10 Things to Discuss With Your Child Before the Family Christmas

For our Christmas party we make crafts, drink Grinch juice and hot cocoa, make gingerbread people and do a small optional gift exchange with dollar items. It’s an opportunity for the children, especially the 3.5yo+ children, to discuss and practice societal norms and expectations before heading to family events and the mayhem and high emotions involved.

It teaches:

1. Giving is hard, especially if the item being given is something you really want.

2. Gifts are new toys and you shouldn’t expect someone to be willing to share their new toys, and you may not want to share yours, either. And that's okay.

3. Wait your turn to unwrap a gift. It’s not WWF.

4. Unwrap with care, gifts can be broken.

5. Show gratitude when opening a gift. Someone put a lot of thought and effort into getting it especially for you.

6. It’s the thought that counts. Keep any displeasure at the gift to yourself.

7. Offer kisses, hugs, high five, handshake or a simple “Thank you” to the person who gave you the gift, depending upon your comfort level with the giver.

8. You may politely decline personal space invasion. “I don’t feel like a hug right now. May I shake your hand?” Understand that there may be people around you that are your family, but you don’t know them or know them well. They will want to show you their love, but it may be uncomfortable for you.

9. Ask consent before you invade a person’s personal space, especially little kids who may feel overwhelmed and may not know you well. “Can I give you a hug? Ok. How about a fist bump?”

10. If things get overwhelming, it’s ok to ask your parents for a retreat time to some place quiet for a few minutes to just talk it out and relax.

We also talk about that opening presents is about opening presents, not playing with presents. That time will come afterward.

They know about being responsible and picking up, but those lesson can be lost in the mayhem, so we talk about that, too.

A time of joy and family can be overwhelming to young children. I try to prep them a bit to handle it as gracefully as possible.

parenting, child care, daycare, preschool, pre-k, teaching, holiday, holidays, Christmas, xmas, kids, children, 

Reading Taught Wrong

I've done posts about how I teach reading. Now I want to do a comparison of what I think I do right compared to how I believe traditional instruction does it wrong. 

Can all my methods be incorporated into a traditional setting? 

Absolutely not. There is not the time. However, some of what I do can be, and should.

1. Expectation that children can read

Pretty much every developmentally on-track child can read by the age of 7 when they enter the next Piaget level of concrete operational. In many countries, reading instruction begins at the age of 7 when every child can be successful. Each child is unique. I've had children read at 3 and many more read at 5. However, EXPECTING every 5 year old to be able to read is not developmentally appropriate. Yet, we do that in this country. Under 7, it should be the child's choice and ability to read early, not an expectation. Under age 7, children are in the preoperational stage, where they CAN learn symbolic representations such as phonics and early sightwords.

Making their own books with markers
and cardboard to read to their friends

2. Teaching methods

Children under the age of 7-8 learn through movement and play. Which is how I teach early reading skills. Yet, traditional instruction has children sitting still and being instructed, which is again not developmentally appropriate.

3. Time and attention

Children have an attention span of, on average, one minute per age, increasing to 2 minutes at the age of 5. So a 5 year old has an attention span of about 10 minutes. This is greater if they are learning through play and movement and engaged in the activity. However, traditional teaching has them sitting in a group for up to 30 minutes and listening to a teacher or one another, or waiting their turn to read aloud. Again, not developmentally appropriate. My instruction takes no more than 5 minutes at any one time. The best is that they ASK for it, and they will choose to keep practicing and playing with it on their own after the lesson. Because, you know, it is FUN and ENGAGING, developmentally appropriate and at their skill level.

4. Skills introduction

Pre-reading skills are begun here from birth. Turning pages, left-right convention, one-to-one correspondence, crossing-the-midline ability, etc. I will use a baby's finger to point to the words as I read them. After doing this daily for 2 years, it is muscle memory for them to do it themselves. Kindergarten classrooms focus so much on reading, that they forget that there are pre-skills necessary for success. When those pre-skills are not embedded, reading is much more difficult.

