Growing Child Intellect: The Manifesto for Engaged Learning in the Early Years

This book began as a deep discussion among administrators, teachers, researchers, teacher educators, and educational consultants concerned about the critical reduction of play, engaged learning opportunities, and intellectually stimulating experiences in classrooms for toddlers through the primary grades. This group made a pact to organize and stand up for engaged learning by creating a comprehensive, research-based defense that they call The Manifesto. In Growing Child Intellect, this panel of experts pulls together the research, stories, and lessons learned from using the Project Approach in a variety of settings. Readers are invited to dive deeply with them into the world of project work, beginning with the neuroscience foundation, through the research in the field, and on to the challenges and successes.

Book Features:

• Provides a strong review of research on the benefits of the Project Approach.
• Explains research on the development of intellect from Mind Brain Education Science.
• Includes extensive examples of intellectually stimulating classrooms and learning experiences across diverse settings.
• Shows how to bring engaging experiences into classrooms while still meeting goals for required content and standards.
• Explains what each person can do, no matter position or program, to nurture children’s intellectual development.
• Provides practical advice for overcoming common challenges to implementing project work.
• Offers a short Declaration of Beliefs about engaged learning for easy sharing

“Voices from the Field” projects:

• The Path Project: Following Children’s Lead (pre-K)
• Powerline Project (1st grade)
• Reptile Project: Including Everyone (kindergarten)
• Roots of Intellectual Development: The Construction Project (toddler–pre-K program)
• Administrator’s Story: Bringing Project Work to a Charter School

Judy Harris Helm heads her own educational consulting and training company, Best Practices, Inc., in Brimfield, Illinois. She is the bestselling author of Young Investigators: The Project Approach in the Early Years, Third Edition. Karrie A. Snider is an assistant professor of early childhood education at the University of Central Missouri.