“I’ll carry the biggest container,” volunteers four-year-old Matthew as the younger children fall in behind him.

Picking strawberries during the first week of summer break is an annual tradition in our early childhood program. What better way to learn about counting, measuring and estimating than to get out in the fresh air and sunshine and enjoy hands-on activities that engage all of the senses—from seeing and hearing to touching, tasting and smelling?

I am fairly certain that we are eating as many strawberries as we pick! But that makes this math-packed adventure even better because children learn best through their senses.

The friendly folks at our local U-pick farm assign us a numbered row to pick from, which gives us yet another way to factor math into our strawberry-picking adventure: number recognition!

“We are in Row 66 today,” I call out to the children as they march behind me, wearing their strawberry boxes as hats.

As we walk past each row, Matthew begins to count, “1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . .”

“I can do it!” blurts out three-year-old Owen. He races to the front of the line, positions himself at Matthew’s side, and picks up where his older friend left off:  “4 . . .  5 . . . 6 . . .”

Matthew gently takes over the counting when Owen reaches the limits of his number knowledge at the 13th row. But as Matthew counts out the double-digit numbers, I can hear Owen echoing him, which is a great way for Owen and his younger peers to practice their counting skills. 

“Row 66!” Owen stops abruptly and swivels his head from left to right as he surveys the row dotted with bright red strawberries just waiting to be picked. “There must be millions,” he observes in awe.

Maybe not millions, but this is a great opportunity to introduce concepts such as quantity and estimating. In fact, one of the best places to strengthen math skills is in the garden.

“Kindergarten” is a German word that literally means “children’s garden,” which covers Froebel’s concept of “a place for children,” as well as his beliefs regarding childhood growth, development and learning (Elkind, 2015).

Teaching math in a garden comes naturally as children count, sort, find patterns, and organize by size, color or other attributes.

“Look at how big this strawberry is!” Owen exclaims excitedly. “I bet it’s the biggest one we find all day!”

What starts out as a competition to find the largest strawberry is soon replaced by relaxed camaraderie as the children bite into the sun-warmed fruit and the juice stains their lips, chins and fingers bright red.

“Close your eyes and open your hands,” Asa tells Harper as she plops a strawberry into each of Harper’s outstretched palms. “Now tell me which strawberry weighs more.”

Harper obliges. “Definitely this one!” he answers, holding up his left palm and opening his eyes. “But that’s weird because the heavier strawberry is smaller . . .” 

“I know! I thought that was weird, too!” Asa replies.

Hands-on activities with everyday objects help children learn about measurement. Moments like these also offer real-world opportunities for them to discuss math concepts such as size, weight and capacity.

Children need to talk about mathematical concepts and share their theories with one another and their teachers.

“I wonder which basket will weigh more?” I ask Joseph. “Your basket with eight big strawberries or Vera’s basket with 14 little strawberries?”

“Vera’s! She has 14!” shouts Joseph. We decide to weigh them after we’re done picking to see if his guess is correct.  

“I found a double strawberry; I bet it weighs the most!” announces Gabriel with a mischievous grin.

“That’s not FAIR!” the gang whines in unison.

Gabriel laughs. “It’s really cool. I’m taking this one home to show my mom and dad, so please don’t eat it!”

We finish filling our baskets and make our way to the checkout to see how many pounds we’ve picked this year. The sun is getting warmer and our legs are getting weaker. It’s time to rehydrate with some cold water and refuel with a protein-packed lunch.

We’ve picked 13.2 pounds of strawberries! The eight big strawberries in Joseph’s basket did weigh more than the 14 small strawberries in Vera’s basket—but only by two ounces.

No one seems to care. The sun and the heat have sapped us of the energy and enthusiasm we need to discuss size and weight at greater length, but there will be other chances when we return to the classroom.

Although some of these concepts may be a bit too advanced for some of the younger learners in the group, we have planted the seeds for future academic success during a day of fun in the strawberry fields.

Later, back in the classroom, we set up a farmer’s market and invite the parents to purchase baskets of strawberries from their children, who serve as cashiers.

In the days ahead, there will be lots of strawberry snacks, jam-making and strawberry smoothies—along with more opportunities to learn and share early math concepts. 

Sink your teeth into some juicy math this summer. Whether you make it to your local farm, the farmer’s market in your community, or simply introduce fruits and vegetables into your early learning program, there’s plenty of math packed into that yummy summer produce!

