“LOOK!” Ellie summons us with such joy that there’s no doubt she has spotted something wonderful.

Our eyes follow the four-year-old as she dashes to a very large, very hollow tree. A tree that is still alive and thriving—with an opening over four feet tall just inviting a group of children and their teacher to peek inside.

“Who lives in there?” asks Clare as she summons up the courage to move closer.

Can we go inside the tree?” asks Veronica, although the question is a rhetorical one because the three-year-old has no intention of venturing inside.

“Is the tree hollow all the way up to the top?” Alex asks in wonder as he approaches the tree and glances upward to assess the tree’s height.

“I think a whole family of squirrels might live in there . . . or bats!” Harper’s pronouncement prompts her peers to quickly back away from the tree.

It’s so quiet and still as everyone contemplates the hollow tree that I’m not sure if the children are even breathing. All eyes are locked on Ellie, our resident risk-taker.

Emboldened by the children’s curiosity, Ellie inches her way closer to the tree’s interior. She is cautious but curious, brave yet apprehensive as she simultaneously challenges herself and calculates the risk at hand. 

Research tells us that children won’t take risks if they think they can’t succeed. But I know Ellie. She is an amazing observer and a visual learner who tends to rely on her senses when approaching an unfamiliar situation.

Today is no different. I watch as Ellie inspects the size, strength and thickness of the trunk. She inspects the ground outside of the tree cavity for animal droppings. She pokes her head into the hole and peers up, down, left and right before stepping inside. Ellie thrives on moments like these and trusts herself to evaluate the situation.

I trust Ellie as much as she trusts herself. These moments of risk-taking and assessment help a child develop cognitive, social-emotional, and self-regulatory skills—traits that make Ellie a natural leader.

Suddenly, Ellie pops back out of the hole in the tree, looks around and beams at the rest of us. “It’s so cool!” she exclaims. “You have to come in!”

One by one, slowly but surely, the children all make their way into this amazing gift from Mother Nature. Children grow in their ability to appraise risk by observing other children at play.

When children observe their friends taking risks and succeeding, they become more confident about taking risks themselves. This confidence carries over to the classroom and prepares them to try something new, possibly fail, and try again.

This hollow tree trunk has evoked wonder and curiosity in the entire gang, sparking a STEM investigation that helps lay the foundation for later math, science, and engineering concepts.

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. These are the moments that inspire our early learners to investigate the possibilities.

Today, nature has provided the ultimate learning tool and transformed a moment of outdoor play into an exploration of the concepts of spatial relationships and geometry. An understanding of spatial relationships helps children talk about where things are located. I hear them use words such as in, out, down, over, under and next to, vocabulary that helps lay the foundation for geometry. 

When children use words such as wide, heavy and light, they are using descriptors for measurement. We begin to get a better sense of measurement as we visually estimate the height of the tree, the height of the entrance hole, and the number of friends who might be able to fit inside the tree. 

When children are guessing, predicting and classifying their ideas, they are engaging in early algebra, the scientific method, and basic engineering design. This morning of play is strengthening their understanding of these concepts as they use the vocabulary words repeatedly throughout their investigation.

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 structures during block play, art projects and clay play.

These are opportunities that are rich in learning, creativity and friendship. Whether they are on the playground or in the classroom, children must take risks that enable them to develop new skills and explore their ideas in a safe and supportive environment.  

Look for opportunities that can build your student’s risk-taking skills. Like our exploration of the hollow tree, these learning adventures will not only build their confidence and self-esteem but lay the foundation for academic success!

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!

“Who wants soup? I am making soup for lunch today!” Eleanor shouts to anyone willing to join her as she “cooks up” her concoction.

Eleanor is our concoction wizard. She can often be found adding loose parts to a large pot of water, mixing away while she muses about the ingredients she needs to add to her “recipes” for soup, magic potions and smelly perfumes.

“Aw, I don’t want soggy flowers in my soup!” Jose protests as he peers into the pot. “I like it better when you sprinkle them on top. Can you make the flowers dry again?”

Eleanor is a master at transforming dry flower petals into wet soup ingredients. But she hasn’t yet mastered the art of drying the wet petals with a swish of her stick.