5. Letter names

I could care less if a child knows an A is an "A". It has no bearing on reading. I do, however, care that a child learns the phonetic sound for an A, which is absolutely necessary in teaching reading.

6. Upper/lowercase letters

Uppercase letters comprise such a small percentage within print. I teach uppercase, lowercase and phonics simultaneously. Just as a child can learn mom, mama and mommy all have the same meaning, so can a child learn that A, a, and aaaa have the same meaning. Traditional methods often focus on a "Letter of the Day" or week. Again, random letter recognition has NO BEARING on reading, yet so much school time is wasted on this. Knowing that lowercase a stands for aaa DOES. It is the most important instruction, but done through meaningful experiences, not isolated instruction.

7. Phonics

Phonics are music. Traditional methods want to teach phonics as written symbols first, without recognizing that phonics are tones, lilts, blends of sound. They are magical sounds with meaning. Teaching them as this, brings them life and a richness that traditional methods simply don't engage. Much of my early reading skills learning is done through music. I start exposing phonics of lowercase letters to my kiddos at the age of 2 1/2. They often have them down by 3.

8. Giving meaning to symbols

Traditional instruction has children practicing phonics unconnected to anything engaging. They are taught as representatives of a letter symbol, and the letter phonics are taught individually, one letter at a time. Nothing engages a child more than attention to himself. By beginning spelling with children's names, they have an instant buy-in. We do it with their name songs each morning. After they do their spelling song for their name, we review the phonics. The children quickly learn how to spell their friends' names and how to sound them out. We sit in this stage for awhile.

Miss A 2yo, yeah, she did this

9. Timeline

As stated, we will sit in a learning stage for awhile to ensure that the children are fully engaged and have MASTERED a particular skill/stage before moving forward. Traditional methods push through a curriculum agenda, and poor readers are dragged along, often not mastering skills but sliding through.

10. Developmentally appropriate

Children up to age 7-8 learn through play and movement. Phonics here are learned through music and games. I will make a phonetic sound and the child will run and jump on the letter laying on the floor. Early reading instruction here begins with simple sightword sentences with a movement component and some silliness. "I am a ______." goes on the wall in large letters with dots under each word. Each child takes a turn reading the sentence and putting his finger on the dot for one-to-one correspondence, adding in the word. Whatever the word is the child chooses, the whole group acts it out. This adds an element of anticipation and surprise, keeping the whole group engaged. The next week it may be "I can ______." always adding only one or two new sight words at a time. Then the sentences can be combined. "I am a MONKEY and I can CLIMB TREES." Further along, I will write in the words and we will sound them out phonetically after they do the movement, before moving to the next child's turn. For another game the current sightwords are attached to the wall and the children run around and I will call out a sightword as they come around and they hit it with a swat frame. Learning always has a movement attached in the early stages.

11. Books are engaging and complex

Our early readers are created around the child. "My name is...," "I like..." The books I teach with are from Nora Gaydos [affiliate link.] The stories are repetitive, building skills slowly with the ability for mastery, but complex and rich with vibrant illustrations. The children want to know what is going to happen next, which keeps them moving forward and eager to read another book. And, they are very appealing to both girls and boys. Often traditional methods focus on very simplified books with simple illustrations. The focus is on the READING rather than the STORY. We focus on the story, with the reading as a by-product. We talk about the characters and the story, working on comprehension and analytical thinking. Again, engaging the child with what he is reading, providing meaning and context. Children learn new skills because they are useful and fascinating, not because someone says they have to do so. Retention and mastery are dramatically higher when children are engaged with their learning. The Gaydos books also introduce phonics, digraphs, blends, sightwords and advanced reading skills in a perfect timeline for easy mastery. Often, books used in schools do not.