A pair of four-year-olds in my classroom are happily playing “dice wars,” a simple but fast-paced game. To play, each child rolls a die and the player who rolls the highest number wins. No one is keeping score today—and nobody seems to care who wins each round. 

I watch as Juan shakes the die between his palms, rolls it, counts each pip (dot) on the side that’s facing up and announces, “1, 2, 3!” I rolled a three!”

“My turn!” exclaims Maria as she shakes the die between her hands and rolls it. “SIX! I win! Six is more than three!” Maria doesn’t need to count the pips. She recognizes the pattern immediately and her number sense tells her the value of the pips on the die.

Rolling a die is fun in its own right, but these friends are working on the math skill known as subitizing. When children begin to recognize the pattern on the die and associate it with the number of pips (dots) without counting each pip, that is subitizing!

Children develop subitizing skills in much the same way that they learn to read sight words.

In a previous Early Math Counts blog post, Jen Asimow, M.Ed, explained it this way: “Remember when you learned about ‘sight words’ and how children learn them? According to one school of thought, children memorize sight words by taking a mental snapshot of the entire word. By using context clues, they learn the word as a ‘whole’ rather than as a series of letters. Consider how children learn the words EXIT or STOP.  Both of these words appear in the same way—on signs above doors or on red octagonal street signs—and nearly always in the same colors and typefaces. All of these clues help children form a mental picture of these two words, and they often learn the pictures before they learn the individual letters that make up the words.”

Maria and Juan are playing with a die, so they are only working with numbers ranging from one to six. As they play successive rounds of the game, they are beginning to recognize the patterns on the die without counting the individual pips.

With every roll of the die, Juan’s pattern-recognition skills are growing stronger. Before long, he can recognize the total number of pips on each throw without counting.

According to child development experts, the ability to subitize quantities up to and including four by the age of five represents a significant developmental milestone. 

Subitizing is a fundamental math skill, and dice games are a good way to help foster the development of this skill.

“Hey! Do you want to play that block-building dice game?” asks Pierre as he grabs a die from the jar and joins the group. 

Roll and Build is another dice game that we’ve played in our classroom for years. One child rolls a die and the other children add that number of blocks to their towers. Children learn to recognize four dots on a die, which helps them understand the cardinal value (how many four represents), which they can then link to the symbol (4) and the word (four).

Games like this provide repeated opportunities to interpret the dot images. As children figure out how many pieces to collect or add or how many spaces to move on a game board, they develop their number sense and other early math skills such as counting, number identification, the correlation between numbers and the items being counted and concepts such as greater than or less than.

Keep a jar full of dice within easy reach to give the children plenty of opportunities to practice and make up their own games.

Begin by subitizing quantities of 1, 2 and 3. In a math workshop that I attended, the trainer had blacked out the pips representing 4, 5 and 6 for the younger children.

If a child is having difficulty subitizing, reduce the quantity of dots. 

Dice games help young children develop math and social-emotional skills in a fun and engaging way.  So grab some dice and introduce your gang to subitizing fun! 

Check out our Early Math Counts lessons page for dice game ideas. Be sure to click on the Connect With Families button in the left-hand column of each lesson to download a Parent Letter that you can customize to share the day’s learning activity with parents and other family members.

Today is one of those magical winter mornings when snow blankets the ground and clings to the trees around our center.  The sun is shining and the world looks so sparkly and irresistible that we head outside in spite of the freezing temperatures.

“Hey! Who has the smiling boot?” Jacoby calls out to the group. He scans the play space, which looks like a snowy white canvas dotted with boot prints.

“Do you have the smiling boot?” he asks Maria.  

Maria looks confused as she glances down at her boots. “No, my boots are pink.” 

“No, no…on the bottom!” Jacob points to her boots. “Does your boot have a smiling face on the bottom?” 

Even I am confused by Jacoby’s question—until he points to the clue in the snow. 

“Look!” he declares. “Somebody has a smiley face on the bottom of their boot.”

Ah-hah! Indeed, we do have a smiley face boot print staring up at us from the snow-covered ground. Well, this will warm us all up!  Let the STEM investigation begin!

After a fresh snowfall, it’s so much fun to find and follow animal tracks. But we’ve never really paid attention to the patterns on the soles of our boots until now.

One by one, Maria and Jacoby begin to check the bottom of each friend’s boot. This simple moment of exploring patterns leads us to measurement, reasoning and comparing attributes.

Young children instinctively seem to notice attributes. It may be the shape, size, color, length or some other characteristics of an object, such as today’s smiling boot face.

