Scientific Inquiry: Develop It Naturally!

This summer we plan to bring you several suggestions to help your preschooler develop inquiry skills. It is our belief that these skills are not only necessary to develop scientific minds but they help children retain their natural curiosity and encourage critical thinking skills. And…inquiry skills can become a natural part of your daily routine whether you are a daycare provider, teacher, camp counselor, or family member.

It’s easy to turn a simple walk to a neighborhood playground into a science experience.

One of the keys is to model for children seemingly simple questions such as, “How does it feel to walk on the sidewalk?’ Have children use their senses to describe the hard, bumpy feeling their feet might be experiencing. Children can touch the pavement. Of course, this develops vocabulary, too!

A walk brings a world of opportunity! 

As children’s feet encounter a different surface, encourage their questioning. Hopefully, they will remember some of the questions you modeled and add their own.

This child said his feet sounded different when he walked on the grass. Help children to go deeper with observations by asking more questions like, “Tell me how your feet feel in the grass” or “Tell me why it feels different to walk on the grass than on the sidewalk.”

Model for children the joy of asking questions about seemingly simple things like walking in the grass.

Look at how many inquiry opportunities can happen on a walk.

Asking questions and wondering about the world: trademarks of a scientist! 

This child stopped on his own to feel the pine needles. Without prompting he made predications as to how his feet would feel on this different surface. This is curiosity and critical thinking at an age-appropriate level! When your child (children) does this, positively reinforce questions and descriptions by responding with statements such as, “What a good question. I love the way you wonder about our world!” Help children learn new vocabulary by restating words such as prickly rather than sharp, etc.

Look at all the unique surfaces that happen on a simple walk. By the time you get to a destination, your child may have walked on mulch, through a field, or even on a bridge.

Trip - trap! How do feet feel and sound on a bridge?

You know inquiry skills are building when your child stops before getting on a swing and says, “I wonder how my feet will feel when I am swinging. There will be nothing under them. I think they will feel free!” Inquiry, curiosity, and willingness to predict: skills of a scientist!

What scientific principles will this child explore next? Gravity? 

Phonemic Awareness: Segmenting Sounds

Phonemic awareness is an important component of literacy.  Many researchers believe it is a major predictor of later reading success. While there are many aspects of phonemic awareness, one of the key things to remember is that it is all oral. This means teachers and families should play lots of word and sound games with children.

Pointing at a letter and saying its name and/or sound is phonics, not phonemic awareness.

We have previously discussed the importance of preschool children being able to rhyme. This is a major and necessary part of phonemic awareness. Books like the Llama, Llama series by Anna Dewdney and Dr. Suess are favorite childhood read-alouds that develop this important skill. Children who are exposed to books like these can make rhyming part of play.

Another necessary part of phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and segment sounds. This is easy to do and can become a favorite game. To “play,” say a simple word with three distinct sounds (called phonemes). For example, you could say, “hop.” There are three sounds – the h sound, the short o sound, and the p sound. Clap your hands when each sound is heard.

Clapping for each sound in h - o - p.

When a child can clearly hear the three sounds in words like dog, tub, hat, pin, and other words, show your child how to use his or her arm to indicate the first, second, and third sound. For example, when saying the word, hat, have your child point to his wrist when saying the h sound. As the short a is said, the child moves his hand to the inside of his elbow. Finally, as the t is said, the child points to his upper arm.

The child says the first sound, h.

The child says the middle sound, short a.

The child says the final sound, t.

These types of visual and kinesthetic experiences develop the ability to segment sounds in words. This will be helpful as children later learn to read.

Rain, Rain...Don't Go Away!

Children are natural conservationists! They appreciate Mother Nature. Help children to understand the importance of water in our world. 

Talk about the benefits of rain. 

Children enjoy playing in a warm rain!

Begin discussion of the water cycle by asking children what happens to rain after it falls from a cloud. Answers such as it goes into the ground or it helps plants and trees to grow are age-appropriate scientific understandings. Help them trace the idea that water can evaporate.

Children can collect rainwater.

Put out a glass and have children measure the water, possibly using Unifix cubes or other child-friendly objects. Give them the scientific word, evaporation, to use. We find children respond well to using "grown-up" vocabulary!

Encourage children to predict what will happen to the water. This is the beginning of scientific inquiry!

Explain how this water becomes part of the air (clouds) and falls again to the ground, lake, ocean, etc. 

The water cycle begins anew.

Blast Off to Math Readiness!

Language is so important as preschoolers develop concepts. Closeness with family and friends helps makes these ideas more meaningful and attaches a sense of pleasure to developing skills. Because many teenagers and older elementary students report math anxiety, we feel it is helpful to attach positive feelings about math with family time. Below are fun and meaningful ideas that help develop math skills, vocabulary, understanding of concepts, and a positive mathematical outlook.