12. Individualized instruction

Since I read books individually with each child, they are never allowed to develop bad habits. They flow through reading instruction in a very linear, clear method. Instant, constant correction keeps them on the correct path. Traditional methods of group instruction at the early stages of learning to read allow children to become muddled, develop bad habits and become afraid to speak up about their confusion or to participate out loud for fear of sounding wrong and being corrected in front of their peers. Individual instruction and attention is simply something that doesn't happen in traditional settings to the extent that it needs to in order to create excellent early readers.

13. Optimized Instruction Time

The children here have a choice of whether or not to read. Some days they are engaged in something else and don't want to do it. Some days they will read 5 books in a sitting. Some days they are tired and unable to focus, and I will decide that this is not the day to be reading. Traditional settings don't have that option to optimize instruction time.

14. Sight word Instruction

I believe that everything is learned better in context. My children learn their sightwords more through reading and me telling them that it is a sightword, than learning individual sightwords through other activities. Traditional methods teach a sightword then the child reads a book focusing on that sightword. It just isn't as engaging and meaningful. Any word is a sightword if a child sees it enough, and time spent reading, which occurs through engaging stories, is what makes a good reader. Once we get enough sightwords and phonics to begin reading my Nora Gaydos books, reading instruction occurs through READING only. Only if a child is having a really odd, difficult time with a specific word or sound will I add non-reading instruction, which is usually just a few seconds, a few times a day, for a few days before he will get it down pat. This focused attention to a specific issue for a specific child is more impactful than a general instruction to everyone.

15. Reading aloud

Children still in the preoperational stage have a lot of trouble reading silently. Or, they simply CAN'T. They also have a lot of trouble with comprehension, even if they have the ability to sound out and recognize words. Asking a child under 7 to read silently is not developmentally appropriate. My 5 year olds need to hear those phonics to spell out words and read. They need to associate the letter and word symbols to the sound representation. In traditional settings, unless reading together as a group, this can be unreasonable in a class of 28. One of the benefits, is that the children will correct one another if they hear something another child says that is off or wrong. They also will ask one another for assistance, and they usually provide the same answers I will give, such as "try to sound it out," "that's a sightword," "igh says I," and not just give the correct answer. Teaching another is a powerful learning tool. 

Mr. G 5yo

Reading ability, and time spent reading and being read to, are the key to a child's future success. Time spent on reading instruction is never wasted. I wish traditional school settings could incorporate more of my methods and allot more time for individual instruction. 

So many children under the age of 7 are being labeled failures for not being able to read, when they are simply just not YET in that developmental stage where they have the ability. The joy of reading and learning is being stripped from them for simply being young children. That is something I can't forgive or forget.

Discipline Through Observations

"Kind of a mess in here, isn't it gentlemen?"

Discipline literally means "to teach." It is not only learning to follow rules, which so many adults focus upon. It is also teaching children to CHOOSE to follow the rules, to choose to work with their community members to better situations, to choose to be responsible for their behavior and their actions, to choose to not follow friends who are making bad choices, and to have the internal motivation to make correct choices even when no one is looking. 

This is another low-key method to use in your discipline strategy, that greatly enhances the above aspects in children's behavior.

It again works best with clear and consistent rules and expectations. If a child knows exactly what is expected, then they also know exactly what is going wrong. 

The key aspect of this method is that it places the responsibility for knowing the rules and expectations, choosing to follow the rules and expectations, and correcting their behavior, ON THE CHILD. It is not a top-down demand for obedience, it is an observation that requires the child to own their behavior and make different/appropriate choices. 

It promotes internal motivation, self-reliance, resiliency, responsibility, autonomy, work ethic, leadership, teamwork, community...Yes, 3-4 year olds. 

Demands simply require compliance. Demands place the problem on your shoulders. Demands tell children to do things they should already be doing.

I use it in a 3-step process:

1. "Do I hear someone running inside? I hope not There is no running inside. Someone could get hurt and I don't like my friends to get hurt."