Children develop their understanding of matching and patterns through experience. Because it’s difficult to consider a lot of attributes at once, children often begin creating sets by finding exact matches.

When children create pairs of boots or find an exact match to the smiling boot face, they are creating sets of items that are exactly alike. Maria and Jacoby are using rudimentary math, science and engineering skills as they observe and ask questions—all while solving the smiling boot print mystery!

Suddenly, everyone is stomping their boots and comparing and analyzing the shapes and patterns that their boots are leaving in the snow.

“I have zigzags!” announces Liam.

Sure enough, as we all run over to look at Liam’s boot print in the snow, we see row after row of zigzags.

“They look like mountains!” laughs Rokia. “That’s so cool!”

 “I have rectangles!” announces Rachel. “If I turn around, it looks like a house with a roof. Look!  See, at the bottom of my boot print?”  

Our focus is now very intentional and the mood has shifted from playful curiosity to deep observation and concentration. 

This is what child-led learning looks like. For those of you who believe that “child-led learning” can only lead to chaos, I urge you to put on your winter wear, head outside and see how effective and wondrous it can truly be.

“I have diamonds!” shouts Julio, “Oh and triangles at the top and bottom. Wow! Look at my boot print, it has really cool patterns.”

We are working on spatial reasoning, direction and positional vocabulary. This is the deep learning that takes place when children have ample time to explore and investigate.

Every day, children learn something new.  Every day, they deepen their understanding of STEM principles and share their insights and theories with their fellow STEM explorers.

Time is the key to deep learning!

“I have snakes!”  Josie shouts.

“Snakes?” 

Everyone comes running to see the newly discovered boot-print pattern. And, yes indeed, Josie’s boot print really does look like snakes.

But Isaac sees it differently. “I think it looks like waves,” he counters. “You know, like when you throw a rock in the river and it makes those lines?”

Then five-year-old Maya reorients the group to the smiley-face boot prints that started the morning’s STEM investigation.

“Where did that smiley face boot come from?” she asks, putting an end to the snake-shape and wave-shape discussion.

“I don’t know!” retorts a frustrated Jacoby. “That’s what I am trying to figure out!” 

“No, I mean, where did the smiley face boot print start?” Maya clarifies, assuming the role of lead investigator. “Where did you find it? Did you follow it, like we followed the cat paw prints last winter?” 

Jacoby pauses and I can see the wheels turning as he considers Maya’s questions. This is a lightbulb moment when the children suddenly recall a forgotten game from winters past. We have plenty of wandering cats in our neighborhood. For years, we have engaged in follow-the-cat-print expeditions on snowy days, following the tracks and trying to figure out the exact route that the cat took and why. Today has ushered in a new season of snow—and now we are rediscovering the game all over again.

Five-year-old Maya has had a few more years of brain development and a few more years of winter play, so she has retained more memories of those snowy-day games than the younger children who started the smiling boot print investigation.

Suddenly we are tracking movement, direction and the changes in how the boot print is left. We don’t have paper and pencils to collect data outside today, but our friends are forming hypotheses and making deductions as they piece the clues together and abandon the ideas that don’t pan out.

Maya continues as the lead investigator. “Look at the size of this boot track. It’s much bigger than our boots. See? I think it’s an adult boot print. Look how far it is between the foot prints. It takes me three steps to their two steps.”

“Maybe it’s the mail carrier,” suggests Lois.  “She brought a package to the door yesterday.”

“It can’t be the mail carrier,” reasons Maya. “She doesn’t walk on this side of the center.”

“It must be a parent!” shouts Jacoby. “Who has a parent with a smiling boot?”

The question is met with dead silence. No one knows the answer.

Suddenly, Maya turns to me and asks, “Do you have a smiling boot? You are an adult.”

Much to my disappointment and the chagrin of my young friends, I am not the owner of the smiling boot. We are getting cold and our investigation has hit a dead end. We decide to go indoors and warm up with some hot cocoa and banana muffins.

At pickup time, the children check the boots of every parent for a smiling face, but no one has the matching boot. Many weeks later, we discover that the smiling boot belongs to a grandparent of one of the children at our center. By then the thrill of the hunt is over. But the learning has not been lost. A great morning of STEM investigation is tucked away safely in the developing brains of our early math explorers.

Ready to start your own Snowy Day STEM Investigation? Check out Show Me Your Shoe, an Early Math Counts lesson plan that can be adapted for your own boot-matching investigation!

