At the time of this review, there are no available published research studies on The Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care, 3^rd Edition. Learning Games®, a set of 200 activities offered as a part of the curriculum, has been validated by research to show that children who participate in these games in child care and at home have better measured development than those who do not play them or who play only a few (Sparling et al., 1991). However, more rigorous research published in peer-reviewed journals is needed in order to establish evidence for positive effects of The Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care, 3^rd Edition on children's learning outcomes. 

Reference:

Sparling, J., Lewis, I., Ramey, C. T., Wasic, B.H., Bryant, D. M., & LaVange, L.M. (1991). Partners: A curriculum to help premature, low-birth-weight infants get off to a good start. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 11(1), 36-55. 

Approaches to Learning: The Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care, 3^rd Edition fully promotes teaching practices, learning experiences, and developmentally appropriate content. Many of the curriculum's resources provide guidance and research-based teaching practices that are effective in supporting positive child outcomes (e.g., Book Discussion Cards, Intentional Teaching Cards). Volume 1: The Foundation promotes research-based teaching practices for planning of the day and environment, scaffolding, multi-domain learning, adjusting to the needs and abilities of children, and considerations for family and culture.

Social and Emotional Development: Volumes 1–3 offer support for social and emotional development for children ages birth to 12. The curriculum provides extensive strategies to support teachers toward building good relationships and supporting peers in play. It also highlights examples of positive role modeling and integration of social experiences into play scenarios (e.g., Book Discussion Cards, Intentional Teaching Cards). The curriculum provides guidance on observing and attending to children's interests and need as a key to responsive caregiving.

Responsive Relationships and Interactions: The Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care, 3^rd Edition fully promotes responsive relationships and interactions with children. Many of the curriculum's resources provide activities, supports, and learning objectives about being responsive to and having interactions with children. Intentional Teaching Cards, Volumes 1–3, and Book Discussion Cards include guidance and information on promoting relationships and interactions with children. The curriculum provides guidance on child behavior and promotes teacher flexibility.

Language and Communication: The curriculum supports children's language development and acquisition and communication. The publisher, Teaching Strategies, also provides suggested supplemental materials that can be purchased to support language and communication. Language and literacy are embedded throughout routines and experiences with guidance on the environment, working with families, and understanding key strategies in working with children who are DLLs (e.g., Volumes 1–3, Intentional Teaching Cards, Book Discussion Cards).

Literacy: The Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care, 3^rd Edition fully promotes literacy development with children. The curriculum provides specific guidance, activities, and learning objectives to support children's literacy development and exposure. Intentional Teaching Cards, Volumes 1–3, and Book Discussion Cards offer guidance on promoting literacy development, scaffolding, and literacy skills with children who are DLLs. Additionally, the curriculum also promotes reading to children as an important daily activity. Volume 1: The Foundation describes a literacy rich environment.

Mathematics Development: The curriculum promotes teaching practices, learning experiences, and developmentally appropriate content that support positive child outcomes for math development. Volume 3: Objectives for Development & Learning provides guidance on elements and terms for math learning. Mighty Minutes activity cards scaffold math learning with activities. Volume 1: The Foundation and Volume 2: Routines and Experiences embed math concepts into daily interactions across domains of learning.

Scientific Reasoning: The curriculum highlights research-based teaching practices that support positive child outcomes for scientific reasoning. Volume 1: The Foundation promotes observing and lesson planning based on inquiry and observation. Volume 2: Routines and Experiences provides guidance for learning indoors and outdoors. The curriculum also includes guidance for providers on extending learning and planning for adequate time into daily schedules to support learning goals for children.

Perceptual, Motor, and Physical Development: The Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care, 3^rd Edition promotes research-based teaching practices that support positive child outcomes for perceptual, motor, and physical development. It provides some perceptual development activities and Volume 1: The Foundation offers guidance on equipment and materials for large and small motor skill development. Hand-washing is embedded throughout the curriculum. The curriculum does not provide guidance on sensory processing in the environment.

Daily Routines as Opportunities for Learning: Many of the curriculum's resources provide guidance on promoting learning during daily routines. They also offer specific guidance on planning the day and week, including appropriate scheduling. Mighty Minutes provides quick activities throughout the day, particularly during transitions at the beginning and end of daily caregiving activities. Volume 1: The Foundations includes guidance on daily routines.

