dap and integrated curriculum

While studying Early Childhood Education at byu, I researched, observed, and used Integrated Curriculum and Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP). Within developmentally appropriate practices, the CHILD must be the primary source of the curriculum. "It is through observation of emerging physical, social, emotional, and cognitive capabilities in children's natural activity that teachers can discover the content and form of activities to foster children's growth across developmental domains" (p. 3).

To put it simply, the curriculum developed will be tailored to your child's current development (according to their age, individual growth patterns, and cultural factors), while providing activities that will guide them to the next level. The interactive process used within the DAP curriculum utilizes activities that are relevant and meaningful to young children. Children are naturally curious and a DAP classroom facilitates their making sense of their world through active, hands-on, learning.

Integrated Curriculum is important because as children make sense of their world, they do not naturally discover something and instantly categorize it as a science, mathematic, or language "find." I felt that semesters I learned most in my college career, were those where my learning was crossing over in classes and helping me understand deeper. Integrated Curriculum, obviously, integrates all of the subjects that we have come to categorize. By working in Projects, the children focus on a goal to research and explore. The activities will focus on that theme while also helping the children focus on a specific field of study.

For instance: in a pre-k class the children had chosen "water" for their project of research. The activities all revolved around water, but they learned science as they studied the properties of water, music as they experimented with the sounds that water makes, visual arts as they drew pictures of the boats that they made and floated down and nearby stream, kinetics as they danced and learned choreography to a well-loved "Little Mermaid" song, language as they discussed the different words related to water: "lake, pond, stream, ocean, boat, ship, etc."

Instead of having the children groan when it was "math" hour, the children celebrated project time and couldn't wait to show their parents what they had learned at the end of each session. I loved taking time at the end of each session to write down the discoveries and progress of each child.