Encounters With Materials in Early Childhood Education (Changing Images of Early Childhood)

“Through vivid vignettes and extensive theoretical grounding, readers are challenged to reconsider taken-for-granted assumptions about the role of materials in the early childhood classroom. This groundbreaking, deeply layered book will remain important to me as I revisit and reflect on its ideas, and I highly recommend it as a should-read for educators in the disciplines of both art education and early childhood education.”

–Pat Tarr, PhD, retired art and early childhood educator, Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada

“‘What if…?’ This essential question propels this open-ended exploration of the ways that young children and responsive materials interact in early childhood classrooms. The authors invite us to ponder with them, to notice, to question, in ways that move us beyond the conventions and constraints of traditional practices and provisions for young children. Now and again startling, all the time provocative, this text rewards careful and considerate reading, as it reminds us how steadily we have a tendency to structure even the most ‘unstructured’ aspects of early childhood curriculum, prohibiting in reality productive encounters between children and the ‘stuff’ that offers unknown possibilities.”

–Christine Marmé Thompson, Professor of Art Education, Pennsylvania State University, USA

Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw is Professor of Early Childhood Education in the Faculty of Education at Western University, Canada.

Sylvia Kind is Faculty Instructor, Department of Early Childhood Care and Education at Capilano University, Canada, and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Faculty of Graduate Studies at the University of Victoria, Canada.

Laurie L.M. Kocher is Faculty Instructor, Department of Early Childhood Care and Education at Capilano University, Canada.