In our mid-Atlantic spring we can have temperatures in the 50s or in the 80s, rain or shine. The activities the children have been involved in center around the weather.

We planted peas and radishes, measured their growth, examined the pea flowers, and are waiting for the harvest. The radishes may be too spicy for many children’s taste so they will say “I don’t like it yet” but most will enjoy the slightly sweet crunch of a sugar snap pea pod. Always check for allergies—it is surprising how many plants can be a problem for one or more children.

This spring there was a large broccolis plant that had grown all winter long and produced many seed pods. When it was dry I brought it into the classroom and the children used scissors to cut it apart, opening the pods to see the seeds.

Books to go with planting seeds or gardening, an incomplete list because there are too many worthy books to list them all:

• Bean and Plant by Christine Back and Barrie Watts (a non-fiction classic with clear close-ups of seed sprouting)
• I’m a Seed by Jean Marzollo, Cartwheel Books, 1996. (early reader, accurate science)
• Seeds by George Shannon, Houghton Mifflin, 1994. (fiction, gardening leads to friendship)
• To Be Like The Sun by Susan Marie Swanson, Harcourt, 2008. (poem-like text about a child following the life cycle of sunflowers)

A traditional call and response song, such as “John the Rabbit: or “Ol’ John Rabbit” which can be heard on Mike and Peggy Seeger’s American Folksongs for Children

Oh, John the rabbit                 yes, ma’am

Had a mighty bad habit          yes, ma’am

Of jumpin’ in my garden        yes, ma’am

And eating my peas                yes, ma’am

He ate my tomatoes               yes, ma’am

and my sweet potatoes           yes, ma’am

And if I live                              yes, ma’am

To see next fall                       yes, ma’am

Maybe I won’t             yes, ma’am

Garden at all!              Yes, ma’am!

The amount of rain that falls can be measured in inches that accumulate in any container with nearly straight sides. We switched to a “real” scientific rain gauge because it has numbers on it already and can easily attach to a post. The children draw in the amount of collected rain on a template and compare it to previous days. They are beginning to connect the presence of low grey clouds with rain. This younger sibling is lucky to have a parent who knows puddle-stomping experience is more important than muddy clothes (and to have another pair of shoes at home).

Books: again, an incomplete list because there are too many worthy books to list them all.

• Come On, Rain! by Karen Hesse, Scholastic, 1999. Poetic language expressing a child’s wish for, and delight in, rain.
• Down Comes the Rain by Franklyn Branley, HarperCollins, 1983. Classic non-fiction with updated illustrations by James Graham Hale. This book provides teachers more information than preschool children need—allowing us to stay one step ahead of our students’ questions.
• Rain by Peter Spier, Doubleday, 1982. A wordless picture book about two children who experience the fun and wonders of a rainstorm.

I brought “laundry” to school for the children to wash on a hot day. When the laundry was dry we talked about where the water went. When one child said, “It went away,” I asked, “Where could it have gone?” Evaporation is a concept that the children will understand better once they begin to learn about atoms.

• The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash by Trinka Hakes Noble, illustrations by Steven Kellogg, Putnam Penguin 1980. Unrelated to water, weather, or evaporation but lots of fun. This tall tale can be used to encourage children to make predictions.
• The Water Cycle by Craig Hammersmith, Capstone Press, 2012. Non-fiction information at an age-appropriate level.

While we’re outside observing clouds and tending the plants, children often find “bugs” and other small creatures. We go looking for more little animals. Be aware that entomologists group only some insects in the “true bugs” category.

You can write your own version of “Going on a Bug Hunt.”

We’re Going On A Bug Hunt 

(Adapted from Michael Rosen’s version of a traditional chant. Children repeat every line after the teacher.)

We’re going on a bug hunt,
We’re gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We’re not scared.
Oh oh!
Grass,
Long, wavy, grass.
We can’t go over it,
We can’t go under it,
We’ve gotta go through it!
Swishy swashy, swishy swashy.

Look, it’s a grasshopper!

We’re going on a bug hunt,
We’re gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We’re not scared.
Oh oh!
Mud,
Thick, oozy mud.
We can’t go over it,
We can’t go under it,
We’ve gotta go through it!
Squelch squelch, squelch squelch

Look, it’s a mayfly nymph!

