“Can you read it again? PLEASE?” 

Frigid temps and gray days lead to lots of reading as we weather the winter season.

As February unfolds, I am thrilled to present a series of STEM books guaranteed to educate, enrich and entertain early learners while the snow flies.

It’s difficult to find books that balance exceptional educational content with engaging storylines, but these books deliver on both fronts.

Each book on this list is so good that you won’t mind when your young STEM explorers beg you over and over to “read it again“!

The Storytelling Math series features children using math during their daily adventures as they play, build and explore the world around them.

These delightful stories go beyond common early math topics such as counting and shapes to explore topics such as patterns, categorizing and spatial reasoning—topics that lay the foundation for later math success but are rarely included in early math books and learning materials.

This series focuses on math concepts that young children encounter in their daily lives. Packed with content that will introduce your early learners to patterns, spatial relationships and everyday math vocabulary words, these little gems also reflect the diversity of our world with characters, authors and illustrators from a wide range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

Each book concludes with suggestions for further math exploration.

I love the whole series but the books featured here are our favorites!

Our most requested book in this series is Bracelets for Bina’s Brothers. This book has inspired discussions about siblings, educated us about the holiday traditions of our friends and neighbors, introduced us to patterns and engaged us in problem-solving activities. In this celebration of Raksha Bandhan (a Hindu festival honoring the sibling relationship), the youngest sibling, Bina, is determined to make bracelets for each of her three brothers. Vijay loves blue but doesn’t like green. Siddharth is fond of green but can’t stand orange. Arjun likes orange but is sick of blue. With three colors to work with, Bina works hard to get the bracelets just right. This book often leads to requests for beads as we work on our own bracelet patterns, which adds Art to our endeavors for a full STEAM experience.

As much as my gang loves bracelets, I love Usha and the Big Digger—a beautifully illustrated tale about a girl who loves trucks. This book addresses rotation, geometry and spatial relationships, along with looking at things from different perspectives. Cousins survey the same part of the night sky and see different constellations on a starry night. After they switch vantage points, they each see what the other has seen. As the cousins rotate, they see the Big Dipper rotate too. This book features Indian-American characters, as well as insights into different cultures, their interpretations of constellations and their stories about the stars. When storytime is over, you’ll find some fun STEM activities to extend the learning—as well as a great tutorial on how to do a cartwheel.

We are big fans of Sara Levine and her many science books, so I knew that we were in for a treat when I saw that she was one of the authors in the Storytelling Math series. In her book, The Animals Would Not Sleep!, it’s bedtime for Marco and his stuffed animals, but the animals will have none of it. When Marco tries to put them away, they fly, swim and slither right out of their bins. Marco tries sorting the animals in different ways, but nothing works and the animals start getting cranky. How can Marco make everyone happy and put an end to the mayhem? He thinks like a scientist to come up with a solution. This is another favorite that will stimulate plenty of discussion and help build problem-solving skills. It will also pave the way for some fun stuffed-animal play in your classroom!

Having a cloudy week and need a little bit of inspiration? Reach out to your library for any of these wonderful titles. They are guaranteed to enliven your learning and lift children and adults alike out of the February doldrums. Enjoy your winter reading adventures!

Storytelling Math was developed in collaboration with the math experts at the STEM education nonprofit, TERC, with support from the Heising-Simons Foundation.

Looking for a great resource for multicultural picture books? Check out Diverse Book Finder, the go-to resource for librarians, educators, parents and others interested in creating picture-book collections that reflect the diverse cultures and lifestyles of the children who read them.

“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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I did it! Look! I did it! I hammered it all the way down!” shouts three-year-old Gabe with pride.

This is our preschoolers’ first day of learning how to hammer nails into stumps. “Playing with dangerous tools” is one of the top six activities that children enjoy when engaging in “risky” play. Risky play is about boundary testing, which leads to greater self-confidence, increased resilience and better risk-management skills. Today’s activity—which teaches life skills along with math and science—is a popular one with our preschoolers.

