Caring Spaces, Learning Places: Children’s environments that work by Jim Greenman
Greenman devoted his life’s work to studying, understanding, and constructing environments for young children. He published articles and smaller works over the years but this text is a crowning compendium of his findings and passion. Though as lengthy as a textbook, it reads conversationally. Components of nurturing environments are carefully developed, peppered with opportunities to evaluate a personal environment, giving the reader support to and direction on changes that make a compelling difference to young children.
Elements included that make the concepts accessible and understandable:
Photos
Exercises
Graphic organizers
Evaluations
Scenarios
our job as we design children’s environments to create a nest for children as they navigate the demands of growing up and to make them believe that they can fly in the world which they will inherit.
Published by Exchange Press, readers from any number of countries will feel comfortable in the pages. Child Care Information Exchange, owner of Exchange Press, sponsors a biennial World Forum that has become a gathering place to exchange ideas and build coalitions to solve regional or global issues that concern young children.
The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every story whispers his name by Sally Lloyd-Jones
The Jesus Storybook Bible delivers a theologically correct collection of stories written with a vocabulary that inspires wonder. The listener – child – is honoured in each story as a specially invited guest to learn about Jesus.
Written from the perspective of the meta-narrative (the entirety of scripture is telling one story), each Old Testament story connects the child to the central person, the central theme: Jesus. From the introduction:
There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them. It takes the whole Bible to tell this Story, and at the centre of the Story, there is a baby. Every Story in the Bible whispers his name. He is like the missing piece in a puzzle – the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together, and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture.
The deluxe edition comes with the stories on CDs, read by the incomparable David Suchet. It is worth the extra investment to own the audio CDs. No wonder it has been translated into over seven languages.
In addition to the children’s Bible, there are many more resources available on the website: larger size books for reading with a small group, curriculum, downloadable resources, and animated stories that are rotated on a frequent basis.
Check the website often: www.jesusstorybookbible.com
FaceBook: facebook.com/JesusStorybookBible.