“One, two, three, flip!” 

“I win!” shouts Matif.

Remember playing War as a child? It’s simple and fun and it teaches young children how to win and lose without a lot of drama.

I love playing cards with young children because that little deck helps foster the development of early math and social-emotional skills in a big way.

When I play War with very young children, I often pull out the face cards and any card higher than a six. Depending on the ages and developmental levels of my students, I may even pull out the aces because it’s too difficult for young children to associate the letter “A” with the number “1.”

Start by dealing the cards evenly between all of the players, stacking the cards face down in front of each child. 

No peeking allowed!  On the count of three, each player will flip the top card over into the center of the table, face up.

“One, two, three, flip!”

A chorus of young voices chants in rhythm as our game continues.

“I have a five,” shouts Mable. “That’s bigger than your two, so I win!” 

Compare the cards played. The highest card wins the hand. The winner takes all of the cards played in the round and adds them to a new stack of “won” cards. 

One, two, three, flip!”

“Ah, you both have a six! War!”

When there’s a tie between the two highest players, you have a “duel.”

To play a duel, the two players each place three cards in the middle of the table, face down. Then they each lay down another card (the fifth card for this round). This card should be facing up. The highest card wins, and the winner takes all of the cards from this round and adds them to a new stack.

“One, two, three, flip!”

I watch as a four and a three get turned over by the players in the duel.

“Ah, you won all those cards!” says the child with the losing hand. “Lucky you!” 

When children are playing cards, this is a great time to observe their number sense. Can they identify the numbers by name? Can they determine which number is higher? Can they follow the rules?  When the cards match, can they count out the three additional cards that they will need for a duel?  

Play until your main stack is gone and then count up how many cards the players have in their stacks of “won” cards. The player with the most cards wins. Once the children have mastered the cards through the number six, I will add the sevens and eights back into the deck. Later, I will add in the nines and the tens.

Many children will be able to play a full game of War by the time they reach kindergarten—face cards included. Keeping it simple in the beginning is a great way to assess your students’ number recognition skills and value development.

As children play this deceptively simple game, they are developing their number-recognition skills and beginning to grasp concepts such as number value, greater than and less than.

They are also learning important life skills such as how to follow rules, take turns and take their turns quickly without making the other players wait too long. That’s a lot of learning for a game that fits in your pocket! 

We also want to teach children how to win and lose graciously. I love playing War because it’s a game of chance and everyone has an equal chance of winning. Because each round has a winner, we are practicing the win/lose concept over and over again in rapid succession. There isn’t time for the winners to jump up and do a victory dance or the losers to break down and get weepy. The same child will not win every round, which gives every child many opportunities to practice good sportsmanship.

There’s a reason that children have enjoyed playing War for generations. It’s fast and fun and a bit addictive. So grab a deck or two, play a few rounds with your early learners and call it your math curriculum for the week. You’ll be teaching invaluable life lessons along with those early math skills!

“I think that wolf should go in this row, with the pigs,” protests five-year-old Harper. 

“What? Why? He’s a wolf, not a pig!” insists Harrison.

“And he’s not pink!” chimes in three-year-old Evelyn. 

“The wolf will go with the pigs in this row for ‘Stories,'” explains Harper. “You know, like in that book, The Three Little Pigs!”

I wander over to see what this deep discussion is all about. Wow! The older preschoolers are lining up and labeling groups of animals from the basket. This is child-led learning at its finest!

“Oh yeah! That makes sense!” Miguel agrees.

But Evelyn seems puzzled by their reasoning. Math skills such as sorting and patterning are developed in a sequential order—and Evelyn’s early math skills are not as developed as those of her older friends.

At all ages, children classify objects intuitively to make sense of the world. Two-week-old infants can already distinguish objects that they suck on from other objects.

By the age of two, toddlers can form sets of similar objects. By preschool, children can sort and categorize objects according to a given attribute.

When children engage in classification, they are sorting objects according to some established criteria. For Harper, it makes sense to classify the wolf with the pigs. It also makes sense to Miguel when Harper explains his reasoning. 

I look at the list that Harper has created. I chuckle at his phonetic spelling as I read the three categories that he has printed across the top of a sheet of green paper: “Jungle, Farm and Stories.”

When learning how to classify objects, children first learn how to identify and name the attributes that the items in a group will have in common. Then they move on to identifying the attributes that will exclude items from a group.

See Harper’s list in the bottom right corner?  It reads, “Not in a group.”

