www.bcpl.org

What does STEM Look Like in Preschool?

Tyra LaVerne , Early Literacy SpecialistJennifer Timmerman, Youth Services Manager

What We Hope You Will Take Away From This Workshop…

• Understand and learn ways to incorporate STEM based programs into your library.

• STEM begins and ends with a question? (So, it never really ends … )

• STEM based programming does not cost a lot - encourage parents to continue exploring at home.

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What is STEM• What is STEM?

• Science• Technology• Engineering• Math

• According to Dr. Sherri Killins, “What STEM does is give a label to what you are already doing… helping children to explore, observe, ask questions, predict, integrate their learning… it’s what we’ve always done in early childhood education.”

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How To use STEM?

• Be intentional.• Encourage questions and predictions.• Use things that are available and everyday.• Read-Talk-Explore format• Importance of Play – Keeping it Fun!

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How to promote Scientific Inquiry with Preschool Children?

• With preschool children, you want to emphasize the process.

• Ask open ended questions.

– Begin statements with “I wonder…”

• Allow children to be hands-on.

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STEM Program @ BCPL

• September 25, 6:30pm, ages 2-5 (we recommend ages 3-6)• Began with Book: I Spy with My Little Eye by Edward Gibbs• Touch Your Nose game: This is a fun rhyme and introduces the five senses?

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(follow actions)Touch your noseTouch your chinThat’s the way this game begins. Touch your eyesTouch your kneesNow pretend you’re going to sneeze!Aaaachooooo!Touch your hairTouch one earTouch your two red lips right hereTouch your elbow where it bendsAnd that’s the way this touch game ends.

Our Plan

• 2 activities per domain:

ScienceSink or Float

Shadow Science

Technology

Ipad Apps

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EngineeringLocks and Keys3 Little Pigs.

(make a house out of straw, sticks, and bricks)

MathWeigh and Measure

Dice Games

BONUS

• 3 Sensory Tables– Rice– Corn– Shredded paper

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What We Learned:

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Focus on one specific topic. Use 3-4 hands-on experiments related to topic.

Example: Space ScienceGravity: 1. incline planes

2. drop different objects

Shadows: 1. make shadows with flashlight in a box2. plastic globe to demonstrate how the

earth rotates to make night and day. (shadow)

Focus on one specific Topic• Breakdown STEM into each subject area

and offer a program on one topic.– In the Spring we will be doing an

Engineering Event @ BCPL for the whole family. We will incorporate our Three Little Pigs along with a variety of other building materials.

– http://klmpeace.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/explore-preschool-steam-huff-puff/

• Use the 5 Sense as a guide and do a program around one of the 5 senses.Boone County Public Library

What we do at BCPL

• Sensory Tables at each location

• Discovery Centers – in progress at each branch

• Try to incorporate STEM in our weekly Storytimes.

• Traveling experiments like sink and float

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After this Summer, how to keep STEM alive in your library

• Sprinkle STEM related activities into your regular programs and Storytimes.

– One library in Central Oregon is incorporating “Math Minute” and “Science Spot” into their regular Storytimes.

• STEM based programs and themed events.– At BCPL, Space Science and Engineering Family

Programs as well as programs geared especially for Preschoolers.

• Have interactive Discovery Centers at each location

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Resources

• Koester, Amy. “FullSteam Ahead: Injecting Art and Creativity into STEM.” School Library Journal. 3 October 2013.

• Lee, Kathy L. and Lesli M. Richards. The Homegrown Preschooler. Teaching Your Kids in the Places They Live. Gryphon House, 2013.

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Resources

• Mother Goose Programs. “What’s the Big Idea? Making Math and Science Come Alive for Children and Families in Your Library.” Vermont Center for the Book, 2008.

• TYC. Teaching Young Children/Preschool published by NAEYC

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• STEM Education Coalition. www.stemedcoalition.org

• bigidea.mothergooseprograms.org• www.commonsensemedia.com • www.fredrogersinstitute.com • http://littleelit.com/• https://www.pinterest.com/• http://www.pbs.org

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Questions?

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PLAY

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The End!

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