Sep27

Thinking BIG, Learning BIG: Summer reading becomes September‘s lesson plans

July is a distant memory of 6am wake up calls for my high-schooler who took PE over the summer, balanced with my getting more than five minutes of peace and quiet—time to read about early childhood and science, to think my own thoughts and get hungry for conversation. Summer school is a wonderful thing and I thank all the teachers who work it.

Thinking BIG, Learning BIG: a great resource for integrated science activies July’s reading, Thinking BIG, Learning BIG: Connecting Science, Math, Literacy, and Language in Early Childhood by Marie Faust Evitt, with Tim Dobbins, and Bobbi Weesen-Baer (Gryphon House 2009—also the publisher of my book), has become September‘s lesson plans. This book of activities reinvigorated my thinking which was in limbo because a building move had one of “my” schools on tenderhooks about our opening date and the use of space. Aligned with national standards in reading, literacy, math, and science, Thinking BIG helps me see where the science activities I know and love can incorporate more language and math goals. With intriguing, classroom-tested activities which are insightful about children’s desire to explore and imagine, Evitt also meets teachers' needs for activities which are possible, teach concepts, and come with detailed directions for how to implement. Her approach expanded my thinking—although I usually think of sprouting seeds as an early spring activity, Evitt explains that children are curious about the seeds they discover in fall from flowers and inside apples and pumpkins. The playful spirit throughout the book is so enjoyable—predicting how far popcorn will fly, playing air hockey, and making a giant rainbow! The authors understand that children are attracted to all things BIG and they will remember the concepts they learn through those activities!

Marie and I became penpals before her book was published, and we collaborated on a workshop for an NSTA area conference. She’s a fun presenter—look for Marie Faust Evitt and Mr. Tim at the NAEYC national conference in Washington, D.C. this November.

Here’s what I found especially useful in Thinking BIG, Learning BIG: Movement ideas, Insights into children’s thinking, Teacher-to-teacher tips, games, book lists, skills assessments, and Discussion Starter questions.

Instructions that involve movement with language—clapping when first saying vocabulary words (SCAD system of “Say, Clap, Act out, Do again”), crouching down to “become” a seed and then sprouting a root (leg), and using American Sing Language to say the new word.
Insights about children’s thinking are on every page. For example, when children graph, they want to remember which object they put on the graph so teachers should make the graphs big, or should I say, BIG. For example, if graphing favorite flavor of apple (green, yellow, or red), give each child an apple shape big enough for them to write their name on before they add it to the graph. The graph is poster size, made from more than one sheet of paper. In the seeds chapter, a “How Our Seeds Germinate and Grow” number line chart with days 1-12 (more age appropriate than a calendar) is used for both predicting if anything will happen with the soaked bean seeds, and recording what is actually observed each day.
Teacher-to-Teacher Tips are full of details, specific information to implement the activities. In the Seeds chapter, Evitt recommends using pre-cut bean shapes for children who become frustrated if they have difficulty drawing their predictions and observations, and describes steps to teach children to draw the bean shape.
The games and stories (used in every chapter) creatively convey concepts. Children predict which square on a grid will catch the most popcorn kernels as they fly out of the popper, and act out The Little Red Hen while learning about seeds we eat, and play a “Traveling Seeds” game to learn how seeds travel.
An extensive book list for every chapter (sometimes 2+ pages!) with descriptions takes the guesswork out of which book to read.
The useful Skills Assessments are in the form of questions directing the teacher to reflect on the children’s abilities and understanding: What kind of pencil grip does the child use? Can the child use the vocabulary? Does the child see the connection between the wheat seeds and flour? Can the child count correctly the number of dots on the card?
Use the Discussion Starters (in the form of questions) to “spark children’s thinking during and after the activity”. Sometimes I write such questions on an index cue card so I remember to ask specific questions, such as “How many more days is it until we think we will see leaves?”

This book is going to help me make the transition to the new physical space and to incorporating more specific math and language focus during science activities. Hope you get a chance to view it online or at a conference.

Peggy

Published: Sep-27-09 | 1 Comment | 0 Links to this post

Sep22

Books about fall leaves, inspired by the autumn equinox

Do deciduous tree leaves in your area change color before they fall? On the occasion of the autumn equinox, here are a few books about trees and fall leaf colors that I have enjoyed reading to my students when we discussed the season’s change from summer to fall:

& Fresh Fall Leaves by Betsy Franco, Shari Halpern (Illustrator) (Scholastic 1994). A pair of children plays in fallen leaves in this simple early reader. Children love to share their own stories of playing in fallen leaves.

