Three-year-old fix-it man Jonathan is pointing to a loose wagon screw that needs his immediate attention. We turn the wagon on its side to take a closer look at the wheel. Yes! We definitely have a loose screw.

“You need a hammer to pound it in?” I ask.

“Yes!” exclaims Jonathan.

I return with a hammer and Jonathan immediately recognizes that I have made a huge mistake. “No, not that one! I need a hammer! Look, it has a line. I need a hammer to fit in there to make it tight.”

This was not Jonathan’s first rodeo. He knew his way around a tool bench, just not by name.

“Oh, let me look again,” I reply.

I return with three tools.  “Jonathan, I have a hammer, a screwdriver and a wrench. Will one of these work?”

Jonathan’s eyes light up.  “Yes, I need a screwdriver!” He jumps with joy and gets straight to work.

My little friend is a math machine. This is logical mathematical thinking!  We have deductive reasoning and problem-solving at a three-year-old pace. Having the vocabulary to explain that he needed a tool that would fit in that “line”  demonstrated that he could imagine the type of tool that he needed.

Early scenarios like this will deepen Jonathan’s understanding of how objects fit together. This is exploring spatial relationships. This is fine-motor skill development, relationship building and spatial reasoning—all at the same time.

Jonathan’s spark of excitement ignites the interest of his friend, Harrison, who joins in. Harrison is also in need of a screwdriver because he has decided that the screws on every bicycle and wagon in the yard need a good tightening.

As Harrison and Jonathan discuss their actions, their understanding of spatial relationships and attributes about shapes, size and measurement deepens. High-quality hands-on experiences like these provide opportunities for children to develop a richer vocabulary as they reason out loud: “My screwdriver isn’t working. No, you need to turn it this way! Look, it’s going down!”

Children learn to understand and use information when they have direct contact with materials. Drawing a line from a hammer to a nail on a worksheet does not give our children the same educational benefits as an actual hands-on learning experience.

When children explore the different ways that they can manipulate materials—by rotating them, cutting them in half or transforming them into different shapes by composing or decomposing them—they are learning how materials relate to one another and the space around them. Working with real tools and materials is critical to fostering children’s understanding of spatial relationships. This is math. This is our foundation.  I think you should check your wagon and see if that left wheel “needs tightening.”  Don’t forget to document and check this off of your list of learning standards! Take your young friends outdoors. The math curriculum? It’s already “pre-loaded” into the activity!

“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.

Clearly, even if you feel that way, it is never true.  We are so lucky to be in a profession where there is “newness” in every corner.  The materials change, the environments grow, and the children’s approach to learning is forever novel and exciting.

On that particular day, my student had set out ice cube trays as a means of sorting materials.  She added another twist – tongs and big tweezers – so that children sorted using these tools.  She had put out materials such as cotton balls (easy to squeeze and pick up) as well as bouncy balls (really hard to squeeze and pick up).  The activity had so many dimensions and challenges that the children were mesmerized by the task. They thought it was fun and funny that the balls kept popping out of the tongs and tweezers, so they did not become frustrated or bored.  It was a lovely to watch.

A simple sorting activity can be made more interesting and multidimensional by adding a novel tool or dimension.  Go ahead and try it!