With our book recommendations, we want to help you spark a conversation that leads children to discover STEM in their everyday lives. Have the courage to go beyond the obvious STEM connections and embrace all questions that may come out of your discussion with the children.
‘The day the crayons quit’ is a wonderful starting point to talk about colours and what they mean to the children. Take out a box of crayons and ask the children about their favourite colour. Are there any rules about which colour should be used for certain things? Which colour would they use for something hot? Which for something cold? Can animals see colours, too?
A gentle story about friendship and how differences and abilities enrich our lives. The author Aura Parker, takes young readers to a busy bug school where we meet Heidi, a stick insect who is long and tall and camouflages very well with the trees, almost too well, as no one else notices her at first…
In the face of the stresses and uncertainties of the current world, educators and carers can help children to learn about techniques and strategies to release stress and to calm the body and mind.
Mr Bear Branches is a thinker, Lintfrey Longfellow is a dreamer and they are the very best of friends. Mr Bear Branches explains Lintfrey all about condensation and evaporation. But then he realises that exploring the wonders of the natural world can be magical, too…
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…
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…
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.