“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!

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

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

SNOW MOLDS

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

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

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

ICE AND ICICLES

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

IGLOOS

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

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

HIKING

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

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

  

SLEDDING

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

ANIMAL-TRACK INVESTIGATIONS

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

SNOW SCULPTURES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay safe my friends!

Out of the corner of my eye, I am drawn to the persistence of three-year-old Saaliha. She is calmly and patiently working her way through a rainbow puzzle.  Her friends are busy in other parts of the classroom, but Saaliha is problem-solving her way to mastery. I sit down next to her to observe her skills. She is so deep in her learning that she doesn’t notice.

Open-ended materials such as these often create learning scenarios that allow long periods of deep concentration, and today is no different. Although this puzzle often lands in the block area as a snake, a tunnel or a flowing river, today Saaliha is trying to fit it back together the way it is stored in the tray.

Puzzle play is a great time to build cognitive and fine-motor skills. Besides finding the correct sequence of sizes, Saaliha needs to evaluate which directions the blocks sit so that she can complete the puzzle. I watch as Saaliha flips, turns and rotates the pieces to figure out where they go and in what order. This is spatial transformation. I love watching her learning style and seeing how it corresponds to her developmental level. I see her set aside pieces that are not needed at the moment. Saaliha’s spatial awareness is growing with each try.  

Watching Saaliha play with the puzzle, I can see her choices and strategy change. She begins to recognize and understand how the pieces fit together to complete the puzzle. I watch her sorting and testing pieces of different sizes and moving them in different directions until one piece fits properly. Through this task, Saaliha is developing small-muscle movements and dexterity in her hands and fingers, along with critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. This creates a learning adventure in which the eyes, hands and brain are working together to make the puzzle pieces fit. 

Saaliha is soon joined by her two-year-old buddy, Eleanor. These two best friends are 11 months apart in age—with different learning styles and levels of brain development. They work together to fit the yellow arch into the puzzle. There is discussion as they describe their strategies to one another. The collaboration is delightful as Saaliha patiently watches her younger friend try to master the same issue that she is having. Saaliha never reaches over to remove the piece from Eleanor’s hand. She is observing and reasoning as deeply as she had been moments earlier when the puzzle piece was in her own hand. Eleanor quickly loses interest, but Saaliha perseveres!

Saaliha tries new pieces and new directions. I can see the wheels turning in her head. She is collecting ideas and working out theories. She is not rushed or agitated.  She is riveted to this learning opportunity. She doesn’t ask for assistance. She just keeps trying new patterns and new pieces. 

Suddenly it all clicks into place. The lightbulb of understanding goes on in Saaliha’s mind and I can see her confidence surge as she fits the pieces together more quickly. She’s got it! She’s figured it out! There is no celebration, just a smile of satisfaction. She studies the finished project. Before I can capture her expression of satisfaction, she disassembles the puzzle to do it over again.

Saaliha continues to struggle and I continue to observe her strategies and methods of choice. Her perseverance continues to reward her with success and a better understanding of the puzzle in front of her. She is a finely tuned machine, working on all cylinders as she masters the task at hand with patience and confidence. 

Puzzles offer a wide variety of developmental benefits and enable children to learn important skills as they play. From critical thinking and problem solving to concentration and attention span to spatial awareness, playing with puzzles adds layer upon layer to our strong math foundation! 

The possibility of a building project began by following children’s interests and things they noticed and pointed out during walks around the neighborhood. This included different types of buildings and specific details of these buildings such as the number of windows, stairs, a triangular roof versus a flat roof, arches, etc. Children were then taking this interest to the classroom by talking about these things and comparing their own houses and buildings that they lived in to the buildings that they saw on their walks. This interest in buildings was also represented in their daily play in things such as their journals, play dough, magnatiles, Legos, their block play, and even pretend play when they were pretending to be construction workers and “building a building from scratch” using large hollow blocks.

After discussing this with my teaching team and exploring the possibilities for math learning in this project, we decided to plan a building project using open-ended materials and breaking it down into ten sequential steps where each step was needed in order for the next step to happen. This project would also start with activities that were simple and straight forward and become a little more complex with each step. We knew that it would be a lot of work, but we were excited and committed to work together to make it happen!

The first step in our project was to go on a neighborhood walk with clipboards, card-stock and pencils. Children were invited to sketch a building of their choice and concentrate on a specific detail such as number of windows, stairs, roof, etc.

They had the opportunity to review their sketch with me and talk about the specific details in their sketch. This was a great opportunity me to work one on one with the child and model and encourage math language in their description of their building. We also discussed other possible concepts in their sketch such as quantity (number of windows and stairs), size (height and width), spatial awareness (positional words indicating location, direction and distance). The idea was not to have a perfect drawing, but for the child to be able to describe what they saw and what they drew.

In the next few blogs, I will talk about the rest of the steps of our building project and how the children were able to incorporate math at a basic level and reach a more complex level within their exploration of buildings.

Cooking with kids offers a wonderful array of learning opportunities for young children. It provides practice in language arts (vocabulary and “reading” a recipe), science (chemistry and exploring the senses), and developing social skills (cooperation and turn-taking). The kitchen also provides a range of math practice such as counting, measuring, and understanding order.

In my son’s pre-k class, the teachers and children cooked together almost weekly; the recipes coincided with their Letter Of The Week. So for B week they made banana bread and for O week they made omelets. The recipes were simple enough for the teachers and children (ages 4 to 5-years-old) to manage, each having a minimum number of ingredients. My son LOVED the rice pudding so much that I asked his teacher for the recipe. When I saw how simple it was, I suggested we collect ALL of her recipes and create a cookbook to share with other parents, whom I imagined were equally excited to cook with their kids at home. After all, these were recipes already vetted by our experienced and talented teacher.