We want the children in our care to develop and understand relationships with objects, places and people. In math, we refer to these as spatial relationships. To help foster the development of spatial awareness, we must provide opportunities for young children to explore and investigate locations, positions, directions and shapes. As we build the foundation for spatial awareness, we are introducing children to geometry, perspective, measurement, size, composition and decomposition.

Children love tools, but we worry about safety, risk, liability and the comfort level of administrators and parents. Here’s how we “baby-stepped” our way into the world of tools. First, we prepared our logs by pounding large roofing nails into the top of each log:

Then we set up a work area. We used chalk to draw a large circle around each log and explained that each circle represented a DANGER ZONE. These circles have proven to be very effective visual cues for our young learners. Before the hammering started, we discussed the following rules: “No one can walk into a DANGER ZONE except for the one child who will be hammering in that specific DANGER ZONE. One student, one stump, one hammer. No one can enter anyone else’s circle. The hammer doesn’t leave the circle.”

Our work area looked like this:

Next, we distributed safety glasses, hard hats and work gloves. If you are three years old and decked out in equipment like this, you know that you’re engaged in serious business right from the start. We quickly learned, however, that the hard hard hats slipped down over little faces, and that the gloves didn’t allow for a great grip because they were too large for little hands. You may have better luck, but we came to the conclusion that the Dollar Tree safety glasses were sufficient to convey the idea that this was “Serious Business” and dispensed with the hard hats and work gloves.

We didn’t have tools that were the right size for the children when we first introduced the use of tools at our center, so we used what we had. But don’t let that stop you. The children will figure it out. If the hammer is too big, they will grip the handle higher up for better control. This is problem-solving. When administrators and parents see the safeguards that you’ve put in place—as well as the skills and confidence that young children gain through this type of hands-on play—it will be easier to secure the funding that you need to buy child-sized tools for your little carpenters in the future.

During the first week or two, the children will concentrate on simply hitting the nails. But, as time goes by, they will learn how to start the nails as well. As the children manipulate tools, they will learn about weight, balance, strength and the textures of the materials. They will develop better eye-hand coordination and dexterity, as well as fine-motor skills, which will help them hold a pencil when that time comes. Hands-on learning with tools also teaches children concepts such as problem-solving, counting and measuring.

Start out small. Baby step your way into playing with tools. The math and science are already incorporated into this toolbox. Trust yourself and the kids. If you build it, they will come.

Of the three children who are using the turkey basters as a tool to move the water, none of them are using it the way it is intended.  Since we don’t know the background of the children we can’t assume that they have had or have not had experience using turkey basters or observing others using them.  This may be their first opportunity to play with them in the water table. They appear to understand that somehow the liquid is supposed to go into the tube and the rounded end is for squeezing.  They do not know that the rounded end is also key to getting the water up and into the tube. They are using the basters pretty successfully as tools for stirring the water.

The water table is rich with mathematical experiences for children.  Not only are they estimating and measuring, they are also problem-solving .  In this scenario, we can also see the children motor planning**.  They have to figure out how to use both of their hands simultaneously to hold the cups, pour the water, make the water wheel spin, and hold the baster. Both the turkey basters and the making the water wheel turn require a sequence of coordinated movements to make them work.

Now watch the next video.  In this one, one of the teacher has come over and is providing scaffolding around the use of the turkey basters.  What do you think?

How would you support these children? How specific would you be in offering instruction?  How do you know when to provide exact directions for problem-solving and when to encourage independent problem solving?  When do you “teach” and when do you “scaffold?”

One of the things I consider when deciding which technique to choose is whether or not, through observation and experience, and trial and error, a child could figure how to do something (in this case-manipulate a turkey baster) on his/her own.

In the video, the teacher explains the required sequence of manipulations for the basters to work.  She explains to the child that he needs to squeeze the rubber end, put it into the water, release the end so the water will be sucked in, and then squeeze the rubber end to move the water out.  I don’t know about you, but I think this is a very complicated tool to learn how to use. To be honest, I’ve seen many a grown-up fail to use a turkey baster correctly come Thanksgiving time.