We’re going on a bug hunt,
We’re gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We’re not scared.
Oh oh!
A river,
A deep, cold river.
We can’t go over it,
We can’t go under it,
We’ve gotta go through it!
Splish splosh, splish splosh.

Look, it’s a dragonfly!

We’re going on a bug hunt,
We’re gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We’re not scared.
Oh oh!
A forest,
A big, dark forest.
We can’t go over it,
We can’t go under it,
We’ve gotta go through it!
Stumble trip, stumble trip.

Look, it’s a jumping spider!

We’re going on a bug hunt,
We’re gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We’re not scared.
Oh oh!
A cave,
A cool, dark cave.
We can’t go over it,
We can’t go under it,
We’ve gotta go through it!
Tiptoe, tiptoe.

Look, it’s a cave cricket!

We’re going on a bug hunt,
We’re gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We’re not scared.
Oh oh!
A neighborhood,
A grassy, tree-filled neighborhood.
We can’t go over it,
We can’t go under it,
We’ve gotta go through it!
Skippetty, skip, skip.

Look, it’s a wooly BEAR (caterpillar of the Isabella Tiger Moth)

(Say this section very quickly.)
OH NO IT’S A BEAR!!!
Quick!
Through the cave, tiptoe, tiptoe,
Through the forest, stumble trip, stumble trip,
Through the river, splish splosh, splish spolosh,
Through the mud, squelch squelch, squelch squelch,
Through the grass, swishy swashy, swishy swashy.
Through the neighborhood, skippetty, skip, skip.
Run to the house, run up the stairs,
Oh oh forgot to shut the door!
Run back downstairs, shut the door,
Run back up, to the bedroom,
Jump into bed, pull up the covers,
WE ARE NEVER GOING ON A BUG HUNT AGAIN!!

WAIT! It was a wooly bear, a moth caterpillar, not a big bear!

(You can listen to a sample of Lorraine Bayes saying the traditional chant at Songs For Teaching.)

Books, an incomplete list, to pair with searching for small animals such as insects, spiders, and roly-polies.

• Backyard Detective: Critters Up Close by Nic Bishop, Tangerine Press, 2002. A photographic collection on each page of “critters” which might be found in the same habitat.
• Bugs Are Insects by Anne Rockwell, illustrated by Steve Jenkins, Harper Collins Publishers, 2001. Use this book to learn about the scientific groupings of insects and the greater arthropod group.
• Do All Bugs Have Wings?: And Other Questions Kids Have About Bugs by Suzanne Slade, Picture Window Books, 2010. Once a small animal is found, use this book to answer some questions.
• It’s A Good Thing There Are Insects (Rookie Read-About Science Series) by Allan Fowler, Children’s Press, 1990. This book for emerging readers is also a good read-aloud for beginning a discussion on how insects are beneficial for human life.

I hope that spring weather has provided new science exploration opportunities for your students,

Peggy

The USA Science and Engineering Festival had something for everyone this weekend—information, experiences, fun and challenges for scientists young and old.

I learned about the senses through the “Science of Our Senses” exhibit activities by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. By smelling, people can have different perceptions of the same compound, that is, things may not smell the same to different people. Data was collected by age and intensity of the perceived smell on the Smell Board to see if any trends developed. Listening to a “Shepard Tone” sounds like it’s rising endlessly because our brain doesn’t notice that other rising tones come up from the depths to take our focus away from the tone that rose out of our hearing range. The sense of touch activity involved identifying shapes by touch. The sense of sight was illustrated by optical illusions. 

The National Science Teachers Association tables had a steady stream of visitors making soda straw rockets, a sense of touch materials science challenge, a center-of-gravity activity to balance a butterfly, a loop plane (see page 48), as well as an activity involving a hairdryer blowing toilet paper and one with a big jar of cheese balls (your guess is as good as mine, I wish I had participated!).

The volunteers staffing a National Institute of Health booth were using models to teach about the structure of the human brain. Visitors lined up to look through a window into the Crew Module of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. And Ms Frizzle brought the Magic School Bus to the Festival.

