Book excerpt: For Student Teaching/Practicum courses in Early Childhood Education. This lively practicum guidebook, with its accessible prose and interactive approach, weaves the experiences, the curriculum, and key information with reflective aspects, to best prepare and support student teachers as they enter the real world of educating young children. Featuring an interactive approach to meet the needs of instructors who prefer a textbook and students who want a more active and concise guide, this text gives students and instructors an accessible, lively introduction to field experiences with practical applications to student teaching. The text introduces pre-service teachers to both fundamentals of teaching and also to team-teaching, working with families, and how to handle diversity-related issues. Chapters with real-life situations and boxed features that illustrate teaching practices help students connect the theory and knowledge they learn in the classroom with fieldwork experiences. To reinforce reflective teaching, and to give instructors multiple ways to interact with their students and placements, each chapter contains several features such as journaling, notes from student experiences, and lessons from current Mentor Teachers. This updated edition covers teacher preparation in regards to professionalism and ethics, curriculum, observation and assessment, and diversity. Throughout the text, additional material on infant-toddler care, a growing trend in the field, is adequately addressed.