ABSTRACT
The curriculum of the McMillan nurseries contained many elements people have already encountered: fresh air, free play, singing, and dancing. Embedded in this curriculum was the notion of rescue: the McMillan's version of early childhood education was designed for working-class children in the poorest areas of the city the disadvantaged of society. During the 1970s, the curriculum of early childhood education began to attract a good deal of critical investigation. Her account is an interesting summary of early childhood research in action: an overview of what respectable academics thought they needed to know more about at the time. Tough describes the early childhood curriculum in terms of five types of activity, investigational, representational, and receptional or listening activities, play and 3RS activities. During the last twenty years there has been a far-reaching critical review of the curriculum of early childhood by philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists, as well as by educationalists.
