“Look!” squeals three-year-old Eleanor.  “I can pick up these two balls! It’s magic!”

Have you ever seen young children playing with magnets? The “magical” properties of magnets never fail to captivate early learners and spark a play buzz!

Children learn by investigating, observing and figuring out how things work. Magnets fuel that curiosity in a way that is simple and accessible.

As they explore the properties of magnets through play, children develop a deeper understanding of scientific principles by asking questions such as “why” magnets stick together and “how” magnets work.

Magnetic play helps lay the foundation for further investigations as we guide the children through activities such as developing hypotheses and theories, solving problems and making predictions. By observing and studying cause and effect, our young STEM explorers can begin to develop a basic understanding of concepts such as magnetic attraction, magnet strength and magnetic forces and fields.

Playing with magnets is a great way to introduce STEM into a child’s life. If you need to record observations, this is a great time to take a seat and watch as children incorporate predictions and conclusions into the learning experience.

To set the stage for magnetic exploration, I put out a wooden tray filled with magnetic wands and magnets in a variety of shapes and sizes. Then I give each of the children an aluminum tray to define their play space and keep the magnetic balls from rolling off of the table onto the floor.

When children add magnets or remove them from the tray, they are learning about math concepts such as more, less, off and on. They’re also learning about patterns, shapes and sizes.

I also fill simple sensory bins with colored rice or coffee beans. Then I add magnetic and non-magnetic objects, as well as a magnetic wand for finding the “treasures.” I set two baskets nearby to encourage the children to sort their objects.

“Is this magnetic?” asks one child. “This should work,” says another. “It’s silver!”

Making a prediction means focusing on what we think will happen next based on our prior knowledge. It’s considered a guess if we have no prior knowledge. We can help children develop their prediction skills when we are playing with magnets, reading a story or finding our way home on a walk.

When the children at our early learning center play with magnetic wands and balls, they love to “catch” the balls on the wand and count how many they have. Sometimes I will see them intentionally create patterns.

Playing with magnets is a powerful math and science activity in early childhood classrooms because it fosters conversation and exploration and provides a fun and engaging incentive for children to make predictions and observe outcomes.

If you can, give the children a long period of time to investigate the magic of magnets and work through their theories. This extended time to conduct STEM investigations and learn through focused play is a gift that they may not be given in their future academic lives.

It will amaze you when you see the amount of time that children will spend exploring the magnets on their tray. It’s a calm, quiet and very, very focused activity that slows down even our most frenetic friends.

As we continue to play, we engage in a discussion about the forces that pull magnets together. We keep it pretty basic. This young group hasn’t shown any interest yet in the whys and the hows of magnetic forces and fields. They are too enchanted by the magic of it all. I have been down this trail before. When the brain is ready, the questions will be asked and we will have the resources available to answer their questions and push the experiments and investigations a wee bit further out of their comfort zone. There will be many more experiments for extended learning. But, for now, exploring the magic of magnetism suits us all just fine! 

A few words of caution. Magnets are dangerous if ingested. We hope that our students no longer put everything in their mouths, but we can’t count on it. You know your students better than anyone. It is best to err on the side of caution and use large magnets that cannot possibly fit into a child’s mouth if you are at all concerned. It will make the day of magnetic play more enjoyable for YOU if you don’t have to worry.

Stay safe and take care!

“Look, look! Come and see what is inside this flower!”  It’s a warm, late-spring day and our friends are scattered around the yard, discovering the new surprises that have popped up overnight. The flowers are finally showing their beautiful blooms!

“Is it a bumblebee?” I ask. They look at me—their eyes big with wonder. It’s been many months since we’ve had flowers, and their young brains may not have retained that bit of information. “Sometimes the bees go inside of the flowers to get nectar and pollen. Nectar is like a little energy drink for the bees.”

“Nooooo! It’s black!” says Jamison. His friends gather around to take a closer look at the flower. We have just formed our curriculum for the day—or at least for the moment. We have science as we explore and gain a better understanding of the world around us. We have math as we count and discuss attributes and take parts and join them into a whole. We have language as we learn new vocabulary words. We have art at our fingertips as we explore the beauty of this flower in all of its blossoming glory.

I tell the children that the black pieces are called anthers and the tall green piece at the center of the flower is the stigma. “This is where the pollen and nectar are kept,” I say, “and why the bees like to buzz around inside of our flowers.”

“Can we drink the energy juice?” asks Eve, much to the delight of her giggling friends. Eve smiles, but I know that her brain is really trying to work this out.

“I think we should leave it for the bees,” I suggest.

“The bees will make honey from the nectar,” four-year-old Noah explains. “We can eat the honey but we can’t eat the nectar!”

I see Noah’s friends nodding, as this makes complete sense to them.

“Let’s have honey with our snack this afternoon,” I suggest to the delight of our class.