Play and Exploration: The curriculum provides guidance on creating an environment for specific experiences. It also offers suggestions to support children to use materials for open-ended exploration, curiosity, and creativity. Volume 1: The Foundation explains that the curriculum is play-based and how children learn through play. Volume 1 and Volume 2: Routines and Experiences include guidance for the provider to set up, organize, and implement a play-based environment of learning. Intentional Teaching Cards provide support and step-by-step sequences for providers to adapt activities for children at different developmental levels and ages. Additionally, the curriculum supports extended choice time to encourage children's individual interests and promotes discovery learning, referring to activity centers as "experience areas."
 

Scope: The Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care, 3^rd Edition identifies all areas of development and learning: social and emotional, physical, language, cognitive, literacy, math, science and technology, social studies, the arts, and English language acquisition. It integrates domains as outlined in Volume 2: Routines and Experiences. Volumes 1–3 and Intentional Teaching Cards show color-coded sequence of learning in all domains and clearly identify sequence and expectations for stages of development.

Sequence: The curriculum provides guidance on how to support children as they move through the developmental progressions. Many resources offer information and guidance on assessing children's developmental abilities and scaffolding them through the next milestones in a flexible and responsive manner (e.g., Volume 2: Routines and Experiences, Volume 3: Objectives for Development & Learning, Intentional Teaching Cards). They also provide evidence of sequence in all ELOF domains. Color-coded learning objectives are sequentially identified for each learning domain. Overlapping age expectations allows for individualization and children with special needs.

A thorough review of all curriculum materials in relation to the ELOF domains and sub-domains indicate The Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care, 3^rd Edition is fully aligned with the ELOF. All ELOF sub-domains are supported throughout its materials. Materials provide guidance and opportunity for observing skill development and intentional teaching. Volumes 1–3 offer guidance on environment planning, daily schedules, teachable moments, child development knowledge, and working with families. The curriculum also supports flexibility for individualization and children with special needs. It provides resources and suggestions for working with families of children who are DLLs. Additionally, the curriculum meets the relevant requirements as stipulated in the CCDF Final Rule. 

Learning Goals: Volume 3: Objectives for Development & Learning provides specific, measurable, and developmentally appropriate goals for children's learning and development. These goals are supported by learning experiences described throughout the curriculum. Volume 1: The Foundation also provides guidance for using observations, interests, temperament, and culture as tools for supporting individualization during lesson planning, daily routines, and organizing the environment.

Learning Materials: Volume 1: The Foundation provides guidance on selecting developmentally appropriate learning materials (e.g., Organizing Your Home and Your Day-Setting Up Your Home). Volume 2: Routines and Experiences offers guidance on routines and experiences, as well as choosing materials. Intentional Teaching Cards and Mighty Minutes provide guidance on ways to extend learning and adapt to the needs of children, including children who are DLLs and children with disabilities.

Environment: Volumes 1 and 2 provide specific guidance on designing well-organized and engaging indoor and outdoor environments that promote active exploration and support all children's development. The curriculum offers guidance on including all children, especially those who are English language learners. Volume 1: The Foundation explains misunderstandings about DLLs and provides guidance on the stages of learning a second language. The curriculum includes guidelines for providers to set up their space and differentiate experiences for the children based on what is available and unique to each home. It also offers support for including all children and families of different cultures in communication.

Schedule and Routines: Volume 1: The Foundation provides guidelines on scheduling activities and routines and being responsive to the needs of individual children. It discusses the planning of schedules and routines in a way that pays attention to how behaviors and challenges are impacted by routines. It also addresses interacting with children based on their individual needs. This helps to ensure providers pay special attention to how individual children learn each day.

Ongoing Observation and Documentation: Intentional Teaching Cards, Volume 2: Routines and Experiences, and Volume 3: Objectives for Development & Learning provide guidance about ongoing observation and documentation. Activities within the curriculum include developmental trajectories. Volume 1: The Foundation references forms for providers to observe children individually and as a group for both individual and group planning.