& I Am a Leaf by Jean Marzollo, Judith Moffatt (Illustrator) (Scholastic 1998). An early reader introducing the function of tree leaves.

& Red Leaf Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1991). Colors! Maple tree lifecycle information! And an appendix with background knowledge for adults to read and share.

& A Tree Is Growing by Arthur Dorros, S. D. Schindler (Illustrator) (Scholastic 1997). Read in sections so young children are not overwhelmed with new information—perhaps a few pages each month as you follow the changes in a tree in your schoolyard. Many details of tree growth and life cycle are explained in sidebars, including photosynthesis.

And here is a new one, published this fall, which I look forward to sharing with my classes:

& Count Down to Fall by Fran Hawk, Sherry Neidigh (Illustrator) (Sylvan Dell Publishing 2009).

Tree leaf shape matching, counting from 10 to 1 (you will have to invent your own page for zero), and information about plant parts and animals that eat (parts of) trees—there’s a lot of natural science in this beautifully illustrated book. On the pages for numbers 3 and 2, the counting switches from the number of leaves to the number of points on the leaves, and to the number of leaves in the group that fall together—a fun change in pattern for fours and older who are listening closely but possibly confusing for others. The Sylvan Dell website has teaching activities to go with the book, including a list of the animals pictured in the book: bear, beaver, beetle, bird, butterfly, cat, chipmunks, deer, dog, elk, frog, grasshopper, lizard, moose, owl, possum, rabbit, raccoon, squirrel, and turtle. Perhaps the children can count how many animals they see in the illustrations as we read.

Tell us about a book on fall leaves that you use in your program by clicking on the word “Comments” below. The anti-spammer “capcha” box may not register your comment the first time you click “Submit Comment”—please type in the new capcha code that appears and submit again.

Happy Fall!

Peggy

Published: Sep-22-09 | 2 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Sep17

Discovery bottles

All summer I was getting ready for the upcoming school year by collecting clear plastic jars and bottles with screw-on lids. Now they are on the shelf at school as “Discovery Bottles”, compact and beautiful, and (best of all) contained. (Click on the photo to view more photos of Discovery Bottles and other early childhood science activities.)

From NSTA The Early Years Blog

These containers hold objects that engage children’s interest and provide the materials needed to explore a topic such as magnetism, bubbles, or buoyancy. With a sealed lid small items stay inside, safe for young children and kept together to illustrate a concept such as liquids can float on top of other liquids (have different densities), some objects float and others sink, and different shapes move (fall) through liquids in different ways as they sink.

Child tilting a discovery bottle filled with colored water and mineral oil.

Here’s what I put in one:

Water tinted blue with food coloring, clean sand, small shells, sea glass, a key, and a few coins, and mineral oil. I wanted something to float at the boundary between the water and oil but when I tried a cork it also floated above the oil even though I had weighted it with several nails. So I put a few nails into a squishy plastic whale and it floated right at the top of the water. Then I poured in mineral oil up to the very top, put hot glue into the lid and screwed it down tightly. Tape around the lid is not really needed but it’s a good symbol for children that the jar is not to be opened.

Other ideas? The exploration of soil or sand in water could be adapted for very young children by putting each soil and sand sample into a separate bottle of water and sealing the lid. Shake and watch the particles float or sink, forming layers.

Older children can do an experiment as they construct a Discovery Bottle—see the article Discovery Bottles by Sandra Watson in the July 2008 Science and Children.

Peggy

ps: The early childhood community would like to hear from you! Add a comment by clicking on the word “comment” below. Hint: write and save your comment in a separate document to cut and paste in, because the anti-spammer “capcha” box may time out before you are ready to submit your comment. You may have to do it twice.

Published: Sep-17-09 | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Sep01

Book lovers and science

Just in case you have not yet read the column, “Teaching Through Tradebooks”, in Science and Children, the National Science Teachers Association’s elementary school journal, I’ll share why I like it with you. The column writes up two activities, one for K-3 and one for 4-6. The book choices are always excellent, the kind of books that you hold onto for 20 years because they are scientifically accurate and resonate so well with children. The content of featured books is appropriate for elementary school grade levels and aligns with the National Science Education Standards. The books are a pleasure to read with illustrations that add to our understanding of the text.

