Early Years

Meet Chocoletta Éclair - sharp-eyed, quick-witted, and gloriously out of step with the world around her. She carries with her a flair for mischief, Chocoletta finds herself entering a boys-only race with surprising results. Plus, she discovers not only her own strength but also learns two valuable lessons - that friendship can surprise us, and that true victory is more than just crossing the finish line. Charming and brimming with heart, this book invites you into Chocoletta's world, where curiosity and courage challenge every rule.

More children are obese, enter school developmentally delayed and need special education. So Sally Goddard Blythe draws on neuroscience to unpack the wisdom of nursery rhymes, playing traditional games and fairy stories for healthy child development. She explains why movement matters and how games develop children's skills at different stages of development. She offers a starter kit of stories, action games, songs and rhymes.

A Southern woman from Mississippi, I am embarking on my debut novela heartfelt journey through the lives of three generations of resilient women: my mother, myself, and my daughter. Inspired by my own life, this story captures the essence of strength, love, and legacy within our family. For years, I've lived with a chronic illness, one that has shaped my daughter's perception of me as only a disabled mother. But there is so much more to who I am. This book is my way of showing her the vibrant, determined person I have always been, while reminding her of the unshakable lineage of strong women she comes from. At its core, this is a story of empowerment, connection, and the enduring strength passed from one generation to the next.

Children move like quick fire from the fantastic to the everyday, when free to express the genius of play. The Genius of Play addresses what play is, why it matters, and how modern life endangers children's play. Here is an outspoken Children's Play Charter for parents and teachers, which celebrates the playful spirit of childhood.

How to nurture young children's well-being and learning to reverse the erosion of childhood? Children's lives have been speeded up by commercialisation, 'adultification', and the government's 'nappy curriculum' which 'schoolifies' them and pushes quasi-formal learning too soon. Now, in twenty-three hard-hitting chapters, leading educators, researchers, policy makers and parents advocate alternative ways ahead for slowing childhood, better policy-making and, above all, the 'right learning at the right time' in children's growth ? learning when they are developmentally ready.

Meet Chocoletta Éclair - sharp-eyed, quick-witted, and gloriously out of step with the world around her. Though only a child, she has an uncanny knack for finding trouble, whether by accident, curiosity, or a determination to do things her own way. She carries a talent for mischief, a habit of tumbling headlong into the absurd, and a suspiciously modern way of seeing things that leaves grown-ups baffled and friends struggling to keep up. In a world of rules, routines, and raised eyebrows, Chocoletta is forever asking the questions nobody else dares to ask, noticing the details others miss, and charging straight towards adventure with more confidence than caution. One minute she is caught in a muddle of her own making; the next she is exposing nonsense, outsmarting expectations, or turning the ordinary into something wonderfully unexpected. Full of humour, heart, and a delightful streak of chaos, Chocoletta's adventures are as lively as they are unpredictable. Wherever she goes, confusion is never far behind, but neither is courage, imagination, or the sense that life is far more interesting when seen through her eyes.

With new information carefully added, this book examines the crucial early years from a child's perspective. It draws on the latest scientific research to show how the first few years determine the way children develop, body and mind, for the rest of their lives. The keys to this development are parents, and in particular mothers. Raising Happy Healthy Children presents convincing research to show how a baby's relationship with its mother has a lasting, deep impact. Recent social changes, such as delayed motherhood, juggling of work/life balance, limited uptake of breastfeeding, and use of parent-substitute baby equipment and electronic devices, are interfering with key developmental milestones that are essential for wellbeing in later life.

The Well Balanced Child is a passionate manifesto for a "whole body" approach to learning which integrates the brain, senses, movement and play. This fully revised edition includes a new chapter with a story and movement exercise that parents can use to help children reach their potential.