“This flower has five petals!” I turn around to see our subitizing queen, Annika, at it again. Subitizing is the ability to “see” a small number of objects and know how many are there without counting. When we roll dice, we don’t need to count the pips, we know the number when we see it. Some children grasp this concept easily, while others need to work with it a bit more.

We continue to count the petals, find the stem and leaves and find the anthers again. Individual flower parts are not exciting on their own but, when these pieces are put together, they make something more complex and more beautiful. The learning flows from the lips of the young friends as they share insights and ideas and think out loud as they process all that they are absorbing.

We find the dandelions on the hill and we are again measuring, building our vocabularies and investigating with the field of gold. “Look at how long THIS stem is!” shouts Violet.

I look over to see Claire in a world of her own. Quietly splitting the stem into pieces. Ah, decomposing. Math. Deep exploration to develop an understanding that will make sense in a classroom years down the road.

This is the learning that makes me smile. This is what learning can look like if we give children time to explore and move and play and figure it out in nature. This is the good stuff that sticks in the brain, like nectar to a flower. The foundations of math, science, exploration and investigation. Give your children the gift of nature and let the learning flow on their terms. The math and science and language are all just outside of your door. Enjoy!

Rock balancing or CAIRNS has found its way into our play again this week!

Stacking and balancing rocks encourages math and science investigations that are always developmentally appropriate. My adrenaline starts flowing and a smile grows on my face when a two-year-old child exhibits an innate sense of how to balance many more rocks than her much-older peers. Children have their own unique gifts; we just need to give them opportunities to discover their strengths and talents.

For the record, environmentalists strongly discourage this practice because it disrupts the natural order of nature. I get that. When we are hiking or playing in the woods, we follow that rule. Our outdoor classroom has a dry creek and wonderful rocks collected from parking lots and estate sales. These are our math and science rocks that are used for play.

Children who are math-and-science ready are great problem solvers. When our friends explore the concept of stacking, they make observations, collect data and investigate shapes and sizes and weight. We count, we estimate, we balance, we hypothesize. It’s science, math, language and play all wrapped up in the beauty of nature. Nothing makes me happier than finding hidden stacks of rocks somewhere in our play yard—stacks that have been left behind by inquisitive children who didn’t need to please anyone but themselves.

Two-year-old Lauren created the “ant house” above. I love that she decorated her house with flowers. I watched as she wandered over to the sandbox on the other side of the play yard to return with a handful of sand to sprinkle on the roof. I love that intentionality and vision. I love that she is barefoot with a toenail that is black and blue and may fall off, evidence of some already-forgotten adventure that didn’t go as planned. I love that she is laying the foundation for later learning in math, science and engineering through play.

You can call it STEM, STEAM or STREAM, but it’s basic childhood play. It’s long hours of uninterrupted exploration as a child works to bring an idea to fruition. It’s the brain on fire, building the synapses of learning. It’s the cement in the foundation of a lifelong learner—the evolution of a visionary, problem-solving, risk-taking master.

I often hear early educators worry out loud about meeting the benchmarks or standards required by their programs. My tip for this is to bring in natural materials, give your children TIME to play, take photos and sit down with your standards. You will be shocked at how easy this can be. Engaging young children in daily problem-solving activities will help them develop the processing skills that pave the way for future lessons in math and science. This rock-stacking experience is all about shapes and spatial reasoning. This is geometry! This is engineering! This is spatial orientation as our rock stackers exhibit an understanding of location and ordinal position. Our young stackers are often meeting standards and benchmarks before they have the vocabulary to tell us what they are doing. They gather data about their surroundings as they figure out how to balance a specific rock in the stack. And if that rock won’t balance, they’ll try another. This is organizing data and information. They are busy making predictions about outcomes by playing with rocks.

Always bear in mind, however, that brain development varies in children.

Some children may not yet be ready to meet certain standards. Some may be advanced in one area, while others may be advanced in another.

This is when you are smarter than the standards! You can’t teach a rock to balance if the rock can’t balance. You can’t teach a brain a concept if it isn’t developmentally ready to process that concept.

This is why it’s important to reassure parents that their children will be just fine in life, regardless of their child’s test scores on any given day. You can look parents in the eye on Parent Night and share all of the standards that their children have mastered through play. Then you can assure them that play is laying the foundation for the brain development and problem-solving skills that will serve their children well throughout their lives.

So bring in the math rocks. Your students will soon be sorting, comparing and working with attributes. This is an early educator’s dream.

Best of all, it’s fun! Fun for the child, a true delight for the teacher to behold and such wonderful food for the brain.

Stay safe and keep on rocking on!

“LOOK!” screams a four-year-old with such joy that we know this isn’t a garden-variety “I want to share something with you” moment.

As the gang rushes to her side, they come to a complete standstill, frozen in awe.

Oh happy day! Some kind souls have shared a fort with the community! There before us stands the most wonderful teepee-shaped fort that we have ever seen. Forts have been popping up all over town this year—and I couldn’t be happier about this trend.