Standardized and Structured Assessment Instruments: Volume 3: Objectives for Development & Learning provides guidance on observing and assessing children's behaviors and abilities. The curriculum details flexibility for individualization using color coding. It also lists strategies to support the observations and gives providers tools for designing learning experiences. All curriculum materials promote children's development based on a review of the most current research in the field. The publisher, Teaching Strategies, promotes the use of comprehensive assessment solutions for early childhood programs. They encourage the use of GOLD® with The Creative Curriculum® to support effective teaching and assessment in the program to allow for more time to be spent with children.

Communication with Parents and Families: The Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care, 3^rd Edition promotes family involvement. Many of the curriculum's materials provide support and guidance for communicating with parents (e.g., Volume 1, Chapter 4: Building Partnerships with Families). Volume 2: Routines and Experiences includes family partnership letters for providers to connect families to children's learning in care. The curriculum provides guidance on encouraging families to speak their home language with their children and bring it into the provider's home. It also offers suggestions for communicating with families in their preferred language when possible.

Engaging Parents and Families: Volume 1: The Foundation provides support and guidance for engaging with and building partnerships with families. It also includes a list of questions for providers to choose from to get to know families. The curriculum offers guidance on challenging situations (e.g., Family Conference forms, Family/child information forms). Volume 2: Routines and Experiences includes family partnership letters. The curriculum provides guidance on understanding the influence of culture in the lives of young children and on learning about the cultures of the families. It also gives guidance on working with stressed families. Additionally, it provides guidance on appreciating differences and understanding the influence of culture when getting to know families in Volume 1. It suggests culturally responsive ways of interacting with diverse children and families. However, the curriculum does not provide specific guidance on working with tribal families. 
 

Active Exploration: The curriculum provides opportunities for exploration. Indoor and outdoor play, movement experiences, and physical development are embedded across the curriculum. Volumes 1 and 2 include guidance on how designing a well-organized, engaging indoor and outdoor environment support children's development across all domains.

Interactions that Extend Children’s Learning: The Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care, 3^rd Edition offers strategies to support providers in building positive relationships with children. It embeds interactions into routines and experiences. Materials provide suggestions for questions and ideas for creatively extending learning. Volume 2: Routines and Experiences includes guidance on following children's lead, responding to each child, and extending learning.

Individualization: The curriculum provides specific guidance on how to individualize learning experiences and goals. Volumes 1–3 and Intentional Teaching Cards provide support for individualization throughout the day. Many of the curriculum materials offer guidance on how to assess children's developmental abilities and scaffold them through the next developmental step or millstone in a flexible and responsive manner. The curriculum color codes learning objectives and identifies the objectives sequentially for each learning domain. It provides specific guidance on working with children who are DLLs, children from diverse backgrounds, and children with disabilities or other special needs. The curriculum also provides guidance on how culture may influence children's development in a variety of areas. Mighty Minutes mentions ideas for individualizing activities for age and ability.

Interactions: The Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care, 3^rd Edition provides guidance about culturally responsive ways of interacting with diverse children and families. Volume 1: The Foundation offers guidance on cultural awareness in all areas of development and for providers to support children and families who are DLLs (e.g., Getting to know families, understanding the influences of culture, making families feel welcome). Volume 2: Routines and Experiences provides guidance on being culturally responsive and engaging children throughout the day. Intentional Teaching Cards, available in English and Spanish, include guidance about interacting with children.

Learning Experiences: Volume 1: The Foundation supports cultural awareness in all areas of development. It also provides examples of how children's cultures can influence their development in a domain. The curriculum includes guidance for providers to support children, including children who are DLLs. Volume 2: Routines and Experiences offers guidance on being culturally responsive and engaging children throughout the day. Sample forms are given for providers to collect and curate conversation with families to help integrate family values, beliefs, and customs into the program.

Learning Materials: Many of the curriculum's materials are culturally appropriate and offer suggestions for providers to incorporate stories and music from children's home culture into the family home environment (e.g., Intentional Teaching Cards, High Five Magazines). Volume 1: The Foundation provides strategies for bringing the languages of families who are DLLs into the home. Volume 2: Routines and Experiences includes strategies for respectfully including materials that show the cultures of children in the home. However, the curriculum does not provide specific guidance on working with children from tribal families.