“I can’t make them ‘not soggy’ anymore,” she admits. “But I can add some dry ones on top for you, sir.”

Questions such as “can it be undone” or “can I manipulate this” are all part of the learning process as our students engage in play with loose parts to investigate the phenomenon of transformation.

“Okay, great!” agrees Jose. “Can I have lots and lots of the red flowers on top, please?”

James comes running over to join the play. “What smells so delicious?”

“Acorn soup!” the children shout in a chorus of excited voices.

Our sensory-play kitchen is alive and well!

Sensory play activates and engages the senses—including touch, smell, taste, sight and hearing—while promoting the development of fine-motor and gross-motor skills.

When children engage in sensory play, they build new neural connections. These connections lay the foundation for language and motor development, creativity and essential life skills such as problem-solving, decision-making and memorization.

Imagine all of this cognitive development arising from a pot of acorn soup!

Acorn soup—or any magical, mystical concoction—can help children develop an understanding of math concepts in myriad ways, but most obviously through the use of mathematical language.

Imagine children mixing materials and discussing whether or not they should add more flowers, herbs, sticks, stones, pine needles or bark.

Quantity is a central concept in mixing. So it makes sense to incorporate pots and pans of all sizes, as well as measuring cups, to stimulate inquiry-based learning about quantity and volume, as children ask questions such as “How much should we add?” or “Do we want it to be thick like stew or thinner like soup?” It’s all part of building a child’s math vocabulary.

I could line up six young chefs to cook up pots of acorn soup and no two “recipes” would be alike. Children love to direct their own learning as they observe the “cooking” process and evaluate the ingredients that will make the best pot of “soup.” This is critical thinking at its best!

Whether you are cooking for play or actual consumption, it’s important to give children their own pots, bowls, measuring cups and utensils. Watching a friend cook is just not the same as engaging in hands-on, inquiry-based learning.

Real pots, pans, spoons, measuring cups and utensils help to “keep it real.” I delight in finding miniatures of good-quality cooking utensils. I love to use small stainless steel bowls. They are just the right size and they are affordable and easy to find at thrift stores. The same applies to measuring cups and spoons. Go with the stainless steel versions whenever possible. They always present well and they are sturdy and stain-resistant.

Children who are constantly engaging in “science experiments” or cooking up concoctions such as acorn soup are often exploring the transformation schema.

A schema is a repetitive pattern of behavior as children explore the world around them. Children who engage in the transformation schema will be fascinated by objects and their potential for transformation.

Play in this schema can be as simple as the transformation from dry to wet, from empty to full or from solid to liquid. Encourage children to investigate questions like these:

“How does this object change when I add water?” 

“Does the color change?”

“Does the texture change?”

“Does it smell different?”

By identifying and supporting schema play, you can tap into children’s interests and instincts while deepening and intensifying play and learning experiences.  

This is what STEM looks like! These preschool play moments pave the way for later learning in science, technology, engineering and math.

Experiences like these are integral to our mission here at Early Math Counts. Math is everywhere—in everything that we do with children and in every classroom activity. But we need to make the most of these math learning opportunities.

“Eleanor, is the soup ready yet?” Tucker asks from the other side of the yard. “How long does it have to cook?”

Ah, the ever-important gift of time. These periods of uninterrupted play stimulate brain development in a big way while enhancing children’s understanding of how the world (and math!) works.

So get your soup on!

Each spring, we eagerly anticipate the arrival of the growing season—from the greening carpet of grass to the buds bursting into blossom on the trees. We especially delight in the dandelions that can turn any grassy area into a STEM wonderland!

Dandelions introduce so many math adventures into our early childhood program. The neighborhood park is our favorite destination for a day of dandelion STEM adventures.

Our spring dandelion days create hours and hours of exploration, investigation, observation and just plain fun!  Mother Nature is serving up math opportunities everywhere we turn!

When we find ourselves in these nature-based outdoor classrooms, the learning is always developmentally appropriate and child-centered.

On the day that this photo (above) was taken, the flowers were too tall to spend much time on patterns or subitizing or blowing seed heads in the wind. We kept finding longer and longer stems, some with flowers and some with wispy white seed heads.

