The Pre-Primary Program

THE PRE-PRIMARY update

By now you have heard from the Early Childhood Educators in your Pre-Primary Program. For different programs and families this may be email, phone or mail – it won’t look the same for everyone. As well as supporting your programs and educators, we want to continue to provide activities for you at home. Today’s focus is on STEAM, what is STEAM?

STEAM PLAY AT HOME

STEAM means Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Math. As children develop, we are creating and guiding future engineers, scientists, doctors, chefs, biologists, architects and teachers just to name a few. In early learning, STEAM is all the concepts blended together and it is a part of everyday play. It encourages children to question and create an understanding of the world around them and relate to it.

HOW DO WE ENCOURAGE STEAM AT HOME?

Pre-primary Programs encourage and promote STEAM with children each day. Parents also do it at home, but do we know we are doing it? Think about the ways we can give children a chance to explore, guess, design, test, observe, investigate and share their knowledge while they are at home. The main thing to remember with STEAM is that you don’t need all the answers. Questions that are posed by children should be investigated and researched by them.

Before we play!

Before we play let’s make sure rules, boundaries and expectations are in place. Remember that rules and expectations are easier to follow if children are involved in setting them. Involve the children in this discussion.

LET’s COOK TOGETHER

Brainstorm with your child what they would like to cook with you. Perhaps a favourite cookie, snack, fruit kebab with dip. Find a simple recipe and with you child create a list of ingredients you will need and talk about steps to follow. This is a great time to talk about planning for cooking because you may need to wait until your next grocery order.

When you have your ingredients and are ready to cook:

• Talk about why an oven might be needed, why is only half the pan full of a cake mixture, what might happen in the oven and why? What might happen when you mix different coloured ingredients together. Maybe you remember a time when your child cooked in Pre-primary, ask your child what they remember from that. Its OK if they don’t.

• Talk about weight, measurements and solids (dry) and liquids (wet). If you need a cup use a ¼ cup measure, this enables children to see Math in action, they will learn that 4 of the ¼ cup measurements will equal 1 cup, the beginning of fraction concepts.

• Ask questions before you do the next step - what will happen when we add the wet ingredients to the dry? Write down their answers to the questions – were they right?

• Take pictures of them as they mix and prepare, and with their final product, share with family and friends. Use of technology such as cameras and iPads to create and share their activity.

• Encourage them to document the process, drawing pictures as they go along.

Did you know? Measurements and volume is math, liquids, solids, and mixing colours is science, using oven or other kitchen appliances and cameras is technology, assembling cooking projects such as cakes and fruit kebabs is engineering and when they draw to represent the process this is art.

I WONDER TABLE/SPACE

Children love to wonder. Create a ‘Wonder Space’, it doesn’t have to be big. Bring in things from the garden and outdoors for children to wonder about. Bring in pebbles, feathers, leaves, herbs and twigs, add things from inside, such as a real egg, an apple, a plant and photos of different things. Choose one or two items at a time. Provide paper, pens and markers, magnifying glasses and small hand mirrors if you have them. Write up different questions to place at the space, for example:

• What does it look and feel like?

• Where do you think it come from?

• What can it be used for?

Children can spend minutes or hours here. Children may take this in a completely different direction, that is okay if it works for you!

They might ask questions about where things live, where they come from? Always try to help your child answer their own question,” how do you think we will find that out?”

Did you know? This activity encourages children to investigate, hypothesize, research and connect with our world which is all a part of science. It also encourages children to make marks and represent with pictures and symbols their thinking.