacher-Produced Emergent Curriculum

The most labor-intensive, yet customizable, teaching option is having teachers create the lessons for their students. To accomplish this some teachers use assessments or observations and tailor their lessons with emergent curriculum.

The emergent curriculum system partners teachers and students to become team members with the common goal of finding out more.  Teachers observe and talk to their students to learn their interests. The educator then uses those ideas to create activities and play to help children dig deeper and investigate the topics.

Once the teacher has a topic in mind, doing a Know-Wonder-Learn (KWL) chart with their students can help in planning the activities. The Know section gives the teacher information on what the children already know. The Wonder area provides the teacher with questions that learning activities will help answer. Wait until after the unit to fill in the Learn part of the chart to help the children see what they learned.

KWL charts and other interactive planning tools make emergent curriculum possible for many early education classrooms.

Find out more about emergent curriculum at the links below:

Bilingual Curriculum and Teaching Resources

The Texas Gulf Coast region is a melting pot of people who speak English, Spanish, Arabic, Vietnamese, and many other languages. There is a significant chance that you will encounter English Language Learners in your childcare operation.

Prepare to engage all children in your facility, regardless of their native language, with the following bilingual teaching resources and curriculum:

  • Colorin Colorado: This Spanish and English site includes professional development videos, teaching resources, and information about helping children to learn English.

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Learning and Development Guidelines
Learn About Teaching Infants, Toddlers, and Three-Year-Old Children

The Texas Early Learning Council outlined guidelines that guide early childhood educators in learning more about childhood development.

Sign up for a course on these guidelines through CLI Engage.

Or view a PDF of the information online.

Note that the information provided in these tools does not give curriculum for teaching children. But they do offer information on what children can do and learn throughout their earliest stages of development.

Preschool Guidelines from the Texas Education Agency

If you have older children at your childcare facility, you may need to look for developmental and learning guidelines for preschoolers. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) offers these guidelines in several formats, including comprehensive and streamlined.

For the most thorough information, read through the comprehensive guidelines that apply to both PK3 and PK4 groups.

If you only teach one of these, consider downloading the streamlined guide for only that age group. The streamlined PK3 guide only covers topics for three-year-old preschool students. Similarly, the streamlined PK4 guide focuses on the older group.

The TEA warns that these guidelines should only serve educators to know how preschool children develop and what things they can do based on their developmental age. Do not use the guidelines as a curriculum or assessment tool.

To ensure that your early childcare students are ready for kindergarten and the transition to following state guidelines, check out the following prekindergarten guidelines and best practices:

Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines and Best Practices 
  
Prekindergarten-Grade 2 Vertical Alignment by Subject

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Kindergarten Readiness

The Texas Early Childhood Guide to Kindergarten Transitions, while written specifically for Head Start centers, also has information that applies to childcare centers. This guide describes ways to help children to have the smoothest transition to kindergarten as possible. Information in this book includes classroom setup and management, guidelines for learning expectations, and positive discipline methods.

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Outdoor Learning

Unlike many areas of the country, southeast Texas has a relatively mild climate that allows children to enjoy outdoor activities all year long. Plus, having outdoor learning spaces fits into the Texas Rising Star requirements, which awards more points for childcare facilities that have multiple opportunities for outdoor activities.

Take this chance to add to your facility’s outdoor play space to include enrichment and learning activities. Find out more in the Classroom Assessment Record Form for All Ages under Outdoor Learning Environment. The following sources can help you with making your facility’s outdoor space more fun and educational for kids.

OLE! Texas

Outdoor Learning Environment (OLE!) Texas is a statewide program promoted by the Health and Human Service Commission to encourage the creation of healthy spaces for kids to play and learn in at childcare facilities and preschools.

The program helps to partner early childhood education facilities with professional landscape designers trained in creating ideal outdoor learning environments.

A model outdoor learning environment will have 12 indicators outlined by the Natural Learning Initiative at North Carolina State University. These indicators are as follows:

  • An outdoor storage area and classroom are present.
  • A vegetable garden that produces enough for children’s meals or snacks at the facility.
  • Some trees produce edible fruit.
  • The environment supports gross motor activities.
  • There are plenty of trees in the space.
  • The outdoor learning environment includes fruiting shrubs and vines and other shrubs.
  • Play equipment includes having enough wheeled and portable play toys for children to use.
  • A grassy area has adequate space for 25 or more children to play or have other activities.
  • Shade structures augment the shade provided by trees.
  • The space has at least 10 learning and play areas.
  • A curving path allows children to use wheeled toys.

