“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!

“Saaliha, come with me to the light table,” Evelyn whispers. “I have to show you something!”

Hand in hand, the two preschoolers quietly make their way over to our light table. This darkened corner of our classroom never fails to mesmerize the children with its soft glow and luminous colors.

As the days grow shorter and darker—and the hectic holiday season approaches—it’s the perfect time to engage children in calming investigative play with light and color.

Before we gather around the light table, I dim the lights in the classroom and put on some soft music to create a soothing and tranquil setting for the children, who are often overscheduled, tired and anxious during these busy December days.

“Look!” says Evelyn. “I took a play silk from our dress-up bin and put it on the light table!”

Evelyn moves over to make room for Saaliha at the light table and the two friends immerse themselves in STEAM collaboration, problem-solving and investigation. The girls are completely absorbed in their play—and the learning is enhanced by the presence of a friend and collaborator.

“That’s cool!” says Saaliha. “It makes everything look a little different, but you can still see all of the different colors!”  

The light table allows for open-ended play, where children can experiment and create without strict guidelines. This type of play fosters the development of creativity and problem-solving skills as the children follow their curiosity, devise their own experiments and draw their own conclusions. This child-led play also fosters an investigative mindset, which can lead to hours of exploration and discovery.

“Try this!” Evelyn suggests as she shows Saaliha how to duck under the silk to compare the views. 

The girls experiment with different color combinations and share their theories and discoveries. The light table always seems to spark curiosity and encourages children to ask questions and seek answers.

As more children join the investigative play, they expand their knowledge base by collecting data and adding probability to their investigative skills.

This is a shared space that encourages collaborative investigations. Collaboration fosters communication skills, teamwork and the ability to share ideas with peers.

Children work together to create patterns, build structures and explore different materials—a process that helps foster the development verbal and social skills.

The hands-on nature of these activities promotes a deeper understanding of mathematical principles through play.

Children can investigate fundamental mathematical concepts such as counting, sorting, patterns and shapes on the light table. 

These long play periods extend the learning as the group explores spatial relationships, patterns and sequencing, laying a foundation for more advanced mathematical thinking.

Play at the light table is naturally enjoyable for young children. The combination of vibrant colors, interactive materials and the freedom to explore creates a positive and joyful learning experience that can contribute to a lifelong love of learning. 

Light tables allow children to learn at their own pace, which makes the play developmentally appropriate for every early learner. The children build on their own knowledge and share their observations with others.

When children are making observations and discoveries, they are forming and testing hypotheses. These self-directed learning experiences empower them to continue to explore and investigate beyond the classroom.

So turn on that light table and watch the magic of play and discovery brighten the day! 

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!

“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.

“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!

As the days grow shorter and the slanting rays of sun that create our rainbows are replaced by clouds, we shift our energy to other forms of investigative play with light and color.

“Saaliha, come play with me at the light table!” Nora calls out.

Saaliha joins her friend and the STEM investigations into light, color and reflection continue.

“Watch what happens when I put all of the reds together,” instructs Nora. “But look! It’s not really red. It’s pink! Ta-da!”

Saaliha is immediately drawn into this color exploration. I watch as Nora moves over to make room for Saaliha at the light table and the two friends immerse themselves in STEM collaboration, problem-solving and investigation.  

“It is pink! Can I have the red one?” Saaliha asks. Nora passes a transparent half-sphere her way.

The girls experiment with different color combinations and share their theories and discoveries.

We love our light table because it never disappoints, stimulating long periods of intense play as the children lay translucent objects one over the other.

Light-table play can be a calming, absorbing experience for a child, and the learning is often enhanced by the presence of a friend and collaborator.

These explorations of color and light also offer opportunities to assess the children’s predictive abilities. As the children expand their knowledge base through trial and error, they collect “data” and add “probability” to their investigative skills.

Everything and anything translucent can be used in light and color play. We add a variety of colored translucent tiles to the light table, cut cellophane sheets into shapes to create mosaics and layer translucent paddles to create new and sometimes unexpected colors.

We add bingo chips and clear and colored gemstones to the mix to encourage counting and sorting by attributes.

Translucent blocks and Magnatiles inspire the children to create 3-D structures and see the interplay of light, color and reflection in three dimensions.

I keep baskets of loose parts near the light table so that the children can use them for unstructured, self-guided play.