Wow! This is math! This is early literacy! All while playing and having fun!

Remember back in first grade when we were learning about sets and we had to circle the apples, but not the oranges, on our math worksheets? Our morning of animal sorting is a similar exercise, but the children are establishing the rules.

Hands-on play will beat a worksheet any day of the week. What sticks to the hands, sticks to the brain. 

When children sort objects in their environment, they are using their analytical thinking skills, which are the lifeblood of mathematics. When children engage in organizing activities, it helps them make sense of their world.

Sorting allows children to determine where they think an object belongs and why they think it belongs there. Often, objects will be reclassified from one day to the next. The wolf may be classified as a “Story Animal” today and as a “Forest Animal” tomorrow!

A 2015 research study showed that young children were more creative, more interactive and more verbal when they were playing with sets of animal figures than with other toys (Trawick–Smith et al. 2015). These findings were consistent regardless of gender or background.

The takeaway? Every classroom needs a basket of animal figures!

What’s so great about a basket full of plastic animals? It doesn’t come with a rule book!

When children play with toys such as small animals, people or vehicles, they create elaborate make-believe scenarios and engage in rich discussions about those scenarios. Perhaps best of all, they learn to play cooperatively with their friends. 

As educators, we know that children love to play with baskets of plastic animals. Now we have research to prove what we’ve known all along: that open-ended, imaginative play will naturally lead to sorting and classifying—and you’ll be checking off those early math learning standards in no time!

Looking for an Early Math Counts lesson plan that involves sorting and classifying?  Check out Cereal Sorting!

Do you have collectors in your midst? Those young children who can turn a five-minute walk into a 15-minute treasure hunt? The children who fill their pockets with treasures and then load up your pockets with the overflow?  I love these kids. They can wreak havoc with our daily schedules, but they help us slow down, take a breath, smile and find beauty in unexpected places. They also make me smile when I remind myself that these impromptu, child-led collecting and sorting expeditions are worth their weight in gold as we work with young children to build a strong foundation for later math learning.

We collect lots of natural loose parts like acorns and buckeyes, feathers and rocks. But we also collect colored gems, bottle caps, keys and other odd items. This, my friends, is the rock-solid, hands-on play that lays the foundation for number sense.

At all ages, children classify intuitively to make sense of a world that seems largely out of their control. By the time infants are two weeks old, they can distinguish between objects that they suck on and those they do not. By the age of two, toddlers form sets of similar objects. In preschool, children begin to sort objects into categories according to a given attribute.

If it attracts their attention and they touch it, that’s the moment the child-led learning begins! So grab a bag, a basket or a bucket, take a walk and see what sparks the imagination of the children in your life. A good pocket comes in handy on these expeditions!

Along the way, observe the collecting habits of your budding mathematicians. What captures their attention? What treasures do they deem worthy of pocketing? Does one of the younger treasure hunters in your group need guidance or mentoring?

During your expeditions—and other daily outings—keep your eyes out for heart rocks. It’s a great opportunity to build some early math skills, whether you’re waiting for a table to open up at a restaurant or killing time before an appointment. Hidden in those landscape rocks, there is sure to be a heart rock!

Children will naturally begin to sort their collected treasures into piles or “sets.” Separating will come very naturally as children sort acorns into one pile and bottle caps into another. They may group by colors, shape, texture or weight. They may also organize their objects in a line by size or other attributes.

As they sort the objects that they collect, children are building their analytical thinking skills, which are the lifeblood of mathematics. This is a great opportunity to introduce vocabulary words such as more and less.  Young children have an inborn sense of more and less. They always know if someone has more than they do!  Children can learn number sense simply by playing with their collections!

If the grouping of sets leads to counting, this is another great opportunity for young children to build foundational math skills. Regardless of how high a preschooler can rote count, a child’s sense of what those numbers actually mean develops gradually. We call this “understanding number sense,” and it requires relating numbers to actual quantities.

There are three core counting principles:

Counting Sequence 
There is an ordered sequence of number names. Counting involves using the same sequence each time, starting with one. By using counting songs and moving each object as you give it a “name,” you can help children learn the counting sequence.

One-to-One Correspondence
One number from the counting sequence is assigned to each object in a collection. Instruct the children to put each object into a container or slide it across the table as it is counted.

Cardinality
The last number assigned to an object when counting a collection indicates the total quantity of objects in the collection. Ask: “How many?” If the children don’t know the answer to this question, count the objects together and note the last number that you counted as you push the objects all together into a group.

