Encounters with Materials in Early Childhood Education

This text rearticulates understandings of materials—blocks of clay, sheets of paper, brushes and paints, fabrics, and plastics—to formulate new ideas about what happens when we think with materials and apply them to early childhood development and classrooms. Through a series of ethnographic examples and engagement with existing ideas of relationality in the visual arts, feminist ethics, science studies, philosophy, anthropology, and environmental humanities, Encounters with Materials in Early Childhood Education highlights how materials can be conceptualized as active participants in early childhood education. Updated to include choreographies with fabrics and the process of reparation with plastics, this second edition shows how educators, young children, and researchers have explored what materials are capable of in their encounters with other materials and with children. The book is key reading for undergraduate students, graduate students, and pre-service teachers in early childhood education and art education programs. Access the Instructor and Student Resources at www.encounterswithmaterials.com.