Play Counts Early Education

06/11/2026

T oday is the third annual International Day of Play as established by the United Nations. This year's theme is Protect Pla...

05/23/2026

The American Academy of Pediatrics' new report on digital ecosystems makes one thing clear: today’s media is designed to capture attention and children are growing up in it.

For young kids, that matters. Their brains are still building skills like focus, self-regulation, and learning through real-world interaction.

Screens can help, but they don’t replace relationships.

Children build resilience through everyday moments: waiting, problem-solving and learning to work through small disappointments. If screens become the default, those opportunities shrink.

And it’s not just how much media kids use. It’s what kind they're watching. Fast, short-form content used alone doesn’t support development the way shared, educational content can.

Read more of our take in Beyond the Headlines: https://bit.ly/4sE61Tr

05/06/2026

New resource alert! EveryChild California is sharing the California Budget & Policy Center's latest ECE Chart Book, packed with downloadable tables and charts on California's publicly funded early care and education programs.

A great tool for your advocacy efforts! 👇

🔗 https://bit.ly/4emPM9O

05/02/2026

Finland starts school at 7, protects early childhood from pressure — and leads the world.
Everything about Finland's approach to early education contradicts the instinct most modern parents and systems feel — to start earlier, push harder, and introduce academic content as soon as possible.
Finnish children don't begin formal schooling until age 7. The years before that are deliberately protected — not from learning, but from academic pressure. Instead of worksheets, drills, and structured literacy programs, early childhood in Finland centers on play, social development, emotional skills, and the kind of physical, imaginative exploration that develops the foundational cognitive architecture formal learning will later require.
This isn't idealism. It's developmental strategy.
The brain regions most critical for creativity, problem-solving, self-regulation, and sustained attention are being built in the early years — and they require appropriate stimulation to develop properly. Play, social interaction, and unstructured exploration provide that stimulation in ways that premature academic pressure doesn't. Children who reach formal schooling with strong emotional regulation, social competence, and genuine curiosity engage with learning more effectively than those who arrive already fatigued by years of inappropriate academic demand.
By the time Finnish children begin structured academics at 7, they're developmentally ready — able to focus, follow instruction, and absorb material in ways that make the learning land rather than simply pass through.
Finland's system also features shorter school days, minimal homework, and highly trained, trusted teachers — all of which protect engagement and prevent the burnout that early academic pressure routinely produces elsewhere.
The results, consistently measured across international assessments, speak clearly: stronger outcomes, measurably happier students.
Readiness matters more than speed. Building the foundation takes longer than drilling the content — and pays compounding returns across an entire educational life."

04/10/2026

02/15/2026

"Students are not where they need to be or where we want them to be." This is a quote from the commissioner of the National ...

02/07/2026