I also stock up on non-traditional items such as cocktail stirrers, colorful shot glasses and reusable plastic ice cubes at the dollar store. While these objects may look more like happy-hour supplies than learning tools, they represent a treasure trove of loose parts to children. Sea glass is also a great idea. In short, if it’s translucent, add it to your light-table area!

I rarely tell children how or where to play with toys. Occasionally, children will bring wooden blocks or other non-transparent toys over to the light table area. Out of respect for their creative process, I’ll allow it—unless, of course, the objects are heavy enough to damage the light table. These non-translucent objects are an important part of the children’s investigations. All objects look different when lit from above and below, and when viewed from different angles. This open-ended approach to play gives the children more latitude to create and investigate with color and light.

A few of my students are developmentally ready to start learning the alphabet. Some recognize letters, while others just perceive the letters as shapes. I make sure that the letters are accessible to my early learners at all stages of brain development and leave it to the children to make up their own rules for letter play.

Sometimes we add a play silk to the light table, which changes the children’s perspective and introduces new ways to play with light, color and reflection.

The light table supports our students as they make observations, think scientifically and collaborate with their friends while investigating new ideas and theories.

I love this learning tool because it’s always developmentally appropriate. The children build on their own knowledge and share their observations with others.

When children make their own observations and discoveries, they are forming and testing hypotheses. These moments of learning empower them to continue their exploration and investigation outside of the classroom.

This self-guided exploration paves the way for inquiry-based learning. So turn on that light table, trigger some curiosity and watch the magic of play and discovery brighten up your day!

“Evie, come look! I’m a superhero! I have superpowers!” calls Jamie from the foyer.

Curiosity piqued, Evie leaves her blocks behind to see what her best friend is up to now.

“Rainbows!!!” Evie shrieks as she spies the colorful light pattern on Jamie’s wrist.

Everyone within earshot dashes over to see the rainbows. And, just like that, our morning activities morph into a joyous exploration of light and color.

Squeals are the soundtrack for this sudden spasm of joy as the children dance around the room “catching” rainbows.

The rainbows that have inspired this impromptu STEM investigation are coming from the leaded-glass windows on our old schoolhouse.

During the winter and early spring, the sun hits these windows at just the right angle and we find these refracted-light rainbows on our walls, the floor—and even on the faces of napping children.

“I know the colors of the rainbow!” Noah sings. “R is for Red, O is for Orange, Y is for Yellow…” 

A chorus of little voices joins in, along with requests for our favorite “ROY G. BIV” song from the children’s CD, Here Comes Science (see image below).

The song is used as a mnemonic aid to help children remember the colors of the visible light spectrum in order of increasing frequency: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.

Color recognition marks an important developmental milestone.

Color identification helps children strengthen the cognitive link between visual clues and words.

Noah is singing the ROY G. BIV song while pointing to each color. As I watch, I make a mental note to check off color recognition, vocabulary and sequential ordering on Noah’s upcoming learning assessment.

I attempt to explain that the rainbows in our classroom are created when the sunlight gets “split up” as it passes through a cut-glass window that bends the light.

“Red tends to bend the least, so it appears on the top of the rainbow, while violet bends the most and ends up on the bottom,” I state.

My jabbering is met with silence. The children are deep into their own investigations.

“The librarian told us that rainbows are actually circles, but they look like arches when we look at them from the ground,” says Owen.

Heads pop up. Owen’s comment is met with quizzical expressions as the children try to process this information.

“If we dig down into the ground would we see the rest of the rainbow?” Roberto asks. 

“I don’t know,” shrugs Owen, glancing around at the rainbows in the room.

“What’s an arch?” asks Thali.

“You know, that part of the circle that looks like this,” says Jamie as he creates a half-circle with his hands. “It’s like you cut a circle in half!”

Thali nods and the focus of the group returns to the rainbows in the room.

This interaction prompts us to bring out our prisms and inject a bit of STEM into our hands-on play. Throughout the day, we experiment with other materials and sources of light.

First, we add Magnatiles to the windows in our block area (above).

Then we grab our liquid tiles (below) and place them in the window frame. We love these tiles and play with them often, but this is the first time we’ve tried to place them in the window. The colorful liquid in the tile is reacting to the pressure of Sally’s fingers, stimulating her sensory, perceptual and spatial pathways.

I offer a large liquid floor tile to our younger learners. Some of the older children immediately join in the exploration, adding enough weight and pressure to move the liquid and stimulate the senses of our younger friends.

If you don’t have cut-glass windows, a simple window film can bring about the same results. We added this film to the window below, and we are greeted with rainbows whenever the sun shines!