It was wonderful to see so many families spending time together learning, and to meet teachers who came from places like NYC and California just for the Festival.

Next year I hope to go both days.

Peggy

The Early Years blog will broaden its voice by having occasional guest bloggers. Marie Faust Evitt joins us today. She is the head teacher of a preschool class for four- and five-year-olds, and leads an “Adventure Day” class in Mountain View, California. She has written for newspapers and journals* and is the author of Thinking Big, Learning Big, a book of science activities aligned with national standards in literacy, math, and science. She posts wonderful photographs and writes about her classroom activities on Facebook. *A Web of Learning, Science & Children September 2011 

Spring is in full bloom here in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’ve discovered that when I’m out walking with my nature fieldtrip class the children are much more excited about seeing wildflowers when they are looking for a few specific flowers as if it were a treasure hunt. And they are quicker to notice the flowers if we have talked about the flower names ahead of time and come up with, gestures to remember them.

For example, Pacific hound’s tongue is an early woodland flower with delicate blue flowers. The name comes from two characteristics – the leaves look like a dog’s tongue hanging out, and the seed pods look like the surface of a tongue. I tell the children that when we see hound’s tongue we’ll stick out our tongues and pant like a dog. We all look silly, and they remember the name of the plant.

We remember trillium by holding up three fingers because trillium has three big leaves and three magenta petals, like a tricycle has three wheels. (Click on the photos to see the larger photographs.)

These gestures help me remember the names of the California flowers myself since I grew up in Connecticut with buttercups and Queen Anne’s lace. I had learned to recognize buttercups by the old saying that if you held the flower under your chin on a sunny day and your chin showed a yellow reflection it meant you like butter. Folklore, yes, but I remembered the name of that cheerful yellow flower when I saw it again here, years later. It was like greeting an old friend! Buttercups!! I just discovered the science behind the lore.

As beautiful as the wildflowers are, we have the rule that during class we don’t pick any flowers so they can go to seed and make food for the wildlife and new flowers for the next year. Know your students—if you have any concerns that a particularly curious child might taste one of the flowers, talk about the “No Taste” rule too and stay close to that child. Check this site to learn more about your local wildflowers http://wildflowerinformation.org/.

Reading books about wildflowers adds to the learning. My preschoolers like hearing The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush by Tommie de Paulo and Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney. Elemenatry school children will enjoy Miss Lady Bird’s Wildflowers by Kathi Appelt, the story of Lady Bird Johnson’s love of wildflowers.

Happy spring! Marie Faust Evitt

We didn’t have enough wire so we re-used cardboard tubes, empty boxes, egg cartons, and plastic jar lids to create toys called “Galimotos” in the Malawian children’s tradition as recounted in the children’s book, Galimoto by Karen Lynn Williams and illustrated by Catherine Stock. Galimoto means “car” in Chichewa, the national language of Malawi and many, but not all, of our creations were vehicles. The small group of kindergarten and first grade girls drew their designs and then built their own toy to take home in a one hour library sponsored program.

A third grade lesson plan (with additional links) from LEARN NC from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill describes this activity as an “opportunity to engage in creative self-expression by designing and creating wire sculptures.”  It is also an opportunity to understand the iterative practices of engineering—a cycle of ask, imagine, plan, create, improve, ask, imagine….See the Engineering Is Elementary website for more details of this process.

Some of the problems the children had to solve were how to attach wheels, balancing the vehicle to keep it upright, and holding the pieces together. These significant challenges did not discourage the young engineers who tried alternative designs or accepted their work with its limitations.

I’d also like to read Lorato and her Wire Car by Botswanian author Lauri Kubuitsile. It won the Golden Baobab Prize Best Story for ages 8-11 years in 2009. It is published by Vivlia Publishers. Can you think of any other books that tell of children designing and building something out of found materials?

An hour-long program just isn’t enough time to create a toy that works satisfactorily. I hope the children will continue to design and improve, imagine and create, until they are happy with their designs.

