Creative Expression and Play in Early Childhood

Preface As everyone knows, young children have active imaginations and are naturally playful. Ideally, all of the programs that are designed for young children, infancy through age eight, would capitalize on these remarkable assets of the early childhood years. The early childhood educator's knowledge of child development; repertoire of instructional strategies; and personal/professional beliefs, values, and attitudes have major ramifications for young children's creative expression and play If adults who work with young children are too controlling, creativity is undermined and play virtually disappears from early childhood settings. If the adults are too laissez-faire, play behaviors and modes of creative expression get stalled at less mature levels. In the third edition ofCreative Expression and Play in Early Childhood,we try to show novice and experienced early childhood teachers and caregivers the roles, responsibilities, and strategies that lead to a more child-centered, play-based curriculum--one that nurtures children's creative expression in all of its forms. Background This book is an outgrowth of our combined nearly 50 years of teaching college courses on children's creativity and play to early childhood and elementary students at various stages in their careers--students seeking initial licensure or certification, whether they are enrolled in a community college, four-year teacher-preparation program, or fifth-year Professional Development School (PDS)--as well as practitioners who are seeking continuing certification or a master's degree in the field of early childhood. As is the case with many textbooks, we wrote this book because it was the one we wished we had when we first began teaching an early childhood course on children's play and creativity. We discovered that we were both searching for a text that would integrate creative expression and play into the total preschool-primary grades curriculum, a text that would treat play and creativity as fundamental to developmentally appropriate practice. Our overarching goal in writing this book is to further the professional development of preservice and inservice teachers. We seek to prepare professionals who not onlyknow aboutchildren's play and creative expression, but who alsoknow howto provide these experiences andknow whychildren's creative expression and play are so important. With the third edition, our goal remains the same. It has been gratifying to see the book that we conceptualized received enthusiastically by our colleagues in the early childhood profession and to see the book endure for a third rebirth. It has been a privilege as well as a labor of love to be able to revisit our work, to linger over its language, and to craft it into an even better book. We must confess to some reluctance when our editor, Ann Davis, first suggested that it was time to begin thinking about a third edition. The first edition was published in 1993, and the ink seemed barely dry when we began discussions for the second edition in 1994. Likewise, the second edition was published in 1997, and beginning the work of revising it in 1998 seemed premature, at best. Yet, as we began to draft the revision plan, we were reminded of what a dynamic field early childhood education is. So much had happened that there really was more to say, and we felt that we could say it better and more clearly than previously. We now appreciate Ann's wisdom in nudging us into the second, and now the third, edition ofCreative Expression-and Play in Early Childhood. Need We are aware that many publications exist that use the wordcreativeorplayin their titles. It distresses us that some of these "creative activities" books make minimal contributions toteachers'creative growth, much lesschildren's.Instead, they are compilations of "cute" ideas designed to "keepIsenberg, Joan P. is the author of 'Creative Expression and Play in Early Childhood', published 2000 under ISBN 9780130873088 and ISBN 013087308X.