This month the titles are I See a Kookaburra! Discovering Animal Habitats Around the World by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2005) and The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer and Steve Johnson (Random House Children’s Books, 1994).

“Picture” books make great teaching tools for older elementary students too! Reading aloud develops students’ vocabulary and is a jumping off point for large group discussion.

Reading aloud to children

Do you have a favorite book that ties into your science lessons? Bet you can't choose just one!

Peggy

Published: Sep-01-09 | 3 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Aug29

Planting this fall for spring time blooms

I’m planning a fall gardening activity now, before school starts, and the first step is to mark my calendar to buy spring flowering bulbs before the end of September. Seasonal changes vary across the many climates in the United States. If you get temperatures below 40*F for extended periods of time, you can plant these bulbs too. If not, go to the Tag Cloud menu on the left and click on "Growing Plants" to see the September 15, 2008 post with a link to growing other types of bulbs.

Cover of September 2009 Science and Children Read the activity about planting

spring-flowering bulbs in the

Early Years column in the September

issue of Science and Children, the

National Science Teachers Association

elementary school journal.

Teacher and child planting bulbs If all your students are years beyond the exploring-with-their-mouth stage then they can plant my favorite flower, daffodils or jonquils. If there is any chance that a student might bite into a bulb, buy Camassia spp. (also called Camas, Quamash, and Wild Hyacinth) bulbs which are a safe plant to eat (although I never have). Check out plant toxicity online using the lists for unsafe and safe plants at the California Poison Control System at http://www.calpoison.org/hcp/KNOW%20YOUR%20PLANTS-plant%20list%20for%20CPCS%2009B.pdf before making garden choices. And most importantly, know your students and be watchful.

Sing a song before and after planting bulbs, and all winter long while wondering if the bulbs really will sprout.

Act out the following song while you sing it, to the tune of the traditional song “Jack in the Box”.

Spring flowering bulb, (children curl face down on floor, hiding face)

So safe in the ground,

Way down inside, your little dirt mound, (hands curve over head)

Spring flowering bulb so quiet and still,

Won’t you sprout up? (heads up and jump up, stretch arms up high)

Of course I will!

Do you have a favorite book about planting flowering bulbs? Both non-fiction and fiction that ties into the science topic are useful. Here are some that have been successful in my classes:

BA Flower Grows by Ken Robbins. 1990. Dial Books.

The book follows the growth of an amaryllis bulb through photos.

BFrom Bulb to Daffodil by Ellen Weiss. 2007. Children's Press (CT).

This excellent book includes plant structure details through photography and introduces some vocabulary so it can be useful for English language learners as well as early readers. I wish the book did not use the word “sleeping” instead of “leaf senescence” to describe the leaf and flower die-back because young children can learn, and like to use, big words that are more precise. “Senescence.” I clap and say it to help myself remember: sen-nes-ence, (sə nes′-əns).

BThe Life Cycle of a Flower by Molly Aloian and Bobbie Kalman. 2004. Crabtree Publishing Company.

Photographs reveal the details of flower structures and plant parts and the text describes seed production and other ways plants reproduce.

BInvestigate Plants by Sue Barraclough. 2009. Heinemann Library.

With a question and answer format, this book asks readers to answer before turning the page.

BPlanting a Rainbow by Lois Elhert. 1988. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

This classic shows bulbs in the ground before sprouting and when blooming.

What seasons do you experience? Do your students remember the way it rained and rained last spring or the big snow that happened as long as 1/4 their lifetime ago? Here are some books for discussing the cycle of seasons and the passage of time with young children:

B Boxes for Katje by Candace Fleming Candace Fleming and Stacey Dressen-McQueen. 2003. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

This story about tough times in post World War II Holland is based on the experiences of the author’s mother who sent boxes to a family in Holland.

B Spring: An Alphabet Acrostic by Steven Schnur, illustrated by Leslie Evans. 1999. Clarion Books.

Spring from A to Z, each page an acrostic poem beginning with the letters of the alphabet. Your class may want to write their own acrostic poem about a word related to the season. The series includes Winter, Summer, and Autumn.

B What Comes in Spring by Barbara Horton, illustrated by Ed Young. 1992. Knopf.