By turning counting into an enjoyable, hands-on activity, you are also introducing the children to mathematical concepts such as place value and addition.

Remember to take it slow and make it fun. Children develop at different rates and have different learning styles. They will master early math concepts in their own time and in their own way.

So let the children set the pace. Enjoy the cooler fall temperatures as you embark on your collecting expeditions—and see what collections land in your pockets!

Looking for some great activities to introduce sorting and counting to your early learners? Look no further than the Early Math Counts lessons page.

Here are a few of my favorites to help you get started:

• Cereal Sorting
• Laundry Sorting
• One Fish, Red Fish

“Hey, Evelyn!  Go get your cell phone and meet me at the stumps!” calls Noa.

My head whirls around as I check the classroom to see if a cell phone has actually made its way into school today. Then I see Evelyn running to the basket of dominoes to get her “cell phone.”

Whew! Instant relief and a touch of humor added to my day.

Dominoes have been around for centuries. They’ve been used for all sorts of games around the globe. We have baskets of dominoes scattered around the classroom. We use them for everything from building and matching to chain reactions. I’m fairly sure that we’ve never played an actual game of dominoes with these versatile learning tools!

I love these little blocks. Whatever the game, dominoes are always a Developmentally Appropriate Play (DAP) item, regardless of the ages of the children playing with them.

This morning’s “cell phone” incident got me thinking about Developmentally Appropriate Practice.

We need to trust that the teachers who work with young children on a daily basis know what’s appropriate for these children and understand how they use their materials.

Dominoes may not be designed for toddlers and preschoolers—and may even be considered to be Developmentally Inappropriate if used as intended.

Yet, by adding dominoes to our play areas and using them as manipulatives and loose parts, we can expose our early learners to a wealth of STEM learning opportunities such as building, counting, matching and even dramatic play.

Whether we’re building with our dominoes or standing each domino on end to create a chain reaction, we are laying the foundation for strong math and science skills.

This is when parents and administrators may misconstrue active learning for mere play.

When this happens, it’s our responsibility to help parents and administrators “see” the learning that is taking place. Show them how their children are developing spatial skills and an understanding of concepts such as “location” and “ordinal position.”

“Wow, Michela, your tower is getting really big!” Jameson stops to watch as Michela carefully adds another block to her structure.

Jameson has been struggling to build a tower that rivals Michela’s in height. “My tower is too wobbly,” he moans. “It keeps falling down. It’s impossible!” He stomps his foot in frustration and crosses his arms over his chest.

“You need to go very slow, like this,” responds Michela without taking her eyes off of her tower.

Michela is demonstrating the practice of science and engineering. We have geometry unfolding before our eyes as Michela uses symmetry, visualization, spatial reasoning and geometric modeling to solve problems such as balance and continuity.

By observing and asking questions, sharing ideas and solving problems, the children are working as a team to build a greater understanding of what works and what doesn’t.

This is a form of early data collection. If you are studying force and motion, a domino chain reaction is a great activity to demonstrate potential and kinetic energy.

I watch as four-year-old Thompson counts the pips (dots) on his dominoes and begins exploring concepts such as quantities and attributes.

Across the table, two-year-old Joseph is learning rote counting skills and gaining a rudimentary sense of one-to-one correspondence. By playing with the dominoes, he is also seeing the grouped pips (dots) in number formations that he will continue to see throughout his life.

I watch as an older friend mentors Joseph. In no time, Joseph is matching attributes—sometimes by pattern and sometimes by color. This is math!

We are exploring concepts such as “matching,” “same and different” and “up and down.” We are counting and beginning to understand numbers and number names. We are comparing quantities, subitizing and measuring objects and quantities. We are identifying common attributes, patterns and object relationships.

We are engaged in deep, hands-on, child-led play—without worksheets, themes or circle times. This is developmentally appropriate learning!

By providing more opportunities for children to explore, discover and investigate through active play, we are meeting one of the most important goals of early childhood education.

Invest in a variety of materials to meet the needs of children with different learning styles. It’s worth the cost. Think of it as an investment that will pay off in the future success of your early learners.

So grab those dominoes off of the shelf, place them in a basket and let the STEM learning begin!

Enjoy!

“Hey everybody! Look at all of the tomatoes that are ripe today!” shouts Jacob to the gang.

“Can we eat them for lunch? Can we?” asks Lucus.

“Can we eat them now?” pleads Elizabeth.