Peggy

I’ll be having a wonderful time at home with a sister visiting and celebrating a family birthday BUT, I do wish I could also go to the 1^st Annual NSTA STEM Forum & Expo in Atlantic City, New Jersey on May 17–19, 2012. Register soon–before April 20 at a lower cost.

There are 36 sessions in the PreK-2^nd strand and others that will be of interest to early childhood educators. Select “Preschool” in the “Select by Grade” menu, then click on the “Browse Events” button. Engineering is well represented.

The Exhibit Hall will be open in the evening on Wednesday May 16 for a preview.

When you go, will you post a comment about it here so I can vicariously learn from your participation? Maybe on Sunday while you’re processing the conference material while on the beach…

Peggy

With spring break coming right after the conference my reporting has been delayed. There were many interesting sessions presenting and discussing many interesting ideas at the 2012 NSTA national conference in Indianapolis. Here are a few of the ideas from a few of the sessions.

This young scientist displays his developmentally appropriate model of the Earth in a session by Dr. Brenda B. Mackay Associate Professor of Education at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. She suggested several books, including Hands-on Projects About Changes in the Earth by Krista West (2002, Power Kids Press, Rosen Publishing) and Underfoot by David M. Schwartz and photographs by Dwight Kuhn (1997, Creative Teaching Press).

Dr. John Payne of Mercer University involved participants in making and thinking about “density bottles,” a layering of liquids of different densities such as water, oil, corn syrup and dishwashing liquid (NOTE: do not use alcohol for young children). We also tested the sounds made by tapping our palms with different lengths of PVC pipe, observed a millipede curled up under bark in a terrarium, and used a “color box” to view colored balls through films of different colors to notice changes perceived color.

Nancy Sale presented a Butterfly Bonanza, showing examples of several species and slides of many others. Have you made a butterfly lifecycle craft out of pasta? We each got a early reader book or other classroom-useful goodie and drawings were held for big book copies.

In a session titled Inspired by Nature’s spectrum: Observation and questioning in art and science inquiry, Glenda McCarty and Jennifer Hope led us thorough an exercise in piecing a puzzle together by talking to each other and describing what we observed on our piece. We got it! In addition to bringing us together as a learning group, this exercise referred to how scientists may be working on pieces of the same question and need to talk with each other to determine an answer. They also shared ideas for creating a “parts of a whole” book with windows made from holes in pages, and notebooks with covers made from box cardboard and pages made from one-side-used paper.

I’m sorry that I couldn’t stay long enough to attend the other 8 sessions I had put on my schedule. I can look them up on the conference schedule page and hope they posted packets so I can get a few ideas to use with my students.

I’d like to hear about sessions that you went to. Post a comment to tell us all about something you learned so we can pass it on.

Peggy

Thank you Council for Elementary Science and APAST, SEPA, the NSTA Committee on Preschool-Elementary Science Teaching, and Science and Children for the “Elementary Extravaganza”! (Click here, then scroll down to see photos.) Well before 8am science educators were lining up to get into the ballroom where each one (of ~ 100) tables was a different presenter ready to share a lesson plan, cool idea, student work, or product, and enter into a discussion as deep as you wanted to go. Thank you for the combined efforts that supported and created such an awesome concentration of professional development–we did indeed “Walk away with a head full of ideas and arms filled with materials.” Each person who attended got a sturdy carry-bag made of recycled materials, and a jump drive, and many won door prizes. What a fun and productive way to spend the first 1.5 hours of a conference morning. If you weren’t able to make it, you can still access some of the material.

I passed out copies of the journal Young Children, generously donated by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, my other professional association. In the March 2012 issue the NAEYC Early Childhood Science Interest Forum is introduced, and there are several features focusing on science in this all-around excellent issue.

What didn’t I see at the “Elementary Extravaganza”? What did I miss? Go to the  Elementary Extravaganza session listing on the NSTA Indianapolis Conference page to download the presenters information sheets.

Here are photos (click on a photo for a link) to share what I saw. Comment below to add information about your table or another favorite.