You have to follow the sequence exactly or it won’t work.  For young children, especially those under three, following these multi-step directions is very difficult.  As they focus on one part of the problem, they can’t (or find it extremely difficult) to pay attention to the other details at the same time. They may be able to squeeze the rubber end and put it into the water, but then remembering to release it and let the water rise is probably too many things to expect a very young child to be able to do.  You can see that even after the teacher has explained it a few times, the boy continues to struggle while he little girl uses the baster to scoop the water out of the cup.

In the case of a complicated tool, I would show children the steps to make it work.  However, I would focus on the first step, until the children are successful before moving on to the subsequent steps.  I would also play alongside the children and model using the tool.  Remember to encourage the children to follow the steps by explicitly saying, “First squeeze.  Then put the tip in the water.  Then release and watch the water go up.”  Keep repeating this sequence until the children are able to complete the sequence themselves.  They will be so thrilled when they master this tool.

**Motor planning is the ability to conceive, plan, and carry out a skilled, non-habitual motor act in the correct sequence from beginning to end. 

https://nspt4kids.com/healthtopics-and-conditions-database/motor-planning/

Last week I wrote about the importance of impartial and accurate observations of children.  Teachers of young children need to systematically use observation as a part of their daily practice in order to plan for appropriate and engaging learning opportunities, to set up the environment so it is both challenging and safe, to collaborate with other professionals, and to communicate accurately with families.

Today, I want to look at the video above and consider ways in which to support this child as he actively investigates the ramps.  Let’s tease apart the ways he is already exploring early mathematical competencies and ways we can further support his play so he can go deeper. During free choice time, this particular child came over to the large rug, where a long rubber track was placed along with a few wooden balls of various sizes.  He began exploring the track but before long (a minute or two) he went to the corner of the room and pulled out some wooden ramps and large block.  What you see in the video is what happens next.

Before we begin to analyze his play we need to accurately and objectively observe his play. What do you see? What is he doing?

At first, the child lays down three tracks of the same length from a large wooden block and then adds tunnels to the ends of the tracks.   He rolls a ball down each ramp, one-by-one, smiles and collects the balls to start over. He then uses his hands to hold three balls at the same time, and then places them all simultaneously at the tops of the ramps and releases them at the same time. He runs to where the balls have stopped, collects them and repeats the same action. Holding the balls in his hands, he goes back to the ramp box and takes out one more ramp and tunnel and sets them up next to the original three. He asks his teacher to help hold a ball and then asks me (while I was recording) to hold the last ball.  He indicates what he wants us to do by verbalizing and nonverbal cues, and we all release the balls at the same time.

He goes back and collects eight more ramps and sets them up.  The ramps are in sets of similar lengths and in descending length order. He places them side by side and when he gets to the last one, he puts it off on the end of the block but then moves it and makes room for it with the others. He collects the balls and hands them to his teacher.  He goes and finds a small car and places it at the top of a ramp.  He then uses one of the balls to push the car down the ramp and through the tunnel. 

I LOVE this clip.  There is so much going on during these three minutes there is no way we could possibly discuss it all. But, let’s give it a go.

Where is the math?

1.  Spatial Reasoning – Notice how he places the ramps, makes room for the last ramp, lines up the tunnels at the end of the ramps.
2. One-to-One Correspondence- As he places one ball at the top of each ramp, you can actual see him making this assessment and adjusts his actions to each ramp has one ball.
3. Sorting and Grouping- We don’t know from this observation whether he purposefully sorted the ramps by length and then grouped the like lengths together, but we do see the ramps end up like this.
4. Problem-Solving – He tries to roll the car down the ramp on its own (you don’t see this bit in the video) but it won’t move on its own.  He uses the ball to push the car down.

We could spend more time analyzing the video, but this is enough for now.

The next step is to consider ways to support his explorations and scaffold his understandings.  If you were his teacher teacher, what would you do to plan for this child?