Your facility does not have to immediately have all 12 indicators. Instead, choose one from the list and integrate it into your existing outdoor learning space to make strides in improving that area for children at your facility. The Natural Learning Initiative has suggestions for affordable ways to enhance an outdoor learning environment.

For more information about OLE! Texas and how it aligns with minimum standards and TRS requirements, refer to The Regulatory Framework for Outdoor Learning Environments in Texas Childcare Facilities.

To learn how you can upgrade your childcare facility’s outdoor learning environments, check out the OLE! Texas page for early childhood educators.

Guided Tour of Outdoor Learning Environment Best Practices

To see the best practice guidelines at a childcare center, view the Guided Tour of Covenant Child Development Center. This tour shows you how the elements fit together. Hover over each icon to learn more about that element and to view a short video or see pictures of it in use.

The most important lesson to learn from this guided tour is the relative size of the space. You don’t need a large playfield to accommodate all the recommended elements. Keep this in mind as you work toward integrating as many of the 12 recommended elements as possible into your childcare outdoor play and learning area.

Texas Rising Star Outdoor Learning Environment Checklist

If you choose to participate in Texas Rising Star (TRS), the program requires a well-planned outdoor learning environment.

For planning your outdoor learning environment, use the Outdoor Learning Environment Planning Form to ensure that the space meets the basic requirements from TRS. The form provides you with the minimum numbers of each type of element you need and examples to inspire you. Element groups on this planning form include:

  • Small group gathering areas
  • Outdoor activities with links to indoor learning
  • Natural elements
  • Materials and equipment to encourage outdoor physical play

If you already have an outdoor play area, use the checklist from the TRS site to ensure that your childcare facility has all the needed elements to meet the basic TRS requirements for this space.

Texas Rising Star offers many other professional development resources about outdoor learning environments. These resources include links to courses and materials to give you more in-depth information on these spaces and their importance in early childhood learning.

Guide to Integrating Nature Play into Your Childcare Outdoor Learning Area

If you have more interest in using natural elements, such as leaves, logs, rocks, tree parts, bamboo poles, and similar items, find out more about using these at Green Schoolyards America. This guide also includes ways to create natural play areas, such as making trails or obstacle courses with natural elements, building spaces for sensory stimulation, and establishing quiet spaces outside.

The National Wildlife Federation also has ideas in its guide on Nature Play at Home. Though written for parents, childcare providers can also use the information to find inspiration for their outdoor learning environments.

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Teaching Literacy
Poetry and Word Play

Poetry can be a valuable way for children to participate in word play and reinforce content while cultivating community. Reading poetry with a sense of expression can build children's fluency skills and foster a joy for language. Poems can also strengthen students' comprehension skills as they close their eyes to "paint a picture" in their heads with images that they visualize from the words being read aloud.

Poems can be read individually, in small groups, and/or together in a whole group. Students can create illustrations to accompany poems. Reading poetry can also inspire children to create their own poems, or perhaps dictate or write their own book of poetry. Please explore these resources for ideas.

https://janetwong.com/printables/

https://janetwong.com/poetry-suitcase/

https://www.georgiaheard.com/blog

https://poets.org/national-poetry-month/poem-your-pocket-day

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/children

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Oral Language and Vocabulary Development

Oral language and vocabulary can be developed through meaningful discussions and read-alouds. Activities such as word jars, word collections, vocabulary parades, and additional strategies for developing children’s oral language and vocabulary skills can be found in the resources below.

https://www.wordcollector.org/resources

https://www.debrafrasier.com/vocabulary-parades/

https://www.debrafrasier.com/paper-camp/

https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/oral-language

https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/preschool-and-child-care

https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/vocabulary

Visual Literacy

It is important to develop a child’s ability to discuss images in picture books and other environmental print. A collection of resources for extending children’s literacy skills through visual literacy activities can be found in the links below.

https://ivla.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/2018-TBSR-Author-Katz-edit.pdf

https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-incorporate-visual-literacy-your-instruction/

https://teacher.scholastic.com/polaroid/pdfs/visuallit.pdf

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Early Writing Skills

It is important to develop a child’s ability to place their thoughts on the page through dictation and early writing skill development. A collection of resources for extending children’s literacy skills in the writing domain can be found here- https://www.readingrockets.org/reading-101/reading-and-writing-basics/writing

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Family Literacy

Activities and strategies for extending children’s skills through family literacy activities can be found in the links below from Reading Rockets and the National Center for Families Learning.

https://www.readingrockets.org/literacy-home/literacy-tips-activities/growing-readers/family-literacy-activities

https://familieslearning.org/resources/learning-materials/

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