This 14-foot high monument has sparked wonder and curiosity in all of us. We have stumbled upon a STEM adventure! This is math, science and engineering play that allows the learning to come naturally and at each child’s developmental level. This is also sharing. It teaches children that our community creates beautiful spaces to be enjoyed by all.

“Who lives here?” asks Liam as he bravely ventures closer.

“Can we go in?” questions three-year-old Madison, not sure that she really wants to.

We do go in, and the investigation into fort building sets us in motion for the day. Do you remember building forts when you were a kid? Did the memory of that fort just resurface? If it did, you retained that memory and are likely able to build another.

These are the moments that we like to create for our early learners. Hands-on learning enables children to take their understanding to a deeper level so that they can analyze the information that they have collected and then apply this knowledge when they create their own forts.

After giving everyone a turn to observe and discuss the masterpiece in front of us, we take a good hard look at the fort and investigate how it was constructed so that we can build a fort of our own.

We discovered this fort (above) while hiking in our neighborhood.

“I think this fort was started from that fallen branch!” Harper hypothesizes.

This leads to closer observation as we determine that this fort has sides that were built with sticks ranging in size from large to small. By leaning them against the main branch, the architects made the fort longer and wider. We begin to get a better sense of measurement as we visually estimate the length and width of the fort.

We always add a few sticks or branches to any fort that we discover, and today is no different. The older children quickly begin to add branches—an activity that reinforces our perception of the fort as a communal structure. When our younger learners hesitate, we reassure them that they really can’t go wrong by adding a stick or two.

“It looks like a triangle!” shouts Elizabeth. This declaration leads to an animated discussion about shapes and ways to incorporate doors, windows and other shapes into our fort.

We have a geometry class happening before our very eyes! We are looking at two- and three-dimensional shapes and using visualization, spatial reasoning and geometric modeling to solve problems.

These are opportunities that are rich in learning, creativity and team building. We share theories and develop hypotheses about the number of people it might have taken to build the fort, how they got the biggest branches up so high and how they created a base to stabilize the entire structure. We also examine the bottoms of the branches and hypothesize that they were probably broken off during a storm, rather than cut cleanly with a saw.

We know that our forts won’t look like the ones that we’ve encountered. We’ll have to use whatever materials we can find in our own play spaces. But our observations give us a better understanding of the fundamentals of fort and teepee construction. These found structures are the spark of inspiration that we need to design a fort of our own!

It’s time to bring out the assessment chart because this gang is on fire! This playful experience in engineering involves concepts such as angles, inclines, balance and elevation. When we let children learn through play, movement and trial and error, we lay the groundwork for the kind of deep learning that builds new neural connections.

Once the seeds are planted, the children often continue to develop their fort-building skills in our program or in their own backyards.

When the Midwest experienced a rare derecho in August 2020—and every house in our area suddenly had a backyard full of branches—our students immediately began collecting the fallen branches to build forts in their neighborhoods.

They had joined the community-wide fort-building movement!

Notice the similarities? By giving our children long periods of uninterrupted time to play and investigate, we empower them to build their own forts and develop new STEM skills and insights that they will be able to transfer to worksheets when the time is right.

When our students returned to our program this fall, we began napping outdoors on a daily basis. Not surprisingly, when a parent suggested a weekend nap to their child, the child insisted on napping outdoors—in her fort. When children build structures, the joy comes not only from the building but from returning to this place that they have created by themselves, for themselves.

These are the moments when I thank our anonymous community of fort builders for “planting the seeds” of fort building with our young learners. These industrious fort architects may be 12 years old or 90 years old. They may be building these impromptu structures to offer protection from the weather, bring joy to others or simply provide a peaceful place for fellow community members to commune with the natural world.

These lovely forts are gifts of time, hard work and beautiful design that bring science, math and engineering into the lives of our youngest citizens.

Thank you for making so many moments of STEM learning possible through play with the children of our community! You inspire all of us! Thank you! You are truly changing our world!

“I found an empty nest! Can we keep it?” Owen’s joyful discovery captures everyone’s attention.

Three-year-old Avery comes running. “Are there eggs?” she asks her older and wiser five-year-old friend. “Can I see?” she begs. “Please let me see?”

“There are no eggs, just an old nest. Can we please keep it?” pleads Owen.

After a quick glance to confirm that the nest cradled in Owen’s hands is not harboring a feathered inhabitant, I grant my permission.

Owen handles the nest gingerly before realizing that it is sturdier than it looks. After a few tugs and a few moments of studying the nest, he very gently hands it over to the others.

We have a collection of nests. We love to study the materials used to build each nest, as well as the nest construction methods used by different local bird species.

We also try to guess the type of bird that built each nest and how many eggs might have been laid in these cozy homes crafted from sticks, grass, leaves, string, mud and other found objects.

I watch Ave silently investigating and collecting data as she turns the nest in one direction and then another. You can almost see the wheels turning.

“I think the bird used some litter [drinking straws, food wrappers and other debris] to build this nest.” Ave giggles. “And there are like a million sticks in here!”