I am going to offer a few suggestions.  They may seem obvious, but often I find that they are not.  I am only offering a few so there is room for readers to offer their own ideas.

1. Bring the ramps and balls out again – In my experience, I have found teachers set up learning activities for one day and then switch them up the next.  Children need many opportunities to explore the same materials over time.  I would even reassure him that the ramps and balls will be out so he can continue playing with them as he might think of other things he wants to add to the play.
2. Add one more element – It may be interesting to add another element to the activity.  Maybe a few more cars of various types and sizes or a ball of yarn (I’ll let you consider ways yarn may enhance the activity).  Don’t add more than one at a time, unless the child asks or comes with the idea himself.
3. Talk about the ramps and balls at group time – Tell the other children about the ramps and balls or better yet, let the child describe what he was doing with the ramps and balls to the other children.  This may pique their interest and some may join him, or he may explain in his own words, what he was doing, what he was thinking, and why.  This could be very enlightening.

Those are my three ideas to further support his play.  What would you do?

Setting up a nurturing mathematical environment & community is an essential beginning to any school year.  When  getting to know my students, I like to dig deeper and find out what kind of learners they are, where their strengths lie, and what areas they intend to work on during the upcoming year.

Teaching 2^nd, 3^rd, and now 4^th grade for the past 20 years, I have seen so many students arrive on the first day of school declaring themselves “Bad at Math.”  When I push them to expand upon that statement, I typically receive, “I just don’t like it” or “I like reading instead” They have already, at the age of 7 or 8 years old, started to shut down in math. For years, I took the approach of cheerleading them through their difficulties, offering extra support, and diversifying the curriculum with “fun” activities such as puzzles, activities that involved food, and various games instead of focusing on giving these children the emotional tools they needed to work through difficult problems.  A couple of years ago, my school hired a math consultant and she introduced us to Habits of Mind and it changed not only my approach to math and all other aspects of my grade curriculum and teaching.

Habits of Mind are essentially 16 characteristics of what students do when they come across a problem where the answer isn’t immediately obvious. So much of our math curriculums have been about focusing on getting the correct answer. Habits of Mind has us also looking at what the children do when they don’t know the answer. “We are interested in enhancing the ways students produce knowledge rather than how they merely reproduce it. We want students to learn how to develop a critical stance with their work: inquiring, editing, thinking flexibly, and learning from another person’s perspective. The critical attribute of intelligent human beings is not only having information but also knowing how to act on it.” Arthur L. Costa, Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind (An amazing book! I highly recommend it!)

I put these Habits of Mind up on the wall of my classroom and keep them there all year long as a reference. I break them up into 3 categories: the actual Habit of Mind, the short and memorable definition, and what it looks like in the classroom. For example, my favorite Habit of Mind is “Flexibility” The short and sweet definition of “Flexibility” is:  Look at it another way.  The way it looks in the classroom is to change your perspectives, think of other ways to solve the problem, listen to other classmates’ options and strategies.

This is a wonderful Habit of Mind for a student who consistently uses the same strategy to solve a problem despite the results. Last year, I had a student who was very determined to always use the subtraction algorithm despite the fact that he wasn’t always correct and that he wasn’t relying on his number sense to solve problems like 100 – 25.  He resisted adapting strategies such as an open-number line or extended notation. After many frustrating and tear inducing experiences with the algorithm, his classmates encouraged him try out the other learned strategies. Coming from his peers and not mandated from his teacher was a key element in his willingness to try another approach. After playing with several strategies during our subtraction unit, he declared that he was much more successful counting up on an open-number line than he had been using the algorithm which then led to a very rich discussion about what strategy to use when and how important it is to have an arsenal of strategies at our disposal. Developing critical thinkers and empowering the children with the tools they need to become successful problem solvers has helped turn those “I don’t like math” children into successful mathematicians. From that moment on, this student’s Habit of Mind was that he needed to work  “flexibility” and when he became stubborn or adamant during a difficult math session, we, our classroom community, only needed to remind him of being flexible and he was able to switch gears and do just that.

