Many years ago, when Cammy taught preschool and kindergarten, she had a poster she hung up in her classroom near the parent board. It contained an excerpt from All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. In it, the author summed up the essential life lessons learned in early childhood classrooms. He wisely concluded, “…everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.”

Although much has changed in the three decades since Fulghum wrote this, the life essentials that he described, such as sharing, living a balanced life, noticing simple wonders, and caring for others and the environment, are as important as ever, and early childhood is a wonderful time to start teaching them.