In this story a mother relates the family’s milestones to the seasons.

B When This Box is Full by Patricia Lillie, illustrated by Donald Crews. 1993. Greenwillow Books.

Children love to guess what the girl will put in the box next to represent the month (one object per month). It reminds me of The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown in that it says what is important to a child about a time of year. For me it would be ice, a heart, seeds, a kite, sunscreen, swimming pool, a novel, tomatoes, school supplies, birthday cake, pumpkins, and a candle. What would you and your class choose?

B A Year in the City by Kathy Henderson, illustrated by Paul Howard. 1996. McGraw-Hill.

Some seasonal changes are specific to urban environments: snow grey with car exhaust, Chinese New Year parades, and city park garden blooms.

Share the seasonal books you find useful by posting a comment below. Hope you get to plant with your class!

Peggy

Published: Aug-29-09 | 2 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Aug10

Showing the science: using children’s work to document your program

Digital photography changed the way I do science with my students. I reflect more on what has happened and what is being left out as I look over the photos, in moments after school, at home on the computer. I have this luxury as a parent of older children who are themselves busy on the computer, and because I do some of my work at home.

Not every program has time or resources to use digital photography to document the science learning going on in their classes, but the children’s own work also reveals the learning taking place. Anytime children record their thinking with drawings, such as drawing an object they think will sink and an object they think will float (before trying to find out or drawing what happened after), they are documenting their science process skills. When recording observations, children make a record they can refer back to. In one classroom children drew the caterpillars as they grew, comparing them to a unit cube (which didn’t grow!). Over the week the growth was noticeable because they had their earliest drawings for comparison.

From NSTA The Early Years Blog

(Click on the photograph to go to the photograph folder and see more examples of students’ documentation.)

Have a few clipboards with paper and marker attached for children to carry to where the science is happening—in the block area children are discovering the need for a wide base, in the water table children are noticing the shape of drops, in the housekeeping area children are talking about how their family cooks, and in the book nook children are remembering a butterfly they saw outside that was different from the one in the book. Ask them, “Can you show me with a drawing? “Would you like me to write down your words?”

Peggy

Published: Aug-10-09 | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Aug07

Citizen science: collaborative projects for teachers and their class

I was excited to see a Monarch butterfly land on the Butterfly Bush in the yard (I hesitate to call it a garden).

From NSTA The Early Years Blog

Milk weed plant with seed pods but no caterpillars Does that mean that the Milkweed plant may yet become a home to Monarch caterpillars? I haven’t seen any eggs but there is still time. Maybe another insect has already staked a claim to the Milkweed, making it unattractive to butterflies. Monarch butterfly migration is the subject of a citizen science project called Monarch Watch, which encourages the creation of “Monarch Waystations”, plantings of caterpillar food (milkweeds) and nectar sources for the adult butterflies. This is a project your class could initiate in the spring after studying the butterfly life cycle.

Read more about butterflies and how they are the same and different from moths in What’s the Difference Between a Butterfly and a Moth? by Robin Koontz with informative illustrations by Brandelin-Dacey (Picture Window Books, 2010). Both are in the group Lepidoptera and your children will love to become Lepidopterists, butterfly and moth scientists. Butterfly information is also available online from California to Florida. See the Educators' Guide: Butterfly Rainforest at the Florida Museum of Natural History for answers to questions such as “How do Lepidoptera see, taste and hear?”

Citizen science projects are one way to connect your class with habitats other than your local one, and to broaden their knowledge of the world while helping them understand that sometimes science is a collection of data collected over time by many individuals. Here are some activity ideas that may inspire you to participate with your class, and join with others in a network to provide data that can be used by other classes and scientists.

In the Square of Life project, students plot square meters in their school yards and record all the living and non-living things they find in the square. They compare the information with what other classes have found by looking at the information posted on the website. View student reports to see how your class can learn by participating in the project which was developed by Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) and Bank Street College of Education .

In Bucket Buddies, another CIESE project, students collect samples from ponds to answer the question: Are the organisms found in pond water the same all over the world? Then they compare their data with that from other classes and look for patterns.

One of the many species of fireflies, or lightening bugs Participating in Firefly Watch means observing and recording the presence or absence of fireflies in your area. Read about "How These Beetles Create Light" and what scientists know in David Farenthold’s article in the Washington Post.

