In the last class of a semester, Lilian Katz closes with a list of (continually growing) points to keep in mind in working with young children. For the first time she has made this list available in her new book,
Intellectual Emergencies. Here are just a few of her "notes:"
#1. Remember that adults know more about almost everything than a small child does -- except what it feels like to be that child, and how the world makes sense to him or her. Those things are the child's expertise which a teacher must learn in order to be able to reach and teach the child.
#3. Take care not to confuse what is exciting, amusing and fun with what is educative. Excitement is appropriate for entertainment and special occasions; it is short-lived pleasure -- easy come, easy go. But what is educative requires sustained effort and involvement, often includes many routine elements, and offers long term deep satisfaction rather than momentary fun and excitement.
#12. I believe we cannot have optimal environments for children in preschools, child care centers, and schools unless the environments are optimal for the adults who work in them. Certainly on some days what is optimal for the children will be obtained at the expense of adults (like Halloween parties), and on other days visa versa. But on the average, on a day-to-day basis, both the children and the adults must find their lives together satisfying, interesting, and worth living.
2. Stamp the sponge into paint. Use bright colorsand glitter for your paint. Teach the children to slap the sponge on the paper and FREEZE. This will help get nice prints for the effect. Do another color…and repeat. (You could have a different sponge for each color of paint or teach children to blot the sponge between uses.) 
4. Add squiggly circles at the neck of each bulb.
5. Connect the bulbs with a marker “wire”
6. Trim and tape or glue to a black piece of paper. 
WOW! What a beatiful display of lights!
Happy Christmas, Gemma by Sarah Hayes is a hidden gem. The book is narrated by a preschooler, the older brother to little baby Gemma. Throughout this family’s preperations for and celebration of Christmas he notes how he does what he is supposed to and his baby sister does not. She makes messes, pulls the ornaments off the tree, has terrible table manners during Christmas dinner and so much more! What makes this a gem in my mind is that no one ever corrects her, these are all age appropriate behaviors and the family is loving and accepting. 
How Santa Got His Job by Stephen Krensky is a fun and surprisingly practical story about Santa and how he developed the skills needed for his one of a kind job. It starts with Santa as a young man and as he keeps bouncing from job to job he acquires skills like going in and out of chimneys as a chimney sweep with ease and without getting dirty, develops a relationship with reindeer as a zoo worker and gets chubby eating all the food at a all night diner gig! Great book. Fun too!
