Media Literacy for Early Childhood Professionals
Overview
Play forms the basis for how young children learn and grow. Encourage the development of media literacy skills by creating exciting and enriching hands-on opportunities for exploration. Children will build media literacy skills as they learn to wonder and ask questions.
Spotlight
MPT’s Media STEPs
These easy-to-follow Media STEPs help you and the families you support take charge of media’s influence and impact on children’s learning and development. The steps are designed to make it easier to incorporate media into early learning opportunities. Learn more by exploring the Media STEPs in the Early Years and Media STEPs in the PreK-3 Classroom.
Media STEPs Activity Planning Form: Follow the Media STEPs to design an engaging learning experience.
PLAY Resources
The resource and activity collections below are great examples of combining educational media with meaningful hands-on learning. You can use these examples as inspiration for creating your own activities using the Media STEPs Activity Planning Form.
This collection of inquiry-based activities combines PBS KIDS educational media with hands-on, nature-based learning to spark curiosity and promote creativity.
This collection of inquiry-based activities combines PBS KIDS educational media with hands-on, nature-based learning to spark curiosity and promote creativity.
These resources include multi-day sequenced experiences that are flexible enough to be adaptable for your program needs. All of the resources include activity plans, supporting materials for facilitators, related video clips and digital games, and take-home supports to encourage family engagement.
Teaching Tips provide teachers with detailed lesson plans for successfully integrating PBS KIDS digital media into their regular classroom instruction to build children’s core science content knowledge and inquiry skills. Find step-by-step lessons for using high-quality educational media to enhance standards-based teaching and learning. All lessons are aligned to the Next Generation Sciences Standards (NGSS).
This collection offers a variety of lesson plans and resources for educators to use to introduce children ages 5-8 to creative coding by challenging them to create their own stories, games, and animations.
Be deliberate when inviting children to watch a PBS KIDS show. These resources can help you add meaningful conversation and easy activities to their experience.
For totally screen-free play, check out:
Use the monthly Teach Your Way calendar and teacher planner to integrate media in creative and developmentally-appropriate ways, all year long!