And each person who attended got a sturdy carry-bag made of recycled materials, and a jump drive, and many won door prizes. What a fun and productive way to spend the first 1.5 hours of the morning,

Peggy

Yesterday at the NSTA national conference was my treat for myself—the CESI Engineering Is Elementary Day. My father was a metallurgist, and later a ceramist. He was good at figuring out ways to fix things and understanding the properties of materials. I looked forward to learning more about his field in a way that I can use in mine, early childhood education, and I was not disappointed!

We were given a guided tour of what engineers do by doing engineering ourselves under the guidance of Sharlene Yang, professional development director and Katy Laguzza, senior curriculum/research assistant of Engineering Is Elementary at the Boston Museum of Science, and Family Engineering founders Mia Jackson and David Heil. And we met a real, live engineer who gave an inspiring talk about how to grow up to be an engineer, NASA engineer Heather Paul who is the lead engineer for the future spacesuit life support system design. (As part of her work Heather got to meet LeVar Burton of Star Trek and Reading Rainbow fame so you know I’m jealous.) If you are an elementary teacher these programs are designed for your students and their families. If you are a birth-to-preK teacher, get their materials for your own education and look for materials for the very young children coming from Family Engineering at some time in the future.

As I look over the sessions for the NSTA 2012 national conference, I see that I will have to revise my thinking about sessions labeled General Science Elementary or K-8. For a while I found that what was being presented was more appropriately called “Grades 3-5 and you can adjust it for younger students” but now I’m finding them more appropriate to early childhood than previously.  Take a look at this session: the presenter has uploaded activity plans for preK- grade 5. Thank you Sharon Anibal for including preK!

Thursday, March 29 8:00–9:00 AM Indiana Convention Center, 212

Everybody Loves I.N.D.Y.C.A.R.S. (Incredible New Discoveries You Can Achieve Really Simply)!

Are you tired of driving in circles with the same old boring lessons? Zoom ahead of the pack and take the lead with these proven K–5 inquiry-based lessons. Presenter(s): Sharon R. Anibal (Missouri Botanical Garden: St. Louis, MO)

Where will you be today and tomorrow? If you’re at the conference, let other early childhood teachers know about sessions appropriate for this level.

Peggy

Do you remember the book Play With Me, (Viking Press, 1955), written and illustrated by Marie Hall Ets about a child observing wildlife? Including Play With Me, five of her book are Caldecott Honor books. I also love her book, Gilberto and the Wind. In Play With Me, a young child seeks to play with animals in the woods that border her home. The animals range from insect to amphibian to mammal, and none want to play with her. She discovers that they will come closer if she sits still. In the book, the animals come right up to the child, not a realistic expectation, but the message that wildlife can be observed, not played with, comes through.

I find it difficult to take groups of children for a “nature walk” to observe animals but in the small city where I teach but we did see wildlife this week: Crows flying overhead, Cabbage white butterflies, roly-polies and starlings building a nest. So often the children at the front of the group see a robin on the grass or a squirrel in a tree and rush to get a good look, loudly shushing those behind who also want to get a close look, and scaring the animal away.  There isn’t time for the children to draw the animals but at least they can count them. A data collection log is a useful tool to carry with you as you walk.

If you have access to a park, arboretum, or a slightly wild border land, your students may see more animals. And if they go in small groups, such as with their family, they may be able to get closer to them. What do you think about making an information sheet describing a nearby park or natural area and listing the directions to it from the school, to give to each student to take home? The first question I got after speaking to parents at a local preschool was, “Where do you suggest we take our children to experience a natural area?” I think right outside our front doors is a good place to start but hope that all children will experience the untended places in woodlots and nature preserves often enough to become comfortable with nature as it is not controlled by humans. It is a different kind of experience in small and large ways and helps us understand our human place as part of nature. I love being outside where I’m just another animal, and I’m glad to be able to come inside when the weather is unpleasant or dangerous to me.

Does your class observe animals in nature?

Peggy

Both the NSTA journal Science and Children, and the NAEYC journal Young Children, were especially riveting this month, March of 2012. I quickly look through the journals to get a feel for the issue, and then put them in my reading bag or pile, unless I happen to be sitting down to the rare quiet meal by myself—then I begin to read from cover to cover. This month I’ve read them little by little and here are a few thoughts. Please get these journals and read them yourselves, and then comment below to share your thoughts.