Scaffolding Strategies: The Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care, 3^rd Edition provides specific guidance to scaffold the development and learning of children who are DLLs. It color codes learning objectives for each domain and offers guidance on working with children who are DLLs, children from diverse cultural backgrounds, and children with disabilities or other special needs. Volume 1: The Foundation offers information on how culture may influence children's development in a variety of ways. Volume 2: Routines and Experiences provides support for including all children and specific strategies for working with children who are DLLs.

Home and Tribal Languages: The curriculum provides guidance on incorporating stories and music from children's home culture into the environment. Volume 1: The Foundation includes strategies for incorporating the languages of families who are DLLs into the program. Intentional Teaching Cards and High Five Magazines are offered in English and Spanish. Additionally, the curriculum offers suggestions in each area of routines and experiences for integrating children's home language, both written and oral. Volume 1 provides guidance on appreciating differences and understanding the influence of culture when getting to know families. It also includes guidance about culturally responsive ways of interacting with diverse children and families. However, the curriculum lacks specific guidance on being linguistically responsive to tribal families.

Teaching Practices and Interventions: Volume 1: The Foundation offers specific guidance about working with children with disabilities or special needs. Volume 2: Routines and Experiences provides guidance on inclusion and specific strategies for working with children with attention challenges while being responsive to each child at their individual age and developmental stage. Additionally, the curriculum offers guidance on adapting the environment and presenting materials to accommodate children's individual needs and abilities.

Learning Environment: The curriculum provides specific guidance on adapting indoor and outdoor equipment and being flexible with routines to make all experiences accessible to all children. Volume 2: Routines and Experiences includes guidance on including children who have attention, comprehension, or physical challenges. It also offers strategies for supporting learning and participation.

 

Individualization Based on Interests: The Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care, 3^rd Edition provides guidance on individualization based on the interests of children. Volume 1: The Foundation promotes choice time, a specific time of the daily schedule for children to choose what they would like to do, who they want to play with, and what materials to use. Child Planning Forms, Individual Differences in Volumes 1 and 2, Book Conversation Cards, Mighty Minutes, and Intentional Teaching Cards provide support on responsiveness to children's interests and activities.

Individualization Based on Strengths and Needs: The curriculum's materials provide information on assessing children's abilities and scaffolding them through the developmental steps in a flexible and responsive manner (e.g., Child Planning Forms, Individual Differences, Intentional Teaching Cards). Learning objectives are color-coded and identified sequentially for each learning domain. This allows providers to scaffold for strengths and needs within an activity or experience to adapt to ages and needs. 

Mixed Age Groups: The curriculum offers guidance on supporting learning within mixed age groups. Intentional Teaching Cards provide support and step-by-step sequences for providers to adapt activities for children at different developmental levels and ages. Progressions of developmental learning are shown in color-coded charts (e.g., Red for infants, green for preschool, purple for kindergarten). Volume 1: The Foundation includes information on the developmental characteristics of children, from infants to school age. It also has ideas and strategies for providers to support children at different developmental levels. Book Conversation Cards provide guidance on sharing the Highlights Hello book collection with children by ages and stages (e.g., young infants, mobile infants, toddlers, 2-year-olds).
 

Professional Development: The publisher, Teaching Strategies, offers face-to-face professional development for introductory implementation and specified intensive training in the development areas of math, language, and social and emotional development. The Teaching Strategies GOLD® platform offers training on completing development assessments. Online professional development is also accessible.

Curriculum Materials to Support Implementation: The Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care, 3^rd Edition includes a comprehensive set of materials to support implementation. The Guide can be used to orient providers to the curriculum materials and how they fit together. The publisher offers three volumes to support providers as they implement the curriculum: Volume 1: The Foundation, Volume 2: Routines and Experiences, Volume 3: Objectives for Development & Learning. Additionally, Daily Resources provides detailed guidance on what to do each day (e.g., Teaching Guides, Intentional Teaching Cards, Mighty Minutes, Book Discussion Cards, etc.).

• Fidelity Tool: For an additional fee, providers can purchase Coaching to Fidelity: The Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care and The Fidelity Tool Provider Checklist. These support providers in implementing The Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care, 3^rd Edition. Coaching to Fidelity includes The Fidelity Tool Checklist for providers to reflect on their practice. The Fidelity Tool for Administrators provides guidance for administrators to determine how well providers are implementing the curriculum.