“A million?” I echo.

“Maybe more!” Ave theorizes.

This moment gives me a valuable insight into Ave’s nascent number sense. Connecting numbers to quantities is a skill that will continue to emerge and evolve with age and brain development.

“The bird added string—and look at this piece of wire she wove in!” shares Maya. “It’s lightweight but very strong. How long does it take her to make this nest? I think this nest is smaller than the others we have.”

This is how we set our curriculum for the day—by following the interests of the children. When we return to our indoor classroom, we will dig out our books to learn more about the various engineering practices that local birds use to build their homes and compare this newest nest to the others in our collection.

Living along the Mississippi River as we do, we are blessed with the return of our beloved bald eagles each winter and spring. From December to March, these magnificent birds migrate south from Canada and often make our area their winter home. Some even like it so much that they make it their permanent home.

In the fall and winter, the eagles rebuild their nests to prepare for the hatching of the eaglets. Eagles nesting in our area typically lay their eggs in mid-to-late February, and the eggs hatch by mid-to-late March.

Once the eggs have hatched, the female stays with the eaglets while the male leaves to find food for the female and her hatchlings.

The eaglets grow quickly and are ready to fly—or “fledge”—by late May or early June. A number of webcams have been set up by organizations in the area so that we can watch the life cycle of the eagles playing out before our eyes.

This is where I struggle. We are a screen-free environment. I know that we can link to so much learning with technology. I know that I need to stop being so stubborn. I am that old-school playground leader who hasn’t embraced the many educational benefits of 21st-century technologies.

We weren’t always screen-free—and I have fond memories of the year when we observed a wee bit of eagle life via webcam.

I hated the screen, but I loved learning about our local eagles. When an eagle brought a large fish to the nest, we were spellbound. But the fact that we’d been sucked into spending time staring at a screen contradicted everything that I believed in regarding early education—and I was overcome with guilt.

So when the first warm day of spring arrived, we created our own eagle’s nest in the center’s outdoor play area.

“Declan, how big is an eagle’s nest?” I asked, measuring tape in hand.

“Seven feet wide,” he responded. “What are you doing?”

I quickly measured out seven feet and put a heavy rock from the rain garden on the spot. The children began adding rocks until we had a circle that was seven feet in diameter.

For a few minutes, the children pretended to be eagles living in a happy little rock nest—until one perspicacious preschooler called me out.

“Wait! This isn’t a nest!” Asa declared. “We need to add sticks and leaves and yarn. We need more!”

“We do need branches and sticks!” agreed four-year-old Joshua.

“Over here!” directed two-year-old Gabe.

Game on! Now we were learning, creating and analyzing. We’d taken what we’d learned during our screen time and translated it into real-life, hands-on learning that met so many of the math and science standards that they would struggled to achieve on a worksheet!

This was when we grabbed our books and discovered that an eagle has a wingspan of 6-8 feet. We also learned that a mature eagle has 7,000 feathers, weighs 8-11 pounds and has vision so keen that it can see the print on a newspaper at a distance equal to the length of a football field. These are the details that young children are likely to absorb.

Because bald eagles are most active from sunrise to 11 a.m. as they feed along the open water of our locks and dams, this coincides quite well with our outdoor times. Lucky for us, they return to their roosting areas in the afternoon hours.

After lunch, some time spent browsing through eagle books and a nap, the boys made their way back out to their new eagle’s nest. If they build it, they will play in it. They had been playing there for a good long time when, sure enough, up in the sky, an eagle appeared!

Yes, a  real live eagle! Would she think this was HER nest? Could she see the boys in HER nest?

As the boys contemplated the possibility of the eagle swooping down and landing amongst them, they scrambled out of their nest in pure terror.

The eagle did not land in our nest. But, sadly, our frightened little learners never returned. I left the nest in place for over a week, and some of the younger children played in it, but the boys who built it kept their distance!

I often find that most of the fun is in the building phase of the project. The collaborating, creating, adding, subtracting, analyzing and evaluating with friends is actually the play for building kids. This is the good stuff that happens with play; enough time to engage in deep, investigative learning; and, sometimes, just the right amount of technology.

Take time to follow the lead of your students and see where their interests and curiosity take you. Then match their learning up with your early learning standards.

This link will take you to the Arconic Eagle Cam.

Full disclosure: The male eagle will bring food back to the nest. This could be a raccoon, a fish or a mouse. It is nature. It is graphic. It can be addicting or terribly uneventful at any given moment!

When we build nests of our own, we often use this Scientific American site as a reference. But if you’ve lingered too long on the Arconic Eagle Cam link provided above and feel guilty about overdoing the screen time, you can just WING it—pun intended!

Ha! Let’s get outside and play.

“I found GOLD!” squeals Laura. Four little friends are quick to join her in the latest gold rush in the sandbox. In the wee hours of the morning, often when the sun is barely above the horizon and the coffee is still being brewed, gold will magically appear in our sandbox. Spray-painted rocks that will give our young friends hours of digging, collecting, hoarding and, hopefully, sharing.

