STEM Education Archives - Page 2 of 2 - A Children’s Carousel

Tips on Reading to Your Preschool Child

Posted on February 5, 2018September 1, 2020 by [email protected]

The early years are critical to developing a lifelong love of reading – you can’t start reading to a child too soon!

Read together every day. Read to your child every day. Make this a warm and loving time when the two of you can cuddle close together. Bedtime is an especially great time for reading together.
Give everything a name. You can build comprehension skills early, even with the littlest child. Play games that involve naming or pointing to objects. Say things like, “Where’s your nose?” and then, “Where’s Mommy’s nose?” Or touch your child’s nose and say, “What’s this?”
Say how much you enjoy reading together. Tell your child how much you enjoy reading with him or her. Look forward to this time you spend together. Talk about “story time” as the favorite part of your day.
Read with fun in your voice. Read to your child with humor and expression. Use different voices for different characters.
Know when to stop. If your child loses interest or has trouble paying attention, just put the book away for a while. Don’t continue reading if your child is not enjoying it.
Be interactive. Engage your child so he or she will actively listen to a story. Discuss what’s happening, point out things on the page, and answer your child’s questions. Ask questions of your own and listen to your child’s responses.
Read it again and again and again. Your child will probably want to hear a favorite story over and over. Go ahead and read the same book for the 100th time! Research suggests that repeated readings help children develop language skills.
Talk about writing, too. Draw your child’s attention to the way writing works. When looking at a book together, point out how we read from left to right and how words are separated by spaces.
Point out print everywhere. Talk about the written words you see in the world around you and respond with interest to your child’s questions about words. Ask him or her to find a new word every time you go on an outing.

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Videos stressing the importance of reading to your child

STEM Education – It’s Never Too Early

Posted on December 14, 2017August 25, 2020 by [email protected]

What is STEM?

STEM is an acronym for SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING AND MATH. The STEM approach to teaching and learning integrates the curriculum content with skills of science, technology, engineering and math.

Many parents ask us what age we think it is appropriate to start teaching STEM to children. At A Children’s Carousel, we believe that it is never too early to start STEM education. Reasons are many – a few being that

Young learners are naturally curious and questioning.
Early learners are natural scientists.
STEM education sparks a child’s interest in science, technology and math.
Foundations of scientific learning are inquiry and exploration; both are elements of STEM.
STEM encourages developmentally appropriate instruction as children explore the world around them.

For young children, we focus on STEM through EXPLORATION, PLAY, AND BUILDING CURIOSITY ABOUT THE NATURAL WORLD AND THE WAY THINGS WORK. For example, children learn about technology by exploring tools or simple machines and investigating how they work. These can be items they use every day like a pair of scissors, observing the wheels of a car, exploring at the park, watching a sunrise or by swimming in the ocean.

The research is quite clear that STEM education encourages the best practices in early childhood education. It shows the importance of breaking away from passive instruction to allow for more play and investigation. This kind of learning early in life builds skills, problem solving, abilities and interests that will serve children throughout their school years, and later in life. When discussing STEM-like education at home to their bi-lingual children, parents are encouraged to use both languages. In fact, research shows that bilingual children have greater mental flexibility, which may clarify math and in general many concepts.

STEM education integrated within early childhood education will tap into children’s natural curiosity and give them ample opportunities to be active participants in their own learning. Natural settings offer children almost unlimited opportunities to explore and investigate that leads to building STEM skills and creating a solid foundation for future learning.

A Children’s Carousel is proud and privileged to have successfully incorporate STEM education into the Pre-K curriculum as well as afterschool. We encourage parents to continue this natural curious way of learning at home.

To read the original article please click here To view more STEM related videos click here and here

Check out a few videos of our Pre-K at A Children’s Carousel engaged in STEM education!