What better place to run a child-led project on germs than a service attached to a hospital? Involving the parents working at the hospital gave the children great insights into their day and their work at the hospital. Find out how the children conducted a germ study by wiping slices of bread on door knobs and pets.
This lovely story offers a great opportunity to explore relationships, family, love and being different alongside an abundance of STEM topics, such as shapes and sizes, engineering, design and sustainability. We don’t usually think of engineering as an expression of love, do we? What if everything in the world was built to make others happy? Can you love…
Play a little guessing game as you’re shown just the tails of a number of insects alongside descriptions of their attributes, behaviours, habitats and movements. How many insects can the children recognise…
This lovely story about finding the balance of trying to fit in while accepting your differences is a great starting point for discussing animal and human behaviours. Do cats and dogs like being in the water? Which animals like being in water? Which animals climb trees? Do you like being in the water? Do you sometimes feel different from…
Describing things is a good way to increase vocabulary and improve observational skills. Sometimes it’s hard to get those conversations going though. Ask a five-year-old what she sees and the reaction may be disbelief. Are you having me on? Is this a trick question? You do have eyes, don’t you? Or even…
Little Scientists Australia delivers a national STEM professional development program for early childhood educators and teachers working with children aged 3-6 years and has done great work as a previous grant recipient. Using Toyota funding, Little Scientists Australia will deliver workshops on STEM for educators working with young children in Wyndham and in a regional area…
This story is a great starting point for exploring the concept of sizes and numbers. Encourage the children to build a queue with the tallest at the front and the littlest at the end all facing one direction. Let the children count their position, starting from front to back.
This exploration of Little Round and Big Square’s friendship opens up a wonderful world of creativity and geometry. As much as the two friends love transforming into different shapes, at some point Little Round admits, “I’m too little, I can’t do that”, prompting the friends to start creating even more interesting shapes together. A great example of how co-construction…
Collecting Autumn leaves to create a hedgehog picture? Creating snowman craft around Christmas time? Many places in Australia don’t have seasons that fit neatly into European concepts of Winter. Collecting Autumn leaves is a little difficult if you don’t have many imported feral trees in your area. and Spring flowers may have been flowering all ‘Winter’…
The story is a great starting point for exploring loose parts play. Invite the children to move, carry, combine, redesign, line up, take apart and put back together different loose parts. Loose parts play supports invention, divergent thinking, problem solving and offers a sense of wonder to children.