Fun STEM Lessons for Preschoolers

The most lucrative college
majors lie in the science, technology, engineering and math
fields. It’s never too early to
introduce your child to these
fascinating subjects. Find out
how you can expose your little
one to STEM learning.
Photo Credit: Tim Pannell/Getty Images
According to Payscale.com, the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (also known as STEM fields) comprise the highest-paying career
opportunities for college graduates. What’s important to understand is that exposure to these lucrative areas of study can begin long before your child is
in high school or college.
Play your way to STEM learning
Dr. Craig Bach, Vice President of Education for Goddard
Systems, Inc., is frequently asked how soon parents should
begin introducing STEM subjects to their little learners. “It
really isn’t about introducing STEM topics to children,” says
Dr. Bach, “it is more about seeing the activities children
naturally do for opportunities to guide them in STEM
learning.”
When preschoolers play with blocks or solve puzzles, they
are already establishing a foundation for STEM learning.
“The goal is to encourage a playful, inquisitive engagement
with the environment and support children’s play with
appropriate activities, resources and tools,” explains Dr.
Bach. “The great news is that there are a lot of high-quality
organizations and really nice resources being created to
support early STEM learning.”
Toy companies such as LEGO, Rokenbok and K’Nex all
“It is more about seeing the activities
children naturally do for opportunities
to guide them in STEM learning.”
offer a range of toys that promote science, technology,
engineering and math activities. And apps like Kodable.
com provide great activities as well. Kodable describes
itself as “the first step in early programming education for
kids 5 and up” and provides “the skills needed to learn any
programming language later in life.”
Kodable helps even very young learners with logic,
numbers, typing, reading and direction and develops
problem-solving and memory skills. Fortunately, parents
don’t have to have a strong technology background
to be involved. Adult lessons and resource guides
include straightforward instructions and explanations of
programming concepts while enabling children to work (or
play) quite independently.
robotics.
while
imparting
concepts
through
songs and
games.
Tinker Toy Engineering Project
This activity from the Goddard Schools’ national Teach.
Play.Learn event supports 21st-century skill attainment
and STEM learning outcomes. It is ideal for one or more
children, ages 3 to 5.
Scenario: Your child identifies a problem and then uses
Tinker Toys to develop a solution to address it. In the
process, he or she learns the basic steps of completing an
engineering project.
Activity: Work with your child to identify a problem he
or she would like to solve. Try to identify a problem that
allows for many different kinds of creative solutions. If your
child has trouble identifying a problem, consider discussing
different ideas that might inspire inventive thinking:
Future Transportation. In the future, we will need to develop
new ways to transport people from one place to another.
Encourage your child to build new ways for people to move
around.
Living in New Places. What if we wanted to live under
the sea, in a tree, in the desert, on the moon or on an
elephant? What could your child create to help us do that?
Once the problem has been identified, lead your child
through the following four steps:
1. Brainstorm possible solutions and decide on one.
2. Create a drawing or drawings of that solution.
3. Build the solution using Tinker Toys.
4. Explain how the Tinker Toys solution solves the
problem.
Coding and Robotics Activity
This is a fun activity from the Goddard Schools for groups
of two or more preschool-age children.
You can
likely expect
a few structured learning times, but teacher-supervised
free play is the name of the game. Because play-based
preschools have such a broad definition, different schools
will practice different methodologies — visit and observe
the play-based preschools and classrooms in your area to
see what environment will work well for your child.
1. Make the instructions
•
•
•
2. Create the robot
•
•
Activity: This activity builds fundamental intuitions about
the difficulties and challenges of writing code for use in
Have one child volunteer to be the robot.
Put a kitchen glove on each of the robot’s hands and
a blindfold over his or her eyes.
3. Set the scene
•
•
Stand the robot a few feet away from and facing the
opposite direction of a table.
Place a block on the ground in front of the table,
making sure that the area is clear so the robot does
not bump into anything hard.
4. Set the robot into motion
•
•
Scenario: A robot understands and responds to very
specific instructions and often has limited abilities to do
simple things. One child will play the role of a robot while
the other child develops simple instructions to give to the
robot. The goal is to accomplish the simple task of picking
up a block and putting it on a table.
On 3x5 index cards, write short actions (e.g., turn
left, turn right, bend down, move right hand, take
one step forward) or draw pictures indicating simple
movements and actions.*
Talk about each simple action with the children to
make sure they understand.
Help the children put the cards in order and act
out the instructions.
•
Explain to the children that the goal is to have the
robot pick up the block and put it on the table.
Have the other children use the action steps on the
3x5 cards to shout out instructions to the robot until
the action is complete.
Keep track of the order of the instructions.
This generates a great conversation with children about
core issues in coding and robotics. Review the time and
challenges involved in providing step-by-step instructions
for accomplishing one seemingly simple task.