On one recent morning with the unseasonable summer temperature of 64 F, I saw a bumble bee resting on a purple cone flower, perhaps waiting for the sun to warm it up. I was tempted to pet it! If you are in Illinois and your students are interested in taking photos of bees, learn about Beespotters, another project where citizen scientists lend a hand. One beespotter’s photo showed a rusty-patched bumble bee, Bombus affinis, a bee that was thought to be locally extinct!

Learning about the lives of insects can expand our students' world.

Peggy

Published: Aug-07-09 | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Aug01

Transitioning to kindergarten: hearing from children who have been there.

Support on the first day of school Some elementary schools on a “year-round” or “modified calendar” are about to begin a new school year on Monday, and many others begin in September. Children from my “fours” classes are among the new kindergarten students and I feel so protective of them even though I believe they are ready for the the work, the larger school building, and sometimes a larger class size. After his first week in elementary school my son told us, “They have so many rules there.” New rules in the new school with a larger class size and a larger student body—he soon acclimated to that school’s culture but it was a process.

Learning and teaching are easier when children feel comfortable. Read what children say as they tell what new children need to know about starting school in the International Journal of Transitions in Childhood website links to full text papers from the European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA) Annual Conferences.

I remember my first day as a parent at a preschool, wondering how all the other parents seemingly knew what to do—where to put the cubby bag and tuition check, and where to find extra paints, the mop, and the key to restock the paper towels. There was institutional knowledge that was unwritten. Once we become part of a community we may no longer see the need for posting such information. As teachers we can take the lead to increase the comfort level of new students and new families by sharing the unwritten “rules” and culture of our classrooms.

Here are my suggestions for families participating in science activities at one co-op preschool:

· Participate in the activities as an explorer. This will encourage your child to do so.

· Make observations after giving the children a chance to do so (but adults do not have to share all the knowledge they have).

· Ask open-ended questions that can have multiple answers, such as, “What do you see happening?”

· Don’t answer most questions—that’s the children’s job! Instead say, “I wonder how we can find out?” It’s ok to leave questions unanswered, especially when the details are more complex than they are ready to understand (a fine line!).

Do you have special practices to welcome new students and families to your school? Tell me about them by clicking on the word “Comments” below.

Peggy

Published: Aug-01-09 | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Jul28

When does science become significant?

Math and Science in Preschool: Policies and Practice, a National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) Preschool Policy Brief, says that teachers usually do not plan and support science and math learning in pre-K. How does that happen when young children are so curious about the world and so interested in who has more, is taller, or older?

Some preschool teachers bring their own curiosity into play, in school and out, such as early childhood teacher Sue Hewitt who went out of her way to see a novel (for her—and me!) sight—a big field of sunflowers. Because science activities are full of possibilities for math and language development, they can be the basis for across-the-curriculum learning. Sue talked about how investigating a milkweed seed pod with her class of two-year-olds included sharing a history of children collecting the pods during World War II to use in making life vests for service personnel, and, upon opening the pod, the discovery of how the successfully the seed is dispersed—in the classroom! I’m sure that gave the children a lot to talk about!

Does anyone have a story to share about a science activity that became the vehicle for language development or math operations?

Or about a moment when you realized that teaching science in your classroom is essential?

Peggy

Published: Jul-28-09 | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Jul22

Summer science fun

The summer science activities for my children that I remember as working best (that is, holding their interest and not requiring an enormous amount of time to set-up or clean up) include mixing baking soda and vinegar and watching the resulting bubbles foam (get the big box and at least a gallon), playing “Pooh Sticks” (watching bits of sticks float under a creek bridge and out the other side), digging a (relatively) deep hole over a period of days, and making a rainbow with the sprinkler. Being able to work outside opens up many possibilities. On hot afternoons, the public library was the perfect place to regain our energy for dinner by reading and resting.

From NSTA The Early Years Blog

How about activities such as mixing colors, floating eggs, testing magnetic strength, making bubbles, or generating static electricity? Science NetLinks offers detailed directions for those hands-on activities for summer fun. Join other teachers in sharing your ideas for summer break science activities by clicking on the word “Comments” below. Don’t be discouraged if the CAPTCHA device takes two tries before accepting your comment. It is really good at stopping automatic spam so it’s worth the difficulty it causes.

Peggy

Published: Jul-22-09 | 3 Comments | 20 Links to this post

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