As a teacher in the classroom, we sought out parent/caregiver volunteers to assist with cooking projects. Having the child’s special grown-up allowed those participants to engage in the school life of their child, providing them with an opportunity to better know the other children and teachers and also observe their own child in the context of the classroom. It also allowed us to maintain good adult/child ratios while working with small groups of children (typically 4 – 5), in the kitchen. The children who cooked or prepared snack (sometimes it was simply designing bagel faces with cut fruit, vegetables and sprouts) usually delighted in their food and seemed proud to share their creations with their classmates. The learning continued through the service portion of the meal, since the child chefs, with the help of the grown-ups, needed to figure out how to divide what they made into equal portions for their friends. Something like bagel faces required counting and one-to-one correspondence; baking a quiche required cutting it into enough equal-sized pieces to serve everyone.

For recipes that were made frequently, we made recipe booklets that were much more readable for children. Play dough was something we made with children on a weekly basis and for that we created cards, bound by binder rings that had visual instructions and described quantities with pictures.

Cooking presents children with plenty of opportunities to learn and is also a great way to teach principles of good nutrition and encourage an adventurous palate: in my experience kids are much more likely to try foods they’ve grown or prepared themselves.

Generally speaking, the daily schedule should have large chunks of time dedicated to broad activities. It is far more important to have an hour scheduled for “free play” and the next hour scheduled for “outdoor time” than to include a ten-minute chunk for “transition” or “bathroom break.” The broad categories ensure fluidity and allow the teachers to meet the needs of the group flexibly on each day.

Mathematically, sticking to a daily routine allows children experience sequencing first-hand and will help when it comes time for more sophisticated math operations such as adding and subtracting two digit numbers and understanding the order of operations, the rules that define which procedures to perform first in a math equation (surely we all remember: PEDMA or Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally/parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction). The order of routine in the classroom becomes meaningful to children when they realize, for example, that they can’t sit down to eat snack at the table unless they’ve first cleaned the table of playthings (“cleanup time”). This is also true when they are working on getting dressed to go outside. First the children put on their coats and then they put on their mittens. The natural consequence of putting on mittens before coats is that for most, it simply isn’t possible to zip the zipper or close the buttons with mittens on. Encouraging “order of operations” within the classroom structures and activities by allowing the children to see, feel, and experience the natural outcomes of the sequencing hammers the concepts home in real and meaningful ways.

When creating a schedule, don’t forget to allow ample time for transitions which can be stressful to both children and adults); be sure to incorporate a realistic time for clean up, hand-washing, and dressing (for going outdoors), in addition to snack set-up and preparing to go home. Transitions are learning opportunities in their own right! However, best practice asks that we minimize transitions as much as possible to lessen the anxiety associated with them and to increase the time children spend at play.

I have seen a preschool class transition from free play to cleanup time, only to sit at the rug and wait for the whole group to transition to the washroom for hand washing. Once arriving at the washroom, all of the children had to sit against the wall and wait to have their turn washing their hands. Once they were done, they lined up and waited for all of the children to finish. They then went back to the classroom and sat at the tables while they waited for the snack to arrive. Each part of this scenario is another transition and there are far too many. How would you reduce the above-described transitions down to 2?

I have found that teachers who voice the daily routines as a part of their practice encourage this type of thinking in the children. It is OK and actually recommended that you say things like, “First we have snack and then we go outside.” Or, “After you wake up, your dad is coming to get you.” Even though you might think you say these things every day – all day long – young children do not have enough experience in their short lives to know for sure how the schedule works. They need reassurance about their upcoming activities and the way their day will unfold. You can provide that by giving voice to the daily routines in your classroom.

posted by Alison Balis Hirsch

It may be hard to see so I will give you some hints.

There are 2 cookies, a glass of milk, a refrigerator, a straw, a mirror, a book, and a pencil (there are a few more).  Using these clues, can you tell that this is the story called If You Give a Mouse a Cookie?

This teacher did such a lovely job telling this story and including each child.  She knew the story by heart and each time the mouse needed something new, a child would come and find the felt board piece and add it to the board.

These children were in their second week of preschool and they did an awesome job taking turns, finding the pieces and getting them to stick to the board. For a first felt board experience, this was really nice.

One of the great things about the Laura Numeroff books (there are several that are similarly themed) is that they incorporate, cause and effect, if-then statements, and predictive sequencing. During this telling of the story, the teacher did not focus on these obvious elements as she was clearly just beginning to work with these newcomers, and her goal for the moment was that they participate, listen and enjoy.

However, once the children become accustomed to the activity and become wholly familiar with the design of these stories, it is important that the children put the pieces of the story on the board in order so they can tell and retell it themselves.  I appreciate the hand-made pieces (they were beautiful) but I would have also included a felt mouse, since all of the action happens around him.  A felt mouse could also be included in the telling which might make the felt board version more coherent for the children.

Imagine laying out each piece in order (a cookie, a glass of milk, a straw, and so on) and then have the mouse mover through the sequence.  Rather than having the children put the pieces on the board, they could come up and take them off.  Once the mouse eat the cookie, he want some milk.  In order to drink the milk, he needs a straw, etc., until the mouse comes full circle and ends up back to the cookie.

The mathematical elements of these books are outstanding.  Prediction and sequencing are the most appropriate for the preschool classroom and can be incorporated into any associated activity you do with your children.

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.