Once upon a time back in 1886, the first sand garden was created in the yard of the Children’s Mission on Permenter Street on the North End of Boston. In the late 1800s, sand gardens were viewed as safe places for immigrant children to play in during the summer months while their parents worked in factories. Today, these early sand gardens are often referred to as America’s “first playgrounds.” As we reimagine education during the pandemic, perhaps we should harken back to a simpler time and create sand gardens for our young learners!

A sandbox seems so simple, but it is truly a blank canvas—inviting curiosity and creativity, exploration and investigation. It offers a soothing sensory experience and an opportunity to experience natural textures while experiencing the peace and simple pleasures of sand play. Peer pressure will entice wary friends to strip off their shoes and tentatively join in the fun. Placing a big “Shoe Basket” near your sandbox is essential for your own mental health. It will save you hours of searching for socks and shoes. When we add loose parts to our sand, we create opportunities for counting, collecting and designing. We can explore symmetry and patterns. By adding baking tools, we can explore measurement and estimation. Opportunities abound for vocabulary growth and lessons about location and position.

“Joseph, can you get the trucks to drive under our castle?” The children have been busy building and decorating large mounds of sand. Now they have moved on to cautiously digging out tunnels. Tunnel digging builds engineering knowledge as the children predict, problem-solve and collaborate with friends—all while spending long periods of time engaging in what appears to be play. Are you documenting this? Check those early math and science learning standards off of your list!

We can encourage children to mix sand with water to see how adding water changes the physical properties of the sand. This sand play allows the children to create models of their own making. What they imagine, they can create. They create plans, make observations and experiment with ideas. This is science!

As educators and parents, we often miss the opportunities and possibilities that sand play presents. It took me years to figure out that if I took three minutes to rake the sand and make it more inviting, my effort would be rewarded as more children engaged in hours of deep learning and exploration every single day. Consider preparing your sandbox as essential as prepping any other area of your classroom. If the sandbox is full of leaves, too many loose parts from yesterday’s play or any other undesirables, it won’t be, well…desirable! Make sure your sandbox is inviting, and you will “invite” the children to explore math and science concepts with a soothing blank canvas. Unless, of course, there is a major construction project underway. On those days, I gently place a tarp over the sandbox to protect the project until our pint-sized “construction crew” returns the following morning.

If sand is a new adventure for you, recognize and remove any obstacles early on. One important tip is that you must have a water source nearby to make the sand packable. A garden hose, gallon buckets of water or nearby rain barrels will open up a treasure trove of opportunities that are not possible with dry sand. Shade is another important element to consider. You can create shade with a large umbrella if you do not have a tree to shade your sandbox. Or you can use parachutes from the gym, which can be strategically placed with a little bit of ingenuity to create shade.

I know educators who are allergic to sand in the same way that they are allergic to playdough. Ha! I know who you are! But, in this year of uncertainty, let’s allow our students to enjoy the serenity, sensory pleasures and myriad possibilities of outdoor sand play.

I promise you, it will buy you hours of calm, hands-on learning. If you build it, they will come. Just do it!

“If the squirrel comes down from this direction, we can trap him under here!” yells Elliot.

The playground equipment sits empty as Elliott, Harper and their fellow “squirrel trappers” congregate at the base of a towering oak tree in our neighborhood park. 

The children have long been captivated by this venerable old oak, which has served as a stimulating “natural laboratory” for many mathematical and scientific inquiries disguised as play.

Today’s outdoor learning adventure may look like a simple game of make-believe, but complex learning is taking place as the children use their creativity, observation, planning and problem-solving skills—along with their emerging knowledge of math and science—to construct a squirrel trap at the base of their beloved tree.           

“Wait! Wait! Are you trapping…Miss Suzy?”

Five-year-old Maya sounds slightly panicked as she blurts out the question. The urgency in her voice catches the squirrel trappers’ attention.

A booklover with a fertile imagination, Maya is worried about the beloved squirrel featured in our favorite fall book, Miss Suzy, by Miriam Young. This captivating story about a gray squirrel whose cozy home is invaded by a group of six red squirrels has been in our library since day one. If you haven’t read this classic, see if you can find it in your library. It’s an oldie, but a goodie. We have been reading this book to the children in our program for more than 30 years. Every autumn, without fail, I will hear a child say, “Hello Miss Suzy” to every squirrel we see. This charming literary tradition has been passed down through decades and generations in our Under the Gingko Tree Nature Classroom program!

“We aren’t trapping her, we are trapping the red squirrels,” the boys reassure Maya.

Relieved and intrigued, Maya joins the squirrel-trap design team. Soon, colorful leaves, acorns and other small seeds make their way into the trapping area. The older boys are shouting out orders to the younger trappers. “We need some sticks—about this long!” Elliott declares, using his hands to indicate the length of the sticks that will be needed. “And bark! We need some bark!”