It’s early September and preschoolers around the country are learning about apples, but we have tomatoes at our fingertips. The same tomatoes that we planted in the spring, watered, watched and then forgot about and ignored. But today these plants are full of red, ripe, juicy tomatoes. For the foreseeable future, our curriculum will revolve around tomatoes!

There’s been a lot of talk recently about curriculum themes and how they fit into early childhood education. So much of the learning that takes place in early childhood settings is spontaneous, rather than intentional. This doesn’t mean that early childhood educators shouldn’t be intentional about their curriculum development. They should. But great teachers are always willing to set their planned activities aside to seize a great learning opportunity when it arises.

I call these unplanned learning opportunities “teachable moments.” In so many ways, the child is the curriculum. By observing our early learners closely to see what ignites their curiosity, we can identify and build on the teachable moments that we encounter throughout the day.

Once we’ve identified a teachable moment, we can make the most of these spontaneous early learning adventures (and meet our early learning standards) by sharing our insights and asking questions that encourage children to dig deeper and make more connections as they engage in rich, authentic, hands-on learning that only looks like play.

After we engage in these impromptu investigations with our early learners, we can share the fruits of their learning adventures with parents and administrators, so that they can begin to understand how teachable moments can be harnessed to help prepare young children for the transition to kindergarten and success in the larger arena of life.

Soon, the stores will be filled with crisp, delicious fall apples, which will give rise to many of their own teachable moments, beginning with the letter “A.”  But today we have tomatoes, so we’re seizing the moment to harvest, sort, count, compare and investigate nature’s bounty!

It is only through genuine interactions and availability that teachers can identify these moments and act accordingly and spontaneously. Teachable moments require you to “think on your feet” and be flexible enough to stray from your planned path. If children’s interests take them in a direction that you hadn’t anticipated or planned for, you have to be ready to seize the moment and use it as a gift. Follow the joy of your students and your curriculum will develop organically!

“Look how many tomatoes are growing on this one vine!” Owen exclaims to his friends.

We are now collecting data and comparing attributes. Spontaneous discussions unfold as the children explore topics such as where the sun shines in the morning and which tomato plants get the most sunshine.

But how do the tomatoes ripen and turn red under all of those leaves? By observing, investigating and learning that living things grow and change, the children are building a strong foundation for future learning in earth science and life science.

We keep it simple. This type of learning is always developmentally appropriate because the children’s investigations are guided by each individual’s level of brain development.

“Avery, don’t eat them all!” cries one child as Avery pops a couple of freshly plucked tomatoes into her mouth.

We are exploring the concept of “many vs. few.”  But some of the children are too young to care about this concept and just want to experience the sweet deliciousness of a ripe tomato straight from the vine.

Our tomato harvest has all of the hallmarks of a true STEM learning adventure: investigation, discovery, collaboration and discussion. The children are learning through their senses: the visual task of surveying the tomato plants and comparing and categorizing the tomatoes as unripe (green or pale orange) or ripe and ready for harvest (deep orange); the tactile pleasure of separating a plump ripe tomato from its green stem; and the delicious sensation of biting into a tomato, still warm from the sun, and feeling it explode on the tongue. All of the goodness of nature and little brains in motion!

While two-year-old Lauren is more focused on picking the tomatoes and filling her bowl, some of the preschool-age children are busy trying to collect as many as possible. “Look how many I have!” squeals Linnea. “I have more than you!”

As the children explore the physical properties of the tomatoes, we are suddenly counting, estimating, comparing attributes and organizing by color and size. We have vocabulary and math flowing off of the children’s lips, which are stained with the juice of the ripe tomatoes. We are meeting our early learning standards—and the children are developing their own curriculum as they go!

Children construct their own understanding of the world when we provide them with a rich learning environment (in this case, our tomato garden) and ample time to explore, discover and investigate. We want children to think for themselves and not simply follow a preconceived curriculum or theme.

By taking advantage of authentic learning experiences in sensory-rich environments, we are setting the stage for the natural integration of early learning standards and successfully incorporating STEM knowledge into the daily lives of our early learners.

When you foster the development of a creative learning environment where children can find joy in learning, you will discover that your curriculum and lesson themes will spontaneously arise. In other words, let the children lead and the curriculum will follow!

Once the children have “followed their bliss,” introduce the books and thematic materials that support their interests. Build on their energy, enthusiasm and inquisitiveness.

If you head to the tomato garden, I think you’ll agree: early childhood STEM education has never tasted so good!

“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!