When these spontaneous moments of learning land in our classroom, my goal is not for the children to completely comprehend or master a topic.

My goal is to learn with them, to pique their curiosity with investigative opportunities and to allow them to engage in scientific inquiry while playing with light.

The act of playing with light, reflection and color invariably evokes a sense of wonder.

So seize the moment for some impromptu STEM play when a rainbow spontaneously appears—and expand the options for color and light exploration with a few new prisms and props!

Our moment of silent concentration and focus is interrupted by Parker ecstatically showing off her geoboard.

“You made a house?” asks Linnea, looking a little wide-eyed and confused. “How did you do that?”

“I just added shapes and it worked!” Parker answers, equally amazed by her own creation.

“I want to try that!” shouts Rowen.

“Me too!” echoes a chorus of four-year-old voices. “Show us how you did that!”

Geometry has entered our world today—and what better way to learn about early math and science concepts than through play?

I have come to believe that geoboards are one of the ultimate learning tools for peer mentoring. I watch as the four-year-olds follow Parker’s example and create their own versions of her rubber-band house.

I am a huge fan of these little powerhouses known as geoboards. Hands-on activities with these simple learning tools get children’s brain synapses firing like crazy and stimulate the development of new neural connections.

The boards, with their colorful rubber bands and infinite possibilities, also make math and engineering fun!

Our geoboard play tends to occur in cycles. Today, the geoboards have resurfaced after long hiatus.

Because the children haven’t used the geoboards in a while, I notice how much their brains have developed since the last time the boards were in play. Seeing these leaps of brain development is one of the great joys of teaching.

Geoboards are always developmentally appropriate in the hands of the creator. Some children simply work on stretching the rubber bands onto the nails. My “artsy” early learners—who are happy designing anything and everything—can play with these boards for hours. And there’s a child in every class who insists on attaching every single rubber band in the bag to the geoboard, persisting long after the other children have moved on to new activities.

Geoboards enable even young children—and those who may have difficulty drawing shapes—to construct and investigate the properties of early geometry without a pencil in their hands.

I see geoboards as a chance to level the playing field for those who struggle with grasp, fine-motor or visual-motor skills.

Children begin to notice shapes before they have the language to name those shapes. Geoboard play acquaints children with simple shapes—as well as more advanced concepts such as symmetry, angles and fractions—as they engage in activities such as measuring, counting or investigating 2D shapes like Parker’s rubber-band house.

Look at those little fingers and hands going to work! With just one geoboard and a bagful of rubber bands, children can create and learn about shapes while developing their hand muscles, fine-motor skills, spatial skills and math skills. This is why geoboards have been a part of our classroom curriculum for more than 30 years.

Children can use their rubber bands to create squares, rectangles, triangles and other “sided” shapes. They can also explore number concepts as they try to stretch a single rubber band around a certain number of pegs. They may try to stretch it around three or four pegs—or maybe even all of the pegs. This early math exploration evolves quite naturally as the children engage in geoboard play with their friends. 

When I introduce geoboards to new students, I leave the lesson plans and benchmark checklists for later and let the children simply play with their boards. I want them to engage in geoboard play at their own level of development.

It’s important to give the children ample time to engage in this process. It can’t be rushed. For my young learners who love to make shapes, letters and designs, a longer play period gives them time to get their creative juices flowing. As their brain development continues, you will see their shapes and designs become more intentional.

Young children develop ideas and concepts about science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (STEAM) naturally. They think about size, shape, quantity, order and speed throughout the day as they play and explore. As teachers of young children, we need to tap into their natural curiosity with intentional STEAM learning opportunities such as geoboard play.

Intentionality is acting with knowledge and purpose. It is the opposite of chance because it is planned and thoughtful. In order to become intentional about math teaching, we need to think about math the way we think about literacy.

By making shapes on their geoboards, the children are actually developing important pre-reading and pre-writing skills too.

Here’s how it works: When Linnea sees a shape on the geoboard and names it, she is preparing herself to identify letters and numbers and then naming and eventually writing them.

Simply by placing a basket full of geoboards near a table, we can encourage children to experiment with shapes, sizes and direction through hands-on play.

We can call this math, science, engineering, art or literacy because it’s laying the groundwork for the STEAM disciplines, as well as language development.

But in our hearts—as early childhood educators—we simply call it play.

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

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

“Can we eat them now?” pleads Elizabeth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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