Curriculum for Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth to Age 8

Laken Fritz Michele Black Education 111 March 28, 2012

A schools curriculum reflects the program’s philosophy, goals, and objectives for children and has guidelines for teachers about how to target children’s development. A curriculum provides the framework for the classroom and teacher to stay focus and on topic with what needs to be taught to the students. PA’s standard for learning helps inform teachers about designing a curriculum that provides multiple learning opportunities.

There is a three step process for early childhood programs and school districts for the alignment of assessment and curriculum to the PA standard for learning for children.

In the process each document that there is provides compressive information about the importance of curriculum, assessment, or classroom observation so children can succeed better in school. There would be more use of hands on activities and concrete material. I think this would be a great idea especially for the younger students. More and more kids are becoming hands on and I think that all elementary level schools and programs should have more concrete and hands on activities for kids.

I think the PA standards do help teachers out in early childhood curriculums because they need the foundations for learning. The young students need that foundational learning and to have an effective curriculum to get them started in their education. Their first teacher is what sets them up for their future education and it’s crucial that their early learning is set up with a good curriculum. Play is a big component in early childhood education as well as allowing children to construct knowledge, develop self-regulation skills, acquire content knowledge, and have a greater understanding of a variety of concepts with the guidance of teachers. A good curriculum focuses on planning a base format upon principals in these guidelines and can lead to curriculum plans and assessment systems that meet school or programs needs and comply with PA’s standard of learning and benefit the children, teachers, and parents, throughout the whole process.