One misconception about science is that discoveries or new ideas are “discovered” then agreed upon by scientists in a complete form. Talking to children about the process of scientific inquiry as they do an activity may help them appreciate the long, exploratory, route to being certain in science. Foster discussion by letting children know it [...]
The children were happy that I had enough of each color pipe cleaner (known as “fuzzy sticks” nowadays) that everyone could choose their favorite color. We wanted to make bubbles and needed to make bubble wands. Children like to have choices (as do I). Choosing marker color, place in line, type of seed to plant, [...]
Snack sorting! It’s an interesting way to involve students in classifying and, while sitting together to eat, there is time to talk about why certain groupings were chosen. Children might sort by shape, create an ABAB pattern, and count the number of each snack shape. Classification is the theme for the March 2009 issue of Science and [...]
Finding a covering of the season’s first snow on their car, my 3-year-old neighbor helpfully suggested, “Use that tool, that small brush,” to her father. Was she recalling last winter? It is possible that she had seen the snow brush/scraper in recent months in the back of the car. But how did she know it [...]
Give children tools for exploring a concept and they almost always show me a new way to teach it. In a session of flashlight and mirror exploration, Walter began building by putting a flashlight on top of a single-eyepiece, single-mirror periscope. “Look!” he said, pointing to a beam of light exiting the periscope. He was [...]
Two particularly inquisitive and bright former preK students (siblings) unexpectedly attended a workshop I gave for early childhood teachers about bringing local butterflies into the classroom for observation. Instead of distracting from the planned workshop, they added to it and made me look good! It was gratifying to have them model how to ask questions, [...]
I want to use more essay-type questions on my unit assessments, but with 150 students I feel swamped trying to grade all of the papers and provide feedback. Any suggestions for making this a good learning process? —Brian, Reading, Pennsylvania I can feel your pain, sitting at the table for hours after giving a test. [...]
I’m looking forward to the NSTA Regional Conference in Portland, Oregon, in November, a cornucopia of a conference so full of interesting presentations that each of my time slots is double (sometimes triple) booked with workshops and fieldtrips. Being over-scheduled assures me that I have an alternative session if one is canceled or looks like it [...]
It was Monday morning and a sharp corner on a large immovable object (left by another group sharing the space used by the preschool…sound familiar?) unexpectedly turned into a chance to assess the understanding of symbols by one three-year-old. “Ricky” had stepped past the orange cones which surrounded the sharp-cornered plywood platform. I explained that [...]
As a preschool teacher I try to be aware of how my work might introduce or reinforce misconceptions in my students’ understanding of concepts. In the Perspectives column in the September issue of Science and Children, Michele H. Lee and Deborah L. Hanuscin write about common misconceptions about astronomy, A (Mis)Understanding of Astronomical Proportions? (pg [...]
