Tag Archives: science

Five things parents can do every day to help develop STEM skills from a young age – Readilearn

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The development of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) skills can be encouraged in children, even before they start school, by parents who are attuned to opportunities for learning.

I’ve previously introduced you to Rebecca Johnson, Narinda Sandry, Brenda Miles and Susan Sweet with their books and suggestions for including STEM in early childhood classroom learning, and soon I will be interviewing Andrew King about his beautiful Engibear series of picture books that focus on the engineering component in STEM. These supplement my own posts about incorporating STEM in the classroom here and here.

In this post, I share with you Five things parents can do every day to help develop stem skills from a young age by Kym Simoncini Assistant Professor in Early Childhood and Primary Education, University of Canberra. This article was first published in The Conversation. Throughout Kym’s article, you will notice links to other articles. Be sure to follow the links for even more great ideas and resources.

Now over to Kym Simoncini, University of Canberra

Five things parents can do every day to help develop STEM

skills from a young age

Educators and researchers agree early literacy experiences are important for children’s cognitive and language development. For the past 30 years there has been a strong movement to foster children’s literacy skills. This has resulted in an abundance of information on how parents can do this by reading books, singing songs and nursery rhymes, playing word games and noticing print.

This is a good thing and should continue, given the importance of early literacy skills in learning to read, and how this leads to later success in school and life.

Continue reading: Five things parents can do every day to help develop STEM skills from a young age – Readilearn

Readilearn: STEMtastic: making it easy – in every classroom, for every child and teacher

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STEMtastic Narinda Sandry

STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) subjects are being rejuvenated in schools. Many of us remember them as uninteresting, unfathomable and seemingly unrelated to anything we needed to know in the real world of our daily lives. Fortunately for us, some “nerdy” types found them interesting enough to imagine, explore and create new possibilities that improve our lives in countless ways.

I’ve previously written about the importance of making space for STEM in early childhood classrooms. In this post I talk with early childhood educator Narinda Sandry who is spreading the word and showing even STEM-averse educators how they can “deliver STEM experiences to every student, every week, in class and easily in an overcrowded curriculum.”

Narinda is a teacher, curriculum writer and advisor. She spent many years teaching in early childhood classrooms, wrote educational materials for the Queensland Museum, and curriculum documents to support implementation of the Australian Curriculum. She now shares her combined love of learning, passion for early childhood education, and interest in STEM subjects, with teachers through her new STEMtastic project promoting “STEM education for every student, every week, easily.”

Hello, Narinda, and welcome to readilearn.

Absolute pleasure to talk with you and your readers Norah.

Narinda, tell us a little about why you feel STEM education is so important in early childhood and all classrooms.

The world we live in is changing, faster now than it ever has before. It is predicted that many of the jobs we know now will be either non-existent or at least disrupted in the near future. Think about the

Continue reading at Readilearn: STEMtastic: making it easy – in every classroom, for every child and teacher

Teaching critical thinking in early childhood classrooms with The Very Hungry Caterpillar – Readilearn

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teaching critical thinking

Teaching critical thinking in early childhood classrooms is important. Discussions about The Very Hungry Caterpillar can help develop critical thinking

Continue reading: Teaching critical thinking in early childhood classrooms with The Very Hungry Caterpillar – Readilearn

STEM in early childhood classrooms – readilearn

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Making space for STEM in early childhood classrooms is easy; or should be.

Children are naturally curious about the world. They want to know:

  • Why is it so?
  • How does it work?
  • What will happen if?
  • How can I?

It is important to harness their curiosity, explore their questions, engage their interests and inspire their imaginations.

Provide them with opportunities to investigate objects and phenomena in the world around them. Don’t always be in a rush to provide answers to their questions. Help them explore ways of finding the answer for themselves, if possible, or conduct the research with them.

A story reported by Michael Rosen in his book Good Ideas: How to Be Your Child’s (and Your Own) Best Teacher inspires me. The story explains that, as a child, David Attenborough took an interest in bones. If he was out walking and found some bones, he would take them home and ask his father about them.

