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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay safe and take care!

I am a creature of habit, I function better when things are in order. Some people might say I’m anal, but it is how I work. I was that way as a teacher and I am this way as a mom. And hopefully, I’m raising kids who also do well with order in their lives. In addition to the order being the flow of our day, I have visuals that can help my kids.

5-week calendar

On the side of our fridge, there is a calendar that I can change with Vis-a-vis markers – it spans about 5 weeks. I use different colors for each person or our family as a whole. This has come in handy when my daughter has asked about something that is further down the road. She likes to look at the calendar and even asks what number she should look for. Her friend’s birthday is coming up. She asks me, “What number is Becca’s birthday?” “29. But her party is June 4.” She is able to locate both numbers, which gives her a sense of how much longer we will need to wait before we can celebrate with Becca.

Weekly calendar

In my kids’ bedroom, I have a small dry erase board that spans a week. Every Friday night, we change out our calendar and list all the things that are coming up. I’ve been doing this for about 2 years now, when my daughter, who like most children, was always curious about what was happening. My artistic husband adds some great pictures to the words listed to help her better figure out the activities. Those pictures now come in handy for my son. This has been key to my daughter recognizing the days that pass (both the number and day of the week) as well as months. She looks forward to specific days she sees on the calendar! Some days are the same each week (church, swim lessons, library, etc.). Some things happen each week, but on different days (zoo or Wonder Works). She also recognizes when our week will be busy or light.

Order of our day

Our days are pretty predictable – the location of where we head changes, but the flow does not. I know that my two appreciate the predictability. They know that as soon as they walk into any house, they sit on the steps to take their shoes off. They know that when we leave the zoo, their treat is fruit snacks in the car. With our order of the day, I am able to introduce an early sense of time to my daughter. She knows that she is to stay in her bed in the morning until 7:00 am and that the white noise machine goes off at 3:00 pm after their nap. And they both know that “8 is late” when we are trying to get upstairs to bed.

I was introduced to executive functioning the last year I was teaching before I had my daughter. I imagine this sense of the flow of the day will be beneficial to them as they go through life.

A couple of weeks ago, I observed one of my student teachers read The Very Hungry Caterpillar aloud to a group of 18 three-year-olds.  She did  a great job reading; using all of the skills and techniques of dialogic reading that we teach our growing teachers. While watching her, I realized that there are so many great math concepts in that book.  There is sequencing, number sense, number recognition, one-to-one correspondence, and predictability.  Using an engaging book to explore these concepts is so much more interesting than so many more typical didactic exercises that tend to be less developmentally appropriate and definitely more boring to young children.

I found this cool website that is filled with ideas about how to use The Very Hungry Caterpillar in a variety of ways,  Check it out here.

Did you also know that the consistency of the routine also sets up a predictable sequence of events and order that is mathematical.  As children learn the routine, they can predict what will happen next, they can tell you the order of the events of the day, and they can describe the time of day that certain events will take place, etc.

Even the youngest children  can predict a sequence of events when they are a part of a daily routine.  Reassuring children about the daily schedule will support these concepts.  Even though it seems repetitive to an adult’s ears, saying things like, “After we eat, we are going to get ready for our naps, and after our naps, we are going to go outside,” will be reassuring to young  children.   Repeating these same words day after day, reinforces predictability and the daily sequence of events.

The earliest sets of predictable patterns are elicited by the infant herself. When she cries, her adults respond.  When she is pushed in the stroller, people stop and coo at her.  In short order she discovers that her behaviors “cause” the reactions around her and learns to repeat her behavior so she can continue to prompt the desired responses.  This “cause and effect” reaction is her first experience of “predictable sequencing” and lays the foundation for math concepts rooted in relationships.

You can well imagine how a disturbance in these predictable patterns and sequences can be problematic for the infant.  That is why both consistency of care and continuity of care are necessary and ideal for her.  Her learning is dependent on repeated experiences that result in the development of neural pathways that are laid down and then deepened over time.

The infant finds comfort in routine.  She thrives when all of her needs are met in a predictable way.  She enjoys exploring new terrain while returning to the familiar.  Practice and repetition are reassuring and should be encouraged.  Just when you think you can’t play “Peek-a-Boo” for one more minute, you remember that the infant relishes this repetition and is busy building neural pathways because of it.

This got me thinking about providing individualized care in a group setting.

Recently, I was visiting an “older infants” room in a center setting (6 mos.-1 year).  It was a lovely room with all of the appropriate bells and whistles I’ve come to expect in quality child care.  What surprised me was that the teachers fed the children simultaneously, changed them on the same schedule, and put them down for their naps all at the same time.  This is contrary to everything I’ve learned about caring for infants and toddlers “on demand.”

Nowhere is individualized care more important than in the infant and toddler setting.  Regardless of how the teachers managed to get all 6 babies on the same schedule, I can’t imagine that is best for all of them.  I am quite sure it is nice for the teachers.

The earliest mathematical concepts are reinforced for infants through a consistency of care.  Babies come to expect that when they are hungry they eat, and when they are tired they sleep.  When they are changed, there is a system in place that is consistent and follows a set order.  These set structures build trust between the infant and her  provider and ultimately create a sequence of events that is constant and predictable.

These relationships between people and events are logico-mathematical in nature and are paramount to children’s overall well-being.  For me NAEYC is really clear on this.  Developmentally Appropriate Practice asks that we consider the child in light of her/his family and culture.  Providing individual care for children under three should still be a priority, shouldn’t it?

One mom reported that she had heard that children were supposed to identify a pair of “trousers” in a picture.  She felt that the word “trousers” is no longer used and her child was at a disadvantage because their family does not use that word at home.  Perhaps this is true.  I might argue that most of us no longer use the word trousers to describe pants.  We say “pants” or “jeans” or “corduroys.”  However, children who read a lot, are read to a lot and who are exposed to the world of books, will have a vocabulary that will eventually include words like “trousers.”  Books are important for language learning.

That brings me to books for math.  If approached with intention, children’s books are rich with mathematical concepts.  Some are obvious (Ten Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed) and others have mathematical concepts embedded in the stories, through the use of patterns, rhythm, and predictability.

Nowhere is this more true than in Eric Carle books.

Take a look at this video and let us know what you think.  Watch how Ana reads “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” and capitalizes on the mathematical concepts.  What do you think?

(The password for the video is Ana)

Young children like to think about the “chance” of something happening.  Introducing and using language like “likely” or “unlikely” will help the children think about the predictability of an occurrence.  How often something happens will help define the likelihood of it happening again.  So, if you apply this with children , you can discuss the likelihood of events that are familiar and frequent in their lives.  Start with the easiest examples, such as asking a child who will come and pick them up today, mommy or daddy?  Based on their prior experiences they can predict who will come. As children get better and better at predicting you can ask them to choose between three choices; i.e., which fruit are we probably having for lunch? Bananas, apples, or oranges?  Even though they can’t actually predict, they can begin to look for trends and patterns which will support their ability to explore probability.

Next week I want to talk about probability using manipulatives such as dice, spinners and coins.