The giggles were contagious as the children continued to find taller and taller dandelions. It was a day that was unplanned, so the measuring tapes were back at school, but it didn’t matter!  This was a great moment for estimating, predicting and comparing attributes side by side.

“My grammy says the tallest dandelion you can find equals how many inches you will grow before your birthday!” said one STEM explorer.

Oh boy… GAME ON!  Giggles and screams of discovery floated down the hillside as our dandelion math morning took on a life of its own.

“If you grow that much, you will be a GIANT!” predicted one preschooler as Violet studied a dandelion stem that must have been at least two feet long.

“Violet! You keep finding longer and longer stems!” exclaimed another. “Wow, look at the one behind you!  Add that to your collection! Are the tallest ones up there?”

When you are yards away from your friends AND on a hill, it’s hard to determine who has found the tallest dandelion until you walk over to compare sizes and see which dandelion has the longest stem.

Measurement is one of the earliest mathematical concepts that children learn.

Comparing the sizes of objects, determining which stem is the longest, comparing which child is the tallest and identifying that a friend is high up on the hill are all examples of the ways that young learners begin to understand the concept of measurement.

By building on this rudimentary understanding, we can help lay the foundation of logic, reasoning, comprehension and critical-thinking skills that will lead to later math success.

“Did they all grow from the same seed family?” mused one dandelion hunter.

“Maybe we blew on a tall dandelion the last time we were here and the seeds got planted in the ground and grew this tall,” postulated another.

Whoa, now those are some interesting ideas! But, before we could discuss their theories, the children had moved on to yet another area of investigation.

“Hey guys! You need to pick the flower at the very, very bottom of the stem to keep your stem super long,” instructed one of the older children.

This concept was way beyond the comprehension of some of our younger friends, despite the efforts of the other children to teach them.

Ah, the beauty of multi-age groups. The beauty of allowing learning to take place as the brain and physical development allows. The beauty of friendships and childhood on a sunny spring day, when all of the stars (or, in this case, dandelions!) align and the learning comes so naturally.

I knew that we were using our math vocabulary when I heard the words, “height, tall, taller, tallest, short, shorter, shortest, long, longer, longest, more and less.”  These simple but important words proved that the children were reaping the benefits of this springtime STEM lesson without the support of lesson plans or a word wall.

Exposure to experiences such as our Spring Dandelion Day STEM Adventure enables early learners to begin to interpret the mathematical qualities in real-world settings.

By observing, measuring, comparing and analyzing objects in their environment, they are also learning more about the world that they live in.

Our springtime “field study“ offered an invaluable opportunity for young learners to practice early math skills while guiding their own mastery of important math concepts.

The experience was an empowering one for every one of our STEM explorers, inspiring the children to build on their nascent knowledge by seeking out new ideas and experiences.

Carve out time and opportunities for your early learners to acquire, practice, rehearse and build upon the skills that will carry them through their academic life. Your math curriculum and early learning standards are outside—just waiting for you!

Click here for a lesson plan on Flower Fun and measurement for your class!

“LOOK! We have icicles!”

“Can I have one?  I need one!”

On this brisk winter morning—much to the children’s delight—nature has given us the gift of icicles. The children’s fascination with these frozen treasures leads to an abundance of “teachable moments” as we engage in some STEM learning while getting some fresh air and exercise.

Soon we are counting, sorting and measuring the icicles. I can practically see those little brain synapses firing as the children use their senses to investigate the properties of the icicles and revel in the joy of being able to choose, hold and taste their STEM lesson for the day.

“My icicle is longer than yours!”

“I like the little icicles! They fit in my mouth better!”

“I like the thick ones, they last a long time! Look how fat mine is!” 

When I hear my students discussing size, comparing attributes and sharing their math vocabulary with their friends, my heart just soars. Mathematical language is one of the strongest predictors of children’s early mathematical success. Whenever children discuss relative concepts, they are doing math!

“Aww! I dropped mine and now it is in little pieces!” Janelle wails, holding back tears.

“They still taste good!  Now you just have lots of icicles!” says the ever-optimistic Claire. “Before you had one, but now you have more! You have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!  You have five icicles!”  