His father, who was a GP and would have known, didn’t just tell him. Wanting his son to be curious and interested in finding things out for himself, he responded, for example: “I wonder if we can work it out . . .” They would then look through books about zoology and anatomy and try to identify the bone’s origin.

However, the answers don’t always have to be found in a book or on the internet. Some answers can be discovered through explorations and experimentation. Experts can also be consulted.

In a stimulating early childhood classroom where children have access to a range of resources and opportunities

Continue reading: STEM in early childhood classrooms – readilearn

I spy butterflies – Readilearn

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I spy butterflies

Learning about butterflies in the classroom, especially when observations of the life stages with a live learning kit are possible, is almost magic for children. The growth of the caterpillars is obvious and children can watch as they moult and pass through each instar. The voracious appetite of the caterpillars means that plants are quickly stripped of their leaves and, if children listen carefully, the munching of the mandibles can be heard.

Many resources to support an early childhood science biology unit about butterflies in particular, or minibeasts in general, already exist in the readilearn collection; including:

Butterfly diary

Minibeast project

My minibeast ABC

Code for Caring

I included suggestions for teaching about minibeasts, including butterflies, in a previous post Classroom minibeasts. While there are many minibeasts suitable to study in the classroom, butterflies are my favourite. This week the readilearn collection has grown with some new resources to support learning about butterflies; including:

butterfly word cards

Butterfly word cards

Butterfly word cards is a collection of forty butterfly-relevant words which may be printed and displayed on a word wall or used to label a butterfly display. The words are presented in three different formats for printing choice.

The words include some fascinating scientific terms; such as:

  • instar
  • frass
  • chrysalis
  • prolegs

Continue reading: I spy butterflies – Readilearn

Award winning Rainforest Camp – interview with Rebecca Johnson – Readilearn

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Just over a year ago, in my very first author interview, when I introduced you to Rebecca Johnson and her award winning Insect Series, I shared the following information about her publications and awards:

Since then, Rebecca’s list of publications has continued to grow, including two new series of books:

Vet Cadets “an exciting new four book series for smart, animal and science-loving girls who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty!”

First Facts “designed to give children a clear understanding of the six main groups of animals.”

Rebecca’s popular junior fiction series Juliet nearly a Vet, for readers from about 7 years of age, continues to attract attention. The series features ten-year-old Juliet who believes she is nearly a vet after watching her mother, who is a vet, at work.

Rebecca’s purpose in telling these stories is to blend science with fiction in a way that engages children’s interest in wildlife and nature. She does it successfully. In 2014, the fourth in the series Bush Baby Rescue won the Wilderness Society Environment Award for Children’s Literature. This year, the most recent title Rainforest Camp received the same award.

Continue reading at: Award winning Rainforest Camp – interview with Rebecca Johnson – Readilearn

Logical thinking and problem solving – Readilearn

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logical thinking and problem solving

Logical thinking and problem solving are important skills for children of all ages to develop, including those in early childhood classrooms. We employ thinking skills each day, in many situations, from deciding the order in which to dress ourselves, complete simple tasks, collect items for dinner or set the table; through to more complex problems such as assembling furniture, writing work programs, juggling timetables, and organising class groupings for activities.

This week I am excited to upload a new interactive digital story that encourages children to use logical thinking to solve a problem.

Dragona's Lost Egg

Dragona has lost her egg and turns to her friend Artie, owner of a Lost and Found store, for help. Artie is confident of helping her as he has many eggs on his shelves. He asks Dragona to describe features of her egg, including size, shape, pattern and colour. He uses a process of elimination to identify which egg might be Dragona’s. Children join in the process by choosing eggs with the characteristic described.

What is Dragona’s egg really like, and will Artie be able to help her find it?

You’ll have to read the story to find out.

The process of writing this story also required a problem to be solved; and I love nothing better than a good problem to solve.

What’s an ovoid? Do you know?

what's an ovoid

 

To find out, continue reading at: Logical thinking and problem solving – Readilearn