Giving Compass' Take:

• Linda Jacobson explores how the New Teacher Center’s Early Learning Leadership Program promotes learning through play for early development.

• This article highlights the importance of play and toys in development. How can donors help underprivileged children have access to these in and out of the classroom?

• Read more about play-based learning.

When Betsy Fox, senior director of early learning partnerships at NTC, scanned the growing array of leadership development programs focusing specifically on elementary principals, she felt there was a need for a model that covers some of the practical concerns and questions that principals might have — topics that range from why it’s important to buy blocks and Play-Doh for early-childhood classrooms to deeper issues, such as discipline practices.

The program includes six three-hour seminars, which focus on brain development, growth milestones and teaching practices that encourage language development and emerging math skills. But it also includes down-to-earth “walk and talks” in which the ELLP team tours a principal’s building to look at how classroom spaces and routines can be improved.

As NTC thinks about expanding the program to more districts, one challenge, Fox said, is how to ensure the people who have authority over principals are involved — not just those who work in an early learning division.

“It’s about shifting beliefs in a whole district,” she said. “You have to have supervisors of elementary principals on board.”

“They feel now that they know what to look for, and they know how to help a kindergarten teacher,” Baker said, adding that the program has “empowered them to contribute to good practices.”

Read the full article about the importance of learning through play by Linda Jacobson at Education Dive.