Claire touches each icicle as she counts. The ability to count in sequence and use one-to-one correspondence to determine the number in a set is known as rational counting.

Janelle has the ability to rote count, reciting the sequence in the correct order without an understanding of one-to-one correspondence or the concept of cardinality (the number of elements in a set). “I do have five!” she shouts.

“Look, I can drop mine and it doesn’t break!” yells Owen as he drops the thickest icicle to the sidewalk, only to have a few pieces chip away.

It is difficult to ask children to compare quantities if they don’t know what “more” or “less” means. If they can understand “before” and “after,” they are more likely to know, or be able to understand, what number comes after four. When children learn this language in a math context, they are ready to move on to more advanced mathematical concepts. We are building our math foundation!

“How did you make these icicles? We don’t have them at my house,” asks Rowan as she chomps on her icicle. 

“I know!” chirps Robyn. “When the sun warms up the snow on the roof it melts and turns the snow into water and the water starts dripping and then it gets cold again and makes an icicle! “

We take a long look at the ice melting off of the neighborhood roofs and other inclines and see that the dripping has indeed created icicles. We discuss how warm temperatures melt the snow and that is why our clothes often get wet, even when the snow is frozen solid on the ground. Now we have science! I love it when our play leads us right down the path to new STEM experiences and investigations.

“Oh, when our hands are warm in our mittens, it melts the snow? I never knew that!” Logan has processed the information in a way that many of his younger friends don’t have the brain development to do. He seems quite astounded by this realization. Together, we hypothesize which icicles will melt faster or whose icicle will get eaten faster.

Then we swap out our wet mittens for dry ones and hunt for more ice to expand our STEM  vocabulary.

Discussions about the weather are often rote and meaningless in early childhood classrooms. Classroom activities that involve calendars and weather patterns can be boring for young children because they are removed from the actual seasons and weather events.

But bringing the children outside to experience the weather firsthand or bringing the snow inside to be investigated on a water table is interesting. Involving the children in hands-on investigations is a much better way to teach concepts such as “winter” or “cold” than directing a child to walk over to a window and report that “It is snowing outside.”

During this busy holiday season, give yourself and your students a chance to escape the heated classroom and venture into the great outdoors to breathe in some fresh air and find your curriculum in the natural world.

I promise you that this approach will lead to far more STEM learning than talking about the weather during circle time!

I recently grabbed our dusty box of beanbags off of the top shelf of the closet and took the beanbags outside. We rarely played with them indoors, so what was I saving them for?  If a beanbag gets lost or forgotten under the plants and soaked in the rain, who cares? At least it has been played with.

Now that the beanbags have been relocated to our outdoor play space, they have been used daily over the past few weeks. Recently we created a new beanbag game that laid the foundation for later STEM learning.

We currently have a full group of children who can pump on the swings, which is great—unless you have more children than swings, like we do. So I brought out the bucket of beanbags and placed it on the edge of the sidewalk. 

Then I picked up a beanbag and gently tossed it in the direction of my swinging friends. The kids loved the idea and it was GAME ON!

Now mind you, the swings were a good 12 feet away from that sidewalk—far enough to ensure that none of the children would be strong enough or accurate enough with their beanbag tosses to actually harm a friend.

“Hit me! Hit me!” hollered the members of the swinging gang.

“I want to play!” shouted the rest of the gang.  AYE YAE YAE!  What had I started?

What I had started was a new game that quickly became a favorite. No one has been injured, few have been hit and the cooperation and turn-taking is incredible!

Our rules were simple:

1. Throwers had to stay on the sidewalk.
2. No creeping up on the swingers.
3. Only throw one beanbag at a time.
4. When all beanbags have been thrown, yell, “SWITCH!” and the swingers must stop.

When the swingers stopped that first day, there was a mad rush by all to pick up the beanbags and put them back into the basket for the next round. WHAT in the world? I NEVER see this type of energy and enthusiasm during usual pickup times!

I encouraged the new group of throwers to take a water break to give the new swingers time to get up to speed before the throwers started aiming at their targets. And then we repeated the cycle for a good 20-30 minutes before the children exhausted themselves from all of their throwing and pumping.

