Easy Family STEM by Carrie Robinson @ CEN

We usually associate STEM programming with school aged kids and up. But believe it or not, there are plenty of ways to engage the 5 and under crowd in STEM activities, and you don’t have to be some kind of rocket surgeon to do it.

“What?!” You may be asking, incredulous. “What can you possibly teach a preschooler or a toddler about something so abstract?”

That’s a great question, which you may or may not have asked! Last October, Central Kids started a biweekly family STEM program called Little Explorers, which we alternate with Toddler Yoga. Little Explorers is a hands-on, interactive discovery program that delves into different STEM themes, and it is geared towards toddlers and preschoolers.

The key is to ditch the jargon, focus on one abstract concept and demonstrate that concept concretely in a variety of ways. This month, I decided to use light and shadow as my Little Explorers theme, which would be an opportunity to explore both earth science and physical science. I got the idea from this website, which is from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education.

First, I die-cut a bunch of different shapes, laminated them, and taped them to jumbo popsicle sticks. I saved as many of paper outlines as possible (rather than throwing them away) and laminated those as well.

Then, I made a big shadow theater. All you have to do is cut off the flaps, top and bottom, of a regular old cardboard box, leaving you with a cardboard frame. Then, tape white butcher paper or tissue paper over one of the holes. If you use butcher paper, this will stabilize the box; if not, you’ll need to use something to support it (two bookends should work nicely.) I also found some really sturdy smaller boxes lying around, so I decided to make mini-shadow boxes (I had six, and we usually get around six kids and their parents who come). I also cut out 6 sets of 3”x3” red, green, yellow and blue cellophane that I found in Create HPL. Finally, I went out and got a 10-pack of flashlights from Wal-Mart for $9.82 and I was ready to go!

Little Explorers is set up in interactive stations rather than serial, guided activities. This keeps the younger kids engaged and allows the older kids to work at a more advanced level. I start each program with a group introduction to the concept we are covering that day, usually on the storytime rug, followed by an explanation of the different stations, and then set the rugrats loose to explore.

On the morning of the program, I set up a projector in the program room, against a blank wall, with our storytime rug in front of it (note: to get the projector to show a white screen instead of blue, I had to hook up a computer and project a full-screen white picture onto the wall, which I made in Paint...technology, am I right?). Against an adjacent wall, I laid yoga mats out in a semicircle, like the rays of the sun. No one noticed, but I like to think it added an ineffable, thematic ambience to the room. Each yoga mat had a mini-shadow box, a flashlight, a cellophane set, and 4-5 laminated shadow puppets/outlines. I set the big shadow box up in the center of the semicircle on a chair. Now I had three stations: the yoga mats, the big shadow box and the wall with the projector.

As 10:30 rolled around and everyone arrived, I flipped off the lights and asked all the kids and parents to stand on the rug, facing the wall, away from the projector. We talked about the sun during the day, the moon at night, how the sun shines and casts shadows, etc. Then I asked all the kids to point to their shadow on the wall, wave, point to mommy’s shadow, make their shadow jump and so on. Then we got started.

My time during the bulk of the program is spent making rounds from child to child, encouraging them to try different things along with their parents, to experiment and hypothesize and all those other fun and fundamental scientific concepts. The kids bounced back and forth between activities and, as always, I was amazed at the creativity and ingenuity of young children. One three-year-old pointed the flashlight at the wall, started rotating it in his hand, and exclaimed, “Ferris wheel!” Then he, his mother and I talked about the ways it was like a ferris wheel: how it moved, how it had spokes, how it carries people, etc. And so playing with a flashlight became a conversation about ferris wheels, which became an opportunity to teach about simple machines. Cross-pollination like this occurs all the time in Little Explorers, as the kids forge new connections right in front of your eyes.

Before I knew it, 45 minutes had passed and our time was up. At the end, I sent everyone home with a shadow box of their very own.

What can you teach very young children about science and math? Tons, it turns out.

Further Reading
NAEYC’s pages on Math and STEM

Teaching STEM in the Early Years by Sally Moomaw

STEM Play by Dierdre Englehart

Enriching early scientific learning by Jane Johnston