2. "Did I just hear someone running inside AGAIN? People who run inside will have to go into time out."

3. "[Mr. L] time out for running."

Examples:

"Did I hear someone spitting? [blowing raspberries] I hope not, there is no spitting. That's how people spread germs and children get sick. No one likes to be sick."

Mr. R: "[Mr. La], don't do that. It's nasty."

"I wish we could go outside, but the floor is all full of toys. We can't even safely get to the door. We have to take care of our responsibilities first. Responsible children don't leave messes on the floor for others to trip over and get hurt."

Mr. L: "[Mr. H] and I'll pick up the block area. You guys pick up the play area so we can go outside."

"We can't have story time until people take care of their responsibilities." [I circle my finger around the table area, where children have abandoned activities]

Mr. H: "I'll put mine away. [Mr. La] you need to put your activity away so we can have stories!

I have no problem rewarding and promoting compliance. I always offer high praise. The person who chooses to pick up will get the choice of story. The person who picks up others' messes will get a few chocolate chips. These random rewards just help to reinforce that good behavior, good choices, have their benefits.

We currently have a "Responsibilities First" agenda going on here and at home, so they hear that word repetitiously, and know what it means.

When you are not telling a specific child to do a specific thing, then the group as a whole has to decide who is responsible, what changes need to be made, and who will perform in what manner. 

There is an underlying request for action, and an underlying reward or threat of discipline for making their next behavior CHOICE. 

It is a choice. If it is not a choice, then I would make a clear demand: "Time to pick up. Let's get to it." "We're going outside. Pick up now." 

Choice of good behavior, teaches SO much more than demand, that I try to use this method as often as possible. It also tells me a lot about each child as to how they respond to these observations. 
Tags: child care, daycare, preschool, parenting, discipline, toddlers, preschoolers

Essential Preschool Math Skills

Even though I have training in curriculum, it still took me awhile to figure out the different types of math concepts that I needed to be integrating into my teaching, how, and when. I hope this will help others who are teaching or homeschooling preschool. 

One of my former students placed in the top 2% internationally in Math Olympiad. This is why...[in addition to her just being exceptionally smart!]

The main math skills I will cover here pertain to numeracy and are:

• Pattern recognition & sorting/classification
• Subitizing/quantification
• One-to-one correspondence counting
• Rote counting
• Counting on
• Grid counting
• Scatter counting

Note that on this list is NOT learning number names. This goes with my functional learning method. Knowing the name of a number 1 is not functional. It is vocabulary. Knowing the order or quantity for the number 1 allows for functional mathematical ability. The children all learn that a 1 is called a one, but incidentally, not as a focus of teaching.

This post goes to the next level from my Teaching 2's Math post which was a level up from my Learning Math From Birth. You may also want to read my post Early Math is as Important as Early Literacy

Math, especially, needs to be hands-on learning through play and manipulation in the early years. We are currently on our EGG unit, which is math intensive. This allows you to see some ideas on how to integrate the skill learning into a unit or theme.

These children, 2-3 years old, know their basic colors and can count to 10 in order to do the activities.

PATTERN RECOGNITION & SORTING/CLASSIFICATION

I put these skills together because they are complimentary skills. They both are observation and interpretation of where things belong. If a child can't sort/classify, then they can't complete a pattern activity, and sorting and classification are patterning activities. 

The ability to recognize patterns is considered the NUMBER ONE key indicator for future math success. I start this in infancy, patting out song rhythms on their back or with their feet to music playing along. It builds that ability to begin linking patterns to their world. I use repetitive patterns, audio, physical or visual, for most of my infant and early toddler learning play, specifically to enhance this ability. 

It works. My preschoolers can sort, categorize, and pattern forward and backward much earlier and better than their peers who have not had this early exposure. 

Activity: The children create their own pattern and then extend it out in either direction until they run out of eggs.