We had overhand throwers and underhand throwers. I watched as they tried different techniques and shared theories with each other on the best time to throw the beanbag depending on where the swingers were in the air. This is physics! This is math and geometry and plain old fun!

Investigations into physical science and engineering through this type of play give young children a chance to explore and control physical phenomena and develop a practical understanding of the laws of physics— all while giggling with their moving-target friends.

This activity also teaches children about risk-taking and trust building. You trust that your friend won’t hurt you, but you definitely take the risk of possibly getting hit. Scary but fun!

As the game evolved, new ideas were added to the play. Sometimes children called out the number or  letter printed on the beanbag or grabbed specific colors. One three-year-old consistently looked only for beanbags labeled with letters that had meaning to him: the first letter of his name or the names of his two siblings. (I later found three beanbags labeled with those letters hidden in a secret corner of the yard. Ha!)

Physically, our beanbag throwers were building up the muscles of their dominant hands, which they will use in future academic settings. They were also working on STEM concepts such as distance, accuracy, speed and force. We throw these wonderful science words into their play to build up their STEM vocabulary and lay the foundation for a deeper understanding of scientific concepts. Meanwhile, our swingers were  focusing on the trajectories of the beanbags headed in their direction and making predictions about when and where they would hit, while strengthening their core muscles for future desk and circle time.

OH, you want learning standards? We’ve got those covered too. We count, subtilize and build our math vocabulary. We measure and estimate distance. We make predictions and modify those predictions based on experience. We use our science skills to explore the physical properties of objects and experiment with force and motion. The list goes on and on and there are so many ways to adapt this game. So grab your beanbags, head outdoors and let the playing and learning begin!

“Will the children be kindergarten ready if they spend their days playing outside?”

As educators, we are often asked about kindergarten readiness by nervous parents who want to give their children the best possible start in life.

It’s important for parents—and educators—to understand that there are endless opportunities for deep learning when children are connected to nature. Young children learn primarily through their senses. The natural world—with its stimulating and constantly changing elements—provides the ultimate sensory learning environment.

When children explore the world through sensory play, they are actively building new neural pathways, which is crucial for brain development. When we slow down enough to observe this process, it’s easy to see the learning that takes place, and the social skills that are being developed, as the children collaborate on projects in the great outdoors.

On an unusually warm day in May, the boys in our program are busy building a large castle in the sandbox. This may look like nothing more than sandbox play, but there’s some deep learning going on here as our castle architects lay the foundation for future academic success.

“We should build a moat!” declares Joshua.

“Yeah, a moat!” agrees the gang. “We definitely need a moat!”

With these words, the digging begins. Before long, the castle builders decide that it’s time to add water to the moat. We have plenty of buckets at our center, but today most of the buckets are already in use.

Looking around for a way to transport the water from the pump to the sandbox, the boys settle on a nearby piece of fabric from one of their forts.

We’re all hot, tired and likely a little dehydrated at this point. A glance at the clock tells me that it’s almost closing time. But who am I to redirect the boys by pointing out the empty bucket next to the fence?

I watch as the boys carefully stretch the material out and center it beneath the pump spigot to catch as much water as they can. Asa begins pumping and, to my astonishment, the fabric holds the water without any leakage.

WHAT in the world?  I’m marveling at this unexpected development when it occurs to me that the cloth I’d purchased from the resale shop is actually a waterproof fabric used in hospital settings.

When I ask the boys if they were aware that the fabric was waterproof when they grabbed it, they respond with a question of their own: “What does waterproof mean?”

I try to explain that waterproof means that the water will not flow through the fabric. But there are times for discussion and times for action—and the boys are already focused on the next step in their plan.

First, they gather the corners of the cloth, taking care to keep the water from gushing out the sides. Then they make their way gingerly across the yard to the sandbox and carefully place the fabric in the moat.

I realize at this point that the boys had deliberately ruled out the use of buckets because they needed a flexible, waterproof liner for their castle moat.

They had assumed that the fabric they chose would hold water and, at the same time, conform to the shape of the moat. Wow! They were way ahead of me!

The boys did eventually make multiple trips to the pump to fill some buckets and add more water to the moat. But they knew that the bucket wasn’t the best tool for the initial phase of moat construction. Silly me!

