This paper is based on a 2-year research and development project undertaken at the School of Education, University of Leeds (England). The aims of the project were to work with 25 early years practitioners from both education and care traditions using an action research model to identify what activities in their settings were defined as literacy and mathematics, the nature of staff understanding of how children learn to be literate and numerate, and the relationship between early years' workers and parents' perceptions of how children acquire literacy and mathematical understanding. It explains that the purpose of the project was to design curriculum guidelines in literacy and mathematics for very young children. The paper offers and describes the following three exemplars from the projects undertaken by members of the research team: Communication Skills between Mothers and Babies; Mark-Making and Emergent Writing in a Parent and Toddler Group; and Mathematical Concepts in the Home and the Nursery Class. The three exemplars give a flavor of the creative potential of combining care and education approaches to curriculum design. The curricula materials are different from those emanating from "school" frameworks in the emphasis they place on the potential for learning in the "everyday" lives of children and their caregivers. (Contains 10 references.) (NKA)