The younger girls wander over to other tree trunks and begin to use their collections to create cozy squirrel homes like Miss Suzy’s. They seem content to leave the squirrel trapping to the boys. Three-year-old Lauren makes a squirrel nest by arranging pine cones in a circle on a bed of pine needles. From observing the upper branches of the tall trees that surround our school, Lauren knows that squirrel nests are round and full of leaves, acorns and possibly pine cones. These hands-on investigations are authentic learning experiences that the girls will remember and build on as they continue to hone their problem-solving skills.

Four-year-old Ava, our loose-parts aficionado, creates a home design all her own, using bark for the beds and acorns to represent the squirrels’ heads. She repurposes the acorn caps as bedside water bowls. Another acorn cap filled with tiny seeds and nuts becomes a food bowl for late-night snacking next to a “crackling campfire” consisting of a red leaf topped with stacked twigs. A green leaf becomes a staircase that the squirrels will use to exit their comfy abode.

We could knock out early learning standards galore just by studying the photo below! We find these delightful little creations all over our school grounds.

This fall, open the door to the possibility of using nature to create authentic, engaging and accessible science and math experiences through outdoor play. Throw away your “curriculum” stopwatch. If it’s snack time, hand out the snacks. Let them eat like pirates for the day. No one will die. No one will call the teacher police. If they do, I want you to whip out your school’s list of early learning standards and state your case. You hold the key! Let’s take play back for this generation of early learners! The fresh air will do us all good this fall. Stay safe, friends—and don’t forget to make time for learning through play!

One bright fall morning, I notice that the noise level at Under the Gingko Tree is exceptionally low. A quick glance around reassures me that all of my early learners are safe and accounted for. Then I notice a quiet but intense play buzz happening in our rain garden, so I wander over to see what has captured the children’s unwavering attention for so long.

“See? We are using the log to make our hill!” Jameson explains to me. 

“We are rolling the rocks down the hill, but our hill has a tunnel!” giggles Noa. 

“They go in and then they roll down!” two-year-old Tariq tells me, trying to keep pace with his older friends.

“This rock is flat on this side. It won’t roll, just like Ricky!” Jameson reminds me. 

The rocks in the rain garden and a hollow log have triggered an idea from another one of our favorite books: Ricky, the Rock That Couldn’t Roll.

Ricky is a flat rock that can’t roll with his friends on their favorite hill. Ricky’s friends help him overcome his challenge and find a way for Ricky to play like everyone else.  

Suddenly we have piles of rocks that have the same names and characteristics as the rocks in the book. I love it when an idea takes hold and inspires creativity and collaboration as the children begin to plan an activity on their own.

We have a STEM morning unfolding in our outdoor classroom! When the children start using words like “in,” “down,” “over,” “under” and “next to,” they are laying the foundation for geometry. Oh, this is going to be a fun morning! 

As I watch the children design and develop models that represent their ideas, I think to myself, “This is what early math and science learning looks like.” Planning and carrying out simple investigations like this one will make your assessment nightmare seem like a dream. Math and science overlap so much in this morning’s quest for understanding. This is the kind of play that hones children’s problem-solving skills and enables them to meet important early learning milestones.

I see the young friends sorting and classifying piles of rocks—grouping the flat rocks together and then creating another classification for the rocks that will fit into the tunnel. I observe and listen as they demonstrate their comprehension of the sorting and classifying process by comparing and sharing descriptions. When children use words such as “short,” “wide,” “heavy” and “light,” they are using descriptors for measurement. When they are guessing, predicting, classifying and putting rocks in a specific order, they are engaging in early algebra. 

By making predictions, changing designs and collecting data for their next rock, the children are building the foundation for more advanced learning in data analysis and probability in the years to come.

“I think there is something blocking it in there….”  Jameson’s voice trails off as he inspects a rock more closely to see why it didn’t tumble in the way that he had expected. He has observed that the rock is encountering some resistance. This is friction!

This is how we lay the foundation of early science through childhood investigation and teamwork. Today, the children are learning about persistence and problem-solving, propelled by the simple but profound joy of creative play.

Now the children are discussing another STEM concept. “Should we flip the log on its other side or move it to a higher rock?” Jameson asks.

I introduce the vocabulary word for their latest STEM adventure: “elevation.”

“Like an elevator! It goes up to the top of the building!” Jameson declares.

I smile. It’s like throwing seeds into the wind. I never know which ones will land on a rock or take root in a little brain. Either way, this is learning through play. Changing the height (elevation) to get a faster roll is working with speed!

The children are also exhibiting a developing sense of spatial awareness as they work out where and in what direction the log should be placed.

“Maybe if we push it, it will go faster!” Sarah suggests.   

When you are working on those early learning standards, listen to the words that your students are using. When Sarah uses the word “push,” this is a change that leads to an action. The outcome of that action is an effect!

This is scientific investigation in progress. Words like “push,” “pull,” “launch” and “force” are all science action words. 