Patterning is not just a preschool skill activity. There are patterns everywhere - in the seasons, in our daily schedule, even our daily routines. It allows children to be able to tell time in a general way even as infants. It leads to understanding quantities of time such as weeks, months, years. It allows them to know that we always wash our hands before eating or brush our teeth before going to bed. Those are patterns. There are patterns in nature, music, and daily life. As they enter the preschool era, we work more hands-on and intentionally with creating and manipulating physical patterns.

Activity: The children gather eggs as fast as they can, then sort their eggs by color. For younger children, I might have colored bowls or color circles to assist. We are working on grid formations, so that is why theirs are sorted like this.

Sorting and categorization are naturally occurring. They know farm animals from zoo animals. Red cars are sorted from yellow cars. Blue blocks are suddenly preferred and everything is made up only of blue blocks. As we advance, opportunities are created for more advanced sorting and categorization on more than one trait. Red/green/purple circles that are also small/medium/large. Then throw in a few blue squares of the sizes and see how they handle that. 

SUBITIZING/QUANTIFICATION

This is the ability to instantly recognize quantities. It starts as soon as you begin asking a child if they want MORE. More/less, big/small and their counterparts are all quantifications that toddlers learn. Around three they are learning to recognize a quantity of at least 1-3 objects as being that amount just by looking at it. This is an important mathematical, observation and spatial skill that is often overlooked. The only way to enhance this skill is to give children a ton of opportunities to practice it in grid formation and scatter groups. "Look, you have 3 blocks lined up!" "I see you have 3 cars in your hands." "Do you want 2 or 3 pieces?" and have the groups of 2 and 3 laid out for them to see.

Activity: Bring me 2 eggs the SAME color. Bring me 2 PAIRS of eggs. 2 eggs + 2 eggs is how many all together? Bring me 3 DIFFERENT color eggs. 

Dice play in later preschool and pre-k really works this skill.

However, quantification BEGINS by getting them comfortable with assessing quantities. This is smaller/larger, more/less, smaller/bigger, shorter/taller.  

It also carries over to categorization/sorting and patterning. Being able to tell a specific quantity, first comes from being able to assess the quantity.

ONE TO ONE CORRESPONDENCE COUNTING

While rote counting to 100 wins the accolades, the whole purpose of math is to count THINGS. Even as infants, I have their little fingers touching bunnies in a book as we count them and everything else we can one-to-one correspond. We count, with fingers touching the items we are counting, multiple times a day from the first day they arrive. It is ingrained.

This ability leads to accurate counting, an ability to practice subitizing/quantification on their own, and an ability to do equations much earlier. 

Activity: Once sorted by color, children count how many of each color they have. Then the eggs are combined and again counted by color for the group. Subitizing is encouraged on individual small quantities. Quantity comparisons of same/equal, more, less, how many more, how many less, etc. can be performed.

ROTE COUNTING

Rote counting is the ability to count in numerical order. Seems simple, but it is more difficult and important that children understand that the order has permanence. Numbers occur in order. Always. I have a 2-year-old that just counted to 13. He then skipped up to 15, 16, 17, 19, 20. Still in order, even though he skipped a couple, showing that he has that concept understood. 

We count here multiple times a day, at least once a day to 100. With toddlers, we do 1-2-3 as the focus, and do it multiple times a day until they get it. When they have that down, then I work to 5, then 10, then 11, then 13, then 16, then 20. Then we learn to count by 10's before moving on to counting to 100. Eleven is the hardest because they hear 1-10 SO much from parents and in the shows they watch [AT HOME.] I try not to do that here, which is why we do various counts throughout the day and week.

Rote counting and one-to-one correspondence must be mastered to some degree before other math and science skills can be mastered.

It is so ingrained here, that I just caught this one counting the stripes on his socks as he laid down for nap. It's just what we do. 