This is just another example of the importance of giving young children sufficient time to engage in deep play and problem-solving (without any interference from those of us who think we have all of the answers), as well as the importance of loose parts in creative play.

Look at the delight on their faces! Okay, so the castle architect on the far right in the photo below seems to be grimacing at the weight of the load, but the other two look pretty thrilled with the success of their mission!

When we look at children playing in sand, what are WE missing? They are busy designing, creating, collaborating and communicating. They are adding and subtracting, working with shapes and molds and inclines and declines. They are adding water to change the nature of their building material. They are using spatial awareness and math and science vocabulary. They are theorizing, hypothesizing and collecting data. They are engineering and deepening their knowledge—all while playing in a box of sand!

This is the ultimate in STEM learning. Give them as much time as they need. Let them play. Add fabric to your play centers. You never know where their outdoor play will lead them—and what YOU may learn in the process!

“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.

“Do our shadows look like the monsters in the book?” asks James.

I glance over and see James and Noa connecting their shadows by overlapping their arms. When we engage children in outdoor shadow play to support active exploration and discovery, their creativity is endless!

James and Noa are playing out their version of the book, The Dark, Dark Night by M. Christina Butler. This charming children’s tale follows a frog heading home to his pond after a long winter’s sleep. Along the way, he stops to frolic with his friends Badger, Hedgehog, Rabbit and Mouse. As darkness falls, Frog borrows a lantern from his friend, Mouse, to light the way home.

But, as Frog approaches the reeds at the edge of the pond, he finds himself face to face with a HUGE pond monster with enormous claws. Terrified, Frog hightails it back to his friends. Each friend returns to the pond with Frog—only to flee when the monster reappears. But the friends ultimately realize that the fearsome “pond monster” is not a monster at all—just some scary shadows created by light from the lantern.

Our four- and five-year-old students love this tale. But we had to read The Dark, Dark Night many times before the shadow storyline finally sank in for the younger children in the group. It also took a bit of time and investigation for these younger learners to observe that, when we move, our shadows move too!

When we’re outside, we often engage in body-shadow play with the sun as our light source. Exploring the ways that shadows change as we move our bodies is a great way to get kids engaged and excited about learning. Our road is often closed to traffic during the winter months, and we always take the opportunity to grab tape measures to see how long our shadows are.

I often challenge our friends to see if they can disconnect from their shadows. After a few minutes of contorting our bodies to see if we can separate from our shadows, we decide that we can’t, but that never stops the fun and silliness of trying!

We create math shadow games by calling out different shapes and encouraging the children to do their best to create shadows in these shapes. Movements like standing on one foot, reaching up high to touch the sky and walking on all fours all help children develop body awareness.

Here’s a great way to practice fine-motor skills during shadow play: Use the sun, a projector light or a flashlight to create shadows of tiny hands on a wall. The children can work on finger isolation (e.g. pointing with the index finger, counting out the fingers on their hands and wiggling all of the fingers individually); thumb opposition (e.g. touching the thumb to each finger); and other hand positions to create different types of shadows, an activity that helps build dexterity while laying the foundation for later STEM learning. We also play “Follow the Shadow Leader” and encourage the children to recreate the leader’s shadow by duplicating his or her movements.

Shadow play also helps children develop a rudimentary understanding of cause and effect as they observe what makes a shadow and where the light needs to be to cast a shadow. By moving their shadows around, they can investigate different shapes and sizes.

“Look how dark my shadow is today! Yesterday, we could not see it very well.” Owen is the first to recognize that sunnier days and brighter lights create darker shadows. Observations like Owen’s are often followed by other STEM activities such as creating hypotheses, developing theories and collecting data as the children continue their investigations and deepen their understanding of the nature of light and shadow.

Your students may also notice that their shadows are different sizes at different times of the day. Depending on the amount of sunlight that illuminates our play space, their shadows can be longer, shorter or nonexistent.

You can also show the children how to change the size of a shadow. Move an object closer to a light source and the shadow becomes bigger. Move it away from the light source and the shadow becomes smaller.

Light and shadow play is an amazing way for children to explore their world. If the sun is shining, why not meet your Illinois Early Learning Standards for math and science while playing with shadows. Have fun!