Ricky—the rock that started this play—is long forgotten. We have naturally moved on to racing our rocks down the tunnel. I am not sure that any child actually remembers which rock is “theirs,” but they know which rock came in first, second, third and last. These are the vocabulary words that tell us that the children are mastering rudimentary skills in numbers and operations. This is a morning of assessment magic! 

If you have ramps in your classroom, or this is the type of play that sparks your energy, try reading the book, Ricky, the Rock That Couldn’t Roll, aloud to the children. Then place some rocks that roll, along with rocks that don’t roll, in your block area. Observe the investigations that take place and check off some early learning standards of your own!

Happy November, my friends. Stay safe and keep playing!

]]> https://earlymathcounts.org/rock-and-roll/feed/ 14 13204 https://earlymathcounts.org/frosty-the-stem-snowman/ https://earlymathcounts.org/frosty-the-stem-snowman/#comments Tue, 01 Dec 2020 11:50:44 +0000 http://earlymathcounts.org/?p=26396 “Look! The snow packs!  Let’s make a snowman!” Today’s sunshine and rising temperatures have transformed yesterday’s powdery snow into packable fun—ushering in an afternoon of playful math and science learning. These are the times when I love to pull out my camera to document the many foundation-building moments that find their way into our play. […]]]>

“Look! The snow packs!  Let’s make a snowman!”

Today’s sunshine and rising temperatures have transformed yesterday’s powdery snow into packable fun—ushering in an afternoon of playful math and science learning.

These are the times when I love to pull out my camera to document the many foundation-building moments that find their way into our play. This documentation allows us to reflect on the learning, conversations and collaborations that take place—and the theories that the children develop—as they explore and investigate their environment.

So grab a mug of hot cider and join us as we unpack all of the early learning opportunities that can be checked off of your list of assessment standards during a snowy afternoon of outdoor play.

“We need three balls!” yells Hudson. “One for his head, one for the middle and one for the bottom!” Hudson has stepped up to serve as the lead architect during this day of snowman construction.

 “We need three sizes,” Jameson pipes in. “Big, bigger and even bigger!”

  “Yes, and the biggest is at the bottom,” adds Noah.

“You start out like this,” Noah explains as she packs together a small pile of snow. ”You push it and roll it and it gets bigger and bigger. Then you have to pack it down. But not too hard. If you pack too hard, it falls apart.”

As I listen in, I seize various opportunities to introduce some STEM vocabulary into our play. We discuss cause and effect, friction and experiments. I don’t expect these words to start flowing off of the children’s lips any time soon, but I never miss an opportunity to plant the seeds of knowledge in their developing brains.

“Mine looks like a square,” Jameson complains to no one in particular.

“If you rub it here just a little and chop this side a little bit, you will make a circle,” advises Avery, who is a wee bit older and more experienced in the intricacies of snowman construction.

I watch as the children form the snow into balls of different shapes and sizes. I hear vocabulary words such as “bigger,” “taller” and “heavier” as the older children compare the different snowball sizes and help me stack them one on top of the other to form snow people.  

“We need two eyes and a carrot nose and buttons for the mouth,” the children shout. “We need a hat to put on top and two branches for his arms! He needs a hat and a scarf!”

For years, the needs of my little “snow sculptors” left me scrambling for the items needed to complete their snow people. After three decades of coming up short, I discovered this snowman decorating kit on Amazon.

What a game changer! This affordable kit provides ample opportunities for STEM (and STEAM) learning. Whenever I pull this kit out, the excitement increases and the design process becomes more focused and deliberate. We have patterns and sequence and spatial reasoning. We have order and math vocabulary and collaboration. These are the moments that lead to teamwork, which is such a gift in any learning endeavor. When children work together on a project, it fosters the development of confidence and camaraderie—and culminates in a sense of accomplishment for all.

I keep my snowman kit in a plastic bin so that I know where all of the pieces are and keep the bin handy during the winter months. Every time I pull the kit out and the children scream with delight, I feel like a rock star! If you want to simplify your teaching and incorporate more STEM learning opportunities into your snow days, do yourself a favor and get a snowman kit.

The winter months offer endless opportunities to introduce children to the science behind the season as you explore and discuss environmental changes, physical properties, weather and temperature. You can pack a lot of STEM curriculum and vocabulary into your day by simply allowing your students to spend some time in the elements.

If the thought of getting all of your young snow explorers dressed and out the door feels daunting, check out our blog post, Incorporating Math into Your Cold-Weather Routines. You’ll learn how to set up separate “stations” where the children can don their own snow pants, coats, boots, hats, scarves and mittens. It’s a great system that teaches children about sequencing while encouraging them to become more independent as they gear up for their winter adventures.

It’s going to be a long winter, so bundle up and get some fresh air.  It’s good for the body, the brain and the spirit.

Stay safe my friends!

After months of sequestering and social distancing to stop the spread of COVID-19, we could all use some fresh winter air! Nature is just what the doctor ordered to stimulate our senses while we meet our early learning standards.

