Dear Parents of Children,

Yeah this whole quarantine kinda sucks, but we don’t have to make it unproductive. There are many ways you can help your toddler, preschooler, kindergartner, etc. You get the point. There are tons of activities you can do to help them grow and gain knowledge. The learning doesn’t end at school. According to N.A.E.Y.C. (National Association for the Education of Young Children), play is of great importance to a child. The critical development of young children relies heavily on it. When one thinks that a child isn’t learning, or doing anything productive, that may be the opposite of what’s actually going on. Although sometimes they do get carried away and make messes, but what may actually be going on is science, technology, engineering or mathematics (S.T.E.M.). There are however, less messier activities we can do. An example is using balloons to showcase electricity.

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Another one that is relatively cheap is testing surface tension of multiple coins, where you can teach the cohesiveness of water as well. Another activity that uses water and helps with problem solving skills is building a boat out of aluminum foil and trying to keep it afloat with more and more weight.

If you’re feeling adventurous you can make butter at home with your children too! It’s less messy than you think, I promise! (Personally my favorite thing we did in 1st Grade).

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There are many reasons as to why we should integrate S.T.E.M. into our curriculum, and we should also encourage these activities, and the exploration that comes with it. We teach S.T.E.M. because

  • It can build real world skills (butter making), and encourage growth in other areas such as literacy through reading instructions or manuals
  • Promotes higher-order thinking skills and problem solving skills (boat challenge)
  • Inspires deeper understanding, and keeps children motivated about how things work (why does the coin hold so much water?)
  • Encourages innovation, creativity, and curiosity (what else can the balloon stick to?), (How can we make this boat hold more weight?)
  • Promotes development of motor and perceptual skills
  • Nurtures social and emotional understanding (school setting, or if they have siblings)
  • And for us educators it supports or Educational Standards in Pennsylvania as well.

Overall I think it would be worth a shot to try some of these experiments with your kids, and you might even have some fun in the process as well, even a game of Chess will help your child grow cognitively!

Those are just some examples of ST.E.M. related projects you can do with your kids, here is a list of some more from Rasmussen College.

Sincerely,

 

Jose