This series of the third, fourth, and fifth annual reports to the Bernard Van Leer Foundation on the Mt. Druitt Early Childhood Project of Macquarie University, Australia, describes the general activities, program developments, and research activities of the project for the period 1977-1979. The main objective of the project is to develop, implement and evaluate five different preschool programs in the Mt. Druitt area. These programs are the contemporary program, the behaviorist program, the competency program, the cognitive program, and the home base program. The approach in all of these programs changed over the years from an interventionist one to an interactionist one. Research activities focused on language, parent expectations, behavior observation, mathematics, parent perceptions of their roles and of the programs, teacher observations of parent and child, and children's play and nutrition. (Author/SS)