“AUGGGHHHH!” I hear screams, a crash and giggles galore.

The joy of Magna-Tiles® has returned to our ever-popular window-stacking play. When these colorful magnetic tile mosaics come crashing down from the window frame, the children respond with laughter and joy. By contrast, the collapse of three-dimensional block formations often elicits groans and tears.

Something about the suspense of the build (and the challenge of stacking the magnetic tiles higher and higher without triggering a collapse) keeps the children coming back to this activity time and time again.

For anyone unfamiliar with Magna-Tiles, they are magnetized tiles of different shapes that can be used to build the most amazing creations. We have purchased other magnetic block sets, but the children had difficulty figuring out the polarization or were frustrated by the lack of versatility. Ultimately, those more expensive sets were abandoned to collect dust in a corner while the children spent endless hours playing and learning with the Magna-Tiles.

Is there a more perfect block than a Magna-Tile? If I were stranded on an island with a group of preschoolers, this would be on my top-ten list of must-have learning tools. Heck, it would be on my top-three list. These are, without a doubt, the favorite block in our program. What’s not to love? Magna-Tiles build confidence and fuel hours of creative play. Our only problem with Magna-Tiles is that we never seem to have enough!

I read somewhere that you know you have enough blocks when there are still blocks on the shelves. I’m still not sure I have enough Magna-Tiles on any given day, and I always find myself purchasing more. (Full disclosure: I often purchase PicassoTiles, which are less expensive, equally rugged and nearly identical to my original Magna-Tile set. So, if your program is on a budget, don’t hesitate to buy this less expensive set.)

Magnetic tiles are a STEM classroom delight. We have math opportunities with shapes and colors, counting, blending colors, angles and geometry galore! We have science and engineering as we explore different designs and building techniques. The magnetic feature opens doors to design and construction options that regular wooden blocks cannot provide.

“What color is your tree?” Harrison asks his best friend, Jack, as they use their magnetic tiles to change the colors of the scene outside our window.

The collaboration continues as the two boys follow their creative impulses and develop their ideas.

Then Jack proposes a new challenge. “What if we try a triangle this time?”

The boys determine that the results will be the same regardless of the shape. I am convinced that the children’s understanding of different shapes has been greatly enhanced by the use of these magnetic tiles. Magnetic tiles are the perfect educational tool for teaching all things geometric!

I also love to observe the children as they engage in problem-solving when they are confronted with a shortage of large square magnetic tiles. They quickly determine that they can create the same shape with four smaller magnetic tile squares.

Magnetic tiles also lay the foundation for an understanding of sets and quantities, as well as concepts such as location and ordinal positioning as the children expand their STEM knowledge and vocabulary.

“Jack, do you think we can add this square and it won’t fall down?” asks Jack’s twin sister, Eve, who is working through her predictions and collecting data on what works and what doesn’t.

I watch as Eve gingerly pries the corner of the bottom tile away from the window and triggers a structural collapse that brings all of the magnetic tiles tumbling down.

This investigation of “What happens if…?” is met with delight and infectious laughter from Eve’s peers as the building collaboration starts all over again.

“If we add this triangle to the top, the trees will turn green and look different from the red trees down here.”

Jack and Eve continue to pursue different avenues of learning with the tiles. One minute they are investigating colors and the next they are observing patterns or determining which shape should be added to the mosaic.

I’ve noticed yet another benefit of our window-frame magnetic-tile mosaics: The activity often brings children together who don’t naturally play side-by-side.

In other words, this group endeavor builds community. I am not sure if it’s a team effort of US versus the WINDOW BLOCKS or if it’s simply the contagious joy of the activity that makes everyone want to join in the fun.

When the temperatures drop below zero for days on end, I know that I can count on our magnetic tiles to lighten the mood and enrich our learning through play.

One more note: I have been known to remove the magnetic tiles from our play on occasion.

Why? Because I believe that magnetic tiles are so easy to use that they create “lazy builders.” This is just a personal theory of mine, but I’ve seen it play out over and over again. Sometimes the children in my program need to be pushed out of their comfort zone.

I do this by pulling out my wooden unit blocks, which require the children to perfect the balance and symmetry skills needed to build a stable block tower.

When those wood towers fall, I remind my wee ones that they are great builders and then I help them start building again from the foundation up.

When I rotate the magnetic tiles back into our play after a period of going “back to basics” with the wooden blocks, I nearly always notice that the children’s building skills have improved.

Try it and let me know your results. Happy building!