This frank and open book explores the importance of helping children build the content knowledge that is critical to educational success. It illustrates how to capitalize on children’s natural curiosity and use various tools — literature, visuals, artifacts, the arts — to develop language, concepts, and basic literacy skills. Kindergarten teacher Sue Kempton tells stories from her own classroom that reveal how — by layering tools and integrating concepts — her children’s understanding grows. In each classroom vignette, you will experience Sue’s conversations with the children (Story), explore the reasoning behind her teaching (Unpack), observe the children’s thoughts (Conference/Reflection), and see their writing samples (Original Writing). The book also includes links to over 40 minutes of online video, exploring these strategies in Sue's real classroom community.