Make geometry real by cutting out various shapes; squares, rectangles, triangles, and circles.  Encourage lots of talk about these shapes as you hold them up and have your child name them.

Children can talk about both shape and color.

Discuss how the shapes can be put together to form a rocket. Provide your child a large piece of paper, the shapes, and glue.

Anytime children participate in art activities, you are also developing important fine motor skills, too.

Encourage that wonderful preschool imagination! Allow your child to place the shapes on the paper to make a rocket. Remember – it doesn’t matter if the rocket looks like a rocket to your eyes, it will be a rocket in your child’s eyes!

When children share activities with parents, it leads to positive feelings about important concepts.

You have just set the stage for positive feelings about geometry.

Now…5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – let’s add another math skill. Children who know how to count backwards possess an important background for subtraction.  Blasting off and counting down from 5 or 10 makes this a part of preschool play. So, use the geometric rocket to role-play a NASA rocket lift-off.  Develop this precursor subtraction skill by pretending to be “mission control” as your child engineer counts down to lift-off.

Blasting off to positive feelings about math!

Concept of Print: Ask or Tell

We discussed helping children understand the difference between an ask (question) and a tell (statement) in our previous post. Now you can take this one step further and add Concept of Print to the fun. You may even want to enjoy the spring weather while you are reinforcing the concept. This adds to a child's enjoyment and helps learning feel like a natural part of life.

Write a large question mark on a paper and a period on another paper. When you and the child (or children) are talking about signs of spring, hold up the question mark to indicate an ask and the period for a tell.

For example, this child described the buds on the bushes. He said, "There are small, small buds on the prickly branches." This was a statement so he was prompted to hold up the period.

He also asked questions such as, "Are there worms crawling under the ground?" He was given the question mark to hold. He learned this was the special sign to use when you ask for an answer.

As the outdoor experience continued, the child did not need as many prompts to hold up a question mark or period. He learned by doing!

Finally, the child sat outside with a book and eagerly discovered the same punctuation marks in print.

We think we may need to teach literacy objectives inside, but outdoor learning, using a child's natural curiosity, can accomplish something as important as understanding punctuation marks!

An Overlooked School Readiness "Skill"

Children can be an endless stream of questions: 

“Why is the sky blue?”
“Why do I sleep at night?”
“How come we need to go shopping?” 

Preschoolers also love to tell tales and may not stop for a breath:

“We went to the park and saw a frog that was making a loud noise and he hopped away.”
“My brother took my puzzle and now one of the pieces is lost and my mother can’t find it so I am not happy.”

Often these questions and tales are told when you are trying to teach your preschoolers. That is why it is helpful to teach children the difference between an “ask” and a “tell.”

I like to tell children that some things are said to let others know what we are thinking. Other things are asked and we need the other person to answer. I give children some easy examples such as:

“Is your shirt red?”

I find out if the child has enough background to identify this as an “ask” or a “tell.” If the child does, I proceed; but if not, I share my thinking and say, “I expect you to answer. So that is an “ask.” What is your answer?” I then give several more examples of an “ask” before stating examples of “tells” like, "I have a yellow crayon."

Next, I would ask the child to provide some “asks” and “tells.” This is something I review constantly with preschoolers. When we have class sharing or a guest in the classroom, the child is then better equipped to understand what he or she can say when raising a hand. Kindergarten and first grade teachers will thank you as often children raise their hands to tell a long story when a question has been expected. This is an often overlooked but important school readiness “skill.”

Math and Fine Motor: A Colorful Combination!

We love when we can integrate a subject area with the development of fine motor skills. This math activity is perfect for doing just this. The bonus? It also helps review colors and it’s fun!

Prepare by creating number cards, about 3”x 3”. Write a target numeral on each along with a meaningful representation such as dots depicting the number as shown below.

You can develop verbal skills by asking children to talk about the dots as you draw them.

As you can see, these cards should then be attached to a pipe cleaner.

It is helpful to laminate the cards, if possible.

 Place a bowl of beads with a number of pipe cleaners next to it.

Be sure your beads have large enough openings for the child to place them on the pipe cleaner.

Children read the numeral on the card, use the dots to count, and then find the same number of beads. They thread the beads onto the pipe cleaner so that the target number is represented.

Children may initially use a variety of ways to push the beads onto the pipe cleaner.

Encourage children to use the pincer grasp. This develops important hand muscles and builds control for a proper pencil grip.

This child learned that using the pincer grasp was the most efficient way to slip the beads onto the pipe cleaner.

You can use this activity at a center, as a whole class hands-on lesson, or you can even send home the materials in a Zip-Loc bag for family practice.

Children like to put their finished work in sequential order - another skill!