The winter months offer an abundance of STEM learning opportunities, so don’t let the falling temperatures and snow chase you inside. The changing seasons lead to so many discoveries that incorporate STEM language and learning. Let’s take a quick look at just a few of the STEM learning adventures that we can provide for our early learners as we explore the winter landscape.

SNOW MOLDS

When the forecast predicts the first snow of the season, be sure to grab the toys out of the sandbox before they freeze in the sand. Then repurpose your sand molds as snow molds. It’s a great way to introduce shape and dimension into winter play.

This cold-weather activity introduces early learners to engineering design and the scientific practice of modeling as they work through their ideas in this new medium. By actively investigating, exploring and communicating with their friends, our young snow sculptors are laying the foundation for a future understanding of core scientific concepts.

When children have access to simple sandbox tools, they can explore and reimagine activities that work with sand, but may or may not work with wet or powdery snow. This leads to more investigation and more opportunities for learning. Muffin and cake pans of all shapes and sizes will also work—and open doors to endless hours of creative outdoor play. 

ICE AND ICICLES

There’s a lot of science and math in those icicles! Every winter, I grab the longest icicle that I can find and let it melt into an empty glass. This enables the children to observe the melting process while we discuss the difference between indoor and outdoor temperatures. We can also discuss why our body temperature is warmer than the outdoor temperature and why we can see our breath in the cold winter air. When the icicle has completely melted, I point out the dirt and gunk that was frozen into this seemingly pristine piece of ice. But that won’t deter our experiential learners from sucking on “nature’s popsicles.” Children learn through their senses—and I gave up the battle of trying to stop them from sucking on icicles and eating snow years ago. It’s all part of the magic of winter STEM learning.

IGLOOS

Building an igloo is easy—and there are so many learning opportunities in engineering and physics that come into play. We use large plastic bins to mold the snow into big blocks, and the igloo-building process proceeds more quickly than you might imagine.

If you’re lucky enough to get packable snow early in the season, there is a good chance that your igloo could last for a month or more. One word of caution: This lovely source of wind protection also takes a while to melt, so build it in a location where it won’t interfere with other activities. Because igloos become softer in the afternoon sun, we often redesign our igloo during the day, adding colors and water before leaving it to refreeze overnight. An igloo is well worth the investment of time and energy.

HIKING

Take a hike! Even in familiar places like your neighborhood or a local schoolyard, life looks different during the winter months. When we head out for these winter walking adventures, I introduce new vocabulary words such as “hike” or “adventure” or “excursion.”

Research shows that vocabulary building at an early age fosters future success in reading and narrows the achievement gap. As you hike with your early learners, your efforts to introduce concepts such as patterns, reflections, black ice, hibernation and wind-chill factors will lead to later learning opportunities back in the classroom.

  

SLEDDING

Oh boy! What a bonanza of science vocabulary we have here, with “speed” and “force” and “distance“! For younger children, we introduce simple vocabulary words such as “up” and “down” the hill.  Who went the “farthest“? Who wiped out the “fastest“?  We gather and analyze data as they try new routes, techniques and combinations of sled buddies. We don’t always have access to real hills—and there have been years when my class just couldn’t handle a walk to the park and sledding!  But don’t rule out that large pile of snow that the plow has pushed up at the end of the school parking lot.  It may be man-made and it may be small, but it’s a hill nonetheless! Kids just love taking small risks such as climbing up and sliding down. Last winter, I watched a three-year-old and a four-year-old spend 20 minutes trying to stay upright while sliding on their boots down an 18-inch “hill.” It doesn’t take much of an incline to open doors to STEM learning!

ANIMAL-TRACK INVESTIGATIONS

We often discover animal tracks in the snow during our outdoor investigations. We occasionally find paw prints from a raccoon or hoof prints from a deer, but most of the tracks that we find are made by neighborhood cats and dogs, as well as squirrels and birds. This tracking activity never gets old. We can try to follow their routes while making observations and forming theories. Curiosity, persistence, questioning and problem-solving are the traits of a true scientist. These real-life adventures that put science in context represent age-appropriate learning at its finest.

SNOW SCULPTURES

I’d love to tell you that we were the designers of the impressive Snow Dino below, but the truth is that we found this expressive fellow while sledding at the neighborhood park. We have some very creative college students in our neighborhood and we often observe their winter snow sculptures to get our own creative juices flowing and learn new sculpting techniques. The smiles on the faces of the children below show that they didn’t need to build the Snow Dino to enjoy the end result! If you missed our own STEM Snowman adventures earlier in the month, you can find the blog post here.

After the cold-weather fun, finish up with a comforting cup of hot cocoa, apple cider or mint tea. When the weather is warm enough to stay outside for long periods, a hearty cup of soup after you head indoors will chase away the winter chill and refuel your STEM explorers.

Thank you for sharing a year of STEM learning adventures with me and stay tuned for more in 2021!