In the Early Years column I suggest that a water source such as a birdbath can attract animals close enough to the school to observe, and collect data by drawing. On a walking fieldtrip today just around the playground and school building my preschoolers saw many signs of spring, including flowering paw-paw and Bradford pear trees, forsythia flowers, Cabbage White butterflies, and a starling carrying pine needles from the big tree up to a hole in a pipe to build a nest. Nature is waiting for us just outside the door.

The Bradford pear trees in my community are in full bloom this week—beautiful when in a still picture and on a still afternoon but troublesome in the real world, especially on a windy day or in a heavy snowfall when their limbs are likely to break, or when they spread into a wild natural area. Read about how teachers developed the role-play to engage fifth-grade students in understanding scientific inquiry, ecosystems, diversity, and risks and benefits in Banishing Bradford Pears by Cynthia Deaton and Michelle Cook. Then think of an environmental problem that is within the control of your younger students, and role-play on how to effect change. The problems that preschool age children can fix are ones we are familiar with: the sandbox is almost empty because the sand has been carried to other parts of the school yard, a classroom toy is missing parts because they were not put away when last used, the paper towel dispenser has run out because people are using two and three towels when one would be enough, or the plants in the garden are wilted because no one has watered them.

Establishing the habit of stewardship, or taking care of the environment, can start before appreciation of why this is important takes root. Even though we model good manners and environmental stewardship, our students may not copy our behavior so we can provide experiences that highlight how important these behaviors are. There will always be a range of expression of empathy in a class but by requiring “pleases” and “thank-yous” we set expectations for children as they grow. When “we all clean up to make our classroom a pleasing place” is a community expectation, it becomes a habit that we hope will carry over into the larger world. (Do you have a favorite clean-up song or signal for your classroom?)

I agree with what David Sobel says in his 2008 Focus the Nation presentation at Antioch University, Global Climate Change Meets Ecophobia. He said, “My desire is to approach this from a perspective that maximizes hope. If we lead with all the tragic implications of climate change, then we risk scaring children into despair. In Beyond Ecophobia I suggested, ‘No (environmental) tragedies before fourth grade.’” You can watch this presentation online at http://www.antiochne.edu/focusthenation/ecophobia_sobel.cfm

What will make children become environmental stewards? I think that the caring community described in the Young Children article, “One Mommy Breast and One Daddy Breast: Encountering Illness as Emergent Curriculum” is what will help young children develop a sense of responsibility for others and develop their ability to take action. In the article, a teacher who was diagnosed with breast cancer said this about how she would tell the children she worked with about her illness and the treatment process she would be going through.  “…We have dealt with difficult topics before—a knee surgery, and the death of a family pet. I believe children are capable, ready to engage, to learn. Gandini’s quote on the image of children is the one I hold on to:

All children have preparedness, potential, curiosity, and interest in constructing their learning; in engaging in social interactions and negotiating everything that the environment brings them. (Gandini, L. 1993. “The Fundamentals of the Reggio Emilia Approach to Early Childhood Education,” Young Children 49 (1): 4-8)

If you believe this, it’s a no-brainer that cancer is an illness that would be discussed, documented, researched, and experienced in the classroom.”

The teacher did not exclude the children from taking the journey with her but she did not begin by describing the seriousness of her illness. The children responded with actions which were within their power—with matter-of-fact questions and discussion, making hats and hair for the teacher and wearing headscarves until they were able to accept her baldness caused by chemotherapy. This teacher and the other authors ask, “Does it protect the children to keep them apart from it [knowledge of serious illness]? Or does it isolate and remove children’s power to act?” They also said “It is not that adults would ask the children to do so [take on the responsibility of supporting an ill teacher], but that their empathy and care contributed in an essential way to the healing of others.”

Sobel reports that involvement with local nature experiences is strongly tied to environmental stewardship. The March 2012 issue of Science and Children focuses on ways to get teachers and students outside to have those direct experiences with nature. By supporting children’s development of empathy and their ability to act, as shown in the Young Children article, and providing direct experiences as part of the local nature, teachers can foster children’s love of the environment and stewardship actions appropriate to their age and ability.

Peggy