Activity: Incubating eggs takes 21 days, exactly the number we are working on for rote counting. 11-19 are the most difficult numbers to master, and this gives us the opportunity to count those on a daily basis for 21 days. We count how many days the chicks need to develop, how many days have passed, and how many day until they hatch. Working rote counting and number recognition. 

This is an example of how number recognition happens without it being a main objective. The objective is counting.

COUNTING ON

This is the beginning of addition and future understanding of equations. It is an extension of rote counting and one-to-one correspondence. You have 3 items and another two are added, you can continue on from 3 to count 4, 5. This is NOT an easy skill to master. They want to go back and now count the whole group, until it clicks. This takes a lot of exposure and practice, but a child that can subitize/quantify then count on has a higher level of numeracy and mathematical understanding from which to scaffold.

Activity: When doing 10-frame counting, try to get them to begin counting after subitizing a smaller amount. Also when doing fact families of lower numbers. Here we are doing fact families of 5, and I ask them to subitize and count on from the smallest quantity. This requires direct instruction. This is an activity they can do independently, to a quantity they are familiar with manipulating. The older ones will automatically go to 10-frame.

GRID COUNTING

The current math [Common Core circa 2018] is almost entirely based on 10. Ten frames are used exhaustively. So what used to be just an easier way to line up and count items, now becomes a focused effort to get preschoolers to line items into ten frame organization, which is a grid. 

Understanding rows and columns, creating and reading charts, is actually very easy for even young preschoolers to master. I begin by using the actual items and eventually move it to a white board. Once they reach school, the same concept will be used on endless worksheets [sigh.] 

Additionally, if preschoolers get the concept of grid layouts early, multiplication and division makes absolute sense to preschoolers, and often they figure it out on their own. It also helps with the concept of skip counting that they will need to master in elementary school.

Grid counting here begins when I line up items for a toddler or early preschooler to rote count easily using one-to-one correspondence. I do make certain that they count vertically as well as horizontally, such as stacked blocks. These are some former pre-k students doing the same at a higher level. As play. Their ability to read and interpret graphs was amazing.

It also helps with addition and subtraction as I can split objects into linear groups to show fact families and the permanence of the count.

SCATTER COUNTING

Scatter counting is figuring out a methodology of counting a scattered group of objects. It's pretty difficult. Different children do it differently. Whatever works for them. Left-right, top-bottom, or physically moving items from an uncounted grouping to a counted grouping. I show them all the ways and let them figure out what works best for themselves. This takes a lot of exposure and practice. They begin as toddlers as I hold their fingers and we count flowers in a book, worms on the ground, freckles on a face, etc. 

Since mine learn it in conjunction with rote counting and one-to-one correspondence counting, they pick it up fairly easily. The main issue is getting them to slow down and pay attention enough to be accurate. Even if I just observe them doing it in play on their own, if they do it wrong, I have them do it over again until they get it correct. This is one skill that needs accuracy reinforced.

Activity: Place items in a bowl so that linear or grid formation is not possible then have them count the items. Different colors, especially in easily subitized quantities, is easier than all different colors or all one color. This is an activity they can do independently.

These are the skills that make other skills possible - time, measurement, geometry beyond simple shapes, fractions, etc. 

These are the skills that I want, at minimum, for my preschool graduates to have mastered.

However, start them young and you'll be surprised what they can achieve...

Even at 3.75 years of age, my preschoolers are able to reach beyond these preschool-level skills. We have been spending a lot of focus on measuring recently, which they love. 

For this unit, we started with 3 different sizes of eggs. We discussed how they were the size of a duck, goose and ostrich egg. We discussed how the goose-size blue egg could be small, medium or large depending on which other egg(s) it was compared to in size. We then started to measure. The main objective was to learn about circumference. 

We started with measuring the eggs.

Then ourselves.

Then special visitor sock monkey couldn't be left out.

Then we worked on heights.

Width and diameter.

Once again, measuring was