One of the beauties of Habits of Mind is that everyone has something they need to work on. That same year, I had what we call a “high-flyer” She was mathematically savvy, great with rote memorization and up until 3rd grade, had gotten away with relying on her mental math abilities to solve problems correctly. She didn’t like to show her work and while the majority of the time, she solved the problem correctly, she wasn’t able to recognize where she went astray if she happened to solve the problem incorrectly. As the problems started to become multi-step and it all became too much to hold in her head, she began to stumble. “Striving for Accuracy and Precision” became her Habit of Mind to work on.  Check it again!  Show your work!  A desire for exactness, using your Math Journal to show your work and be neat & organized in your mathematical thinking is what it looks like in the classroom.

You can easily find Habits of Mind on the Internet along with so many wonderful and creative ways in which teachers implement them.  We were so dedicated to our Habits of Mind last year that our end-of-the year, written by the students play was based on solving a very tough math problem and using our Habits of Mind to do so. We had children act out each Habit of Mind. There was also a great and almighty HOM (acronym for Habits of Mind) who kept the children focused while solving the problem and a teacher who presented the problem and threw additional obstacles in their way such as time constraints, taking away manipulatives, and adding extensions to the problem along the way. It was adorable!

1.   identify the problem

2.  consider options for solutions

3.  noodle through the possibilities and pick one

4.  try it out

5.  and find out if it worked.

Sounds easy enough, right?  As intuitive as this approach sounds to our seasoned ears, we learned how to move through this process over many years of trial and error and with a lot of support from the adults around us.  As children, we interacted with the material world testing hypothesis and drawing conclusions based on our rudimentary experiments.

When we couldn’t reach the sink to wash our hands, we figured out how to pull ourselves up onto the counter and balance our hips on the edge of the sink, so both hands were free to turn on the faucet, get the soap, and get washed up.  We eventually  had to figure out the “hand-washing problem” when we were faced with a too-high sink and no grown-up to lift us.

The “too-high sink problem” might have also been scaffolded for us if an adult had been present in the bathroom but not available for lifting.  Perhaps we came out of the toilet area, looking around for help – no takers.  Perhaps we tried to stand on tippy-toes – too short.  Perhaps we reached for the faucet – no way.  Perhaps we tried to sneak out without washing – yuck.  Most likely we observed another older child push himself up onto the counter.  Maybe another grown-up suggested, “Try jumping up.”

It may have taken two or three tries but once we got the hang of it, we never needed a grown-up again.  Problem solved.

In Young Children (March, 2014) in an article entitled, “Integrating Mathematics Problem Solving and Critical Thinking Into the Curriculum” the authors argue that we can teach problem solving skills and strategies to children by scaffolding their learning via an intentional problem-solving process.

To do this, follow these 4 steps:

1.  Reflect and ask

2.  Plan and predict

3.  Act and observe

4. Report and reflect

(French, Conezio, & Boynton 2003)

Imagine you have a dad in your program who works for a large corporation.  He comes to you one day, reporting that his business is moving and has all sorts of interesting items that you might like for your classroom.   He describes some old adding machines that have been in storage for the better part of 30 years complete with 10 cases of paper rolls that have never been opened. He says there are 4 machines to donate.  Perfect. 

The following Monday, he brings the adding machines over to your center.  You put the 4 machines on a table and the children are instantly interested.  However, you immediately realize that trouble is ahead.  All of the children want to use the machines at once.

You have a problem.

Frequently, I see teachers solving these types of problems by using their authority and exerting their control over the children.  A typical “solve” might be “First-Come, First-Served” or “10 minute turns”.  Both of these might work, but by solving the problem for the children, they miss the opportunity to solve it for themselves.

Using the 5 steps above, teachers can scaffold the problem-solving strategy.

1.  Reflect and ask – Bring the group to the rug and begin sorting through the issue. “It looks like everyone noticed that George’s dad brought us some new equipment for our classroom.  What do you think of the new adding machines?”  Discuss.

“There are only 4 machines and we have more than 4 children in our room.  What could we do so that everyone gets to play with the new equipment?”

2.  Plan and predict – “So the kids think we should let George play with the machines first, since his dad donated them.  You also think that George should pick 3 kids to play with him.  Is that right?”

“How do you think this will go?  Do you think the kids are going to be OK with this solution? Tomorrow, we will try this new plan to see how it goes.”

3. Act and observe – “This morning George gets to play with the new machines.  He is going to pick 3 friends to play with him this morning.  Go ahead George.”

Observe the play and the responses from the other children.

4. Report and reflect – Later, at group time say, “It looks like George and his friends enjoyed playing with the adding machines today.  Did you?”

“I noticed that the 4 of you didn’t play with the machines for all of free – play time.  Should we come up with another solution so more kids can have a turn when the first group is done?  How do we decide who gets to play with the machines next?”

Problem-solving builds strong critical thinking skills which are absolutely necessary for strong math skills.  Help your children problem-solve, not by leaving them to do it all alone, but by scaffolding with them.

I imagine that some of you have had this same experience.  Not only do young children love boxes, they love laundry baskets, Tupperware, kitchen spoons and spatulas, a roll of toilet paper, and the Sunday paper.  You might go out and spend a whole lot of money on a set of Duplos, but when it comes right down to it, your child (ren) may be just as interested in building a pile of spoons from the kitchen drawer as they are in building a pile of Duplos.

Children are natural-born problem solvers.  Boxes present so many challenges for the young child.  Can I climb into it?  Can I stand on top of it?  Can I crawl through it?  Can somebody find me if I hide in it?  What happens when I push it down the stairs?  What happens when I put my stuffed animal into it and then push it down the stairs?  These questions and so many others come with a large empty box.  These are not questions that adults have put forth.  They are questions that arise organically from the child’s open-ended play.  There are no directions that come with the box, and nobody is asking the child to do something or make something out of it.  There is no “right” way to play with a box.  It just is.

Open-ended, found materials encourage problem solving.  That is not to say that store-bought toys do not; they do of course.  However, there is so much opportunity for discovery in the mundane.  How many hours did my oldest child spend in front of the Tupperware cabinet? He pulled them out, stuffed them back in, matched the lids with the bottoms, used the tops as frisbees, stacked them tall and knocked them over.  All of this occurred without any direction from an adult.  He solved his own problems by manipulating and playing with these materials for hours on end.  If he couldn’t find a lid, he put that piece into a bigger container one and closed it inside with a bigger lid. He figured out which ones made the most noise when banging on it with a wooden spoon.  He discovered that he could put them at various distances across the kitchen floor and jump from one to another, like stepping-stones. He played pretend, he played with space and shape, he played with number, and he played with gusto.

Next time you hear a rumor that someone you know is having a refrigerator or washing machine delivered, do everything you can to get that box that it came it.  Your children will uncover all sorts of problems with it and then they will work very, very hard to solve them.

1.  How do you promote problem-solving skills with your children?

2.  When opportunities arise for children to “figure things out” on their own, do you let them?

3.  Are you often tempted to do things for children that they can do for themselves?

4.  Is it easier and quicker to solve children’s problems than allowing them the time and support to solve them for themselves?

Yesterday, I was in a 3-year-old classroom where the teacher has spent the better part of the year focusing on supporting children’s independence, autonomy, and problem-solving skills.  I was sitting on the rug while she read a story when I noticed a boy trying very hard to tie his shoes.  He glanced over at me and I found myself whispering, “Do you want me to help you tie your shoes?”  He looked at me like I was speaking Latin.  I then remembered that the children in this room are encouraged to solve their own problems, figure things out for themselves, and work diligently to get hard jobs done.  Although it took a long time, and the laces didn’t look too secure, he did get those shoes tied without my help.

This interaction reminded me that even though I like to be helpful and fix things, this is not ideal for young children as they develop autonomy.  What makes me feel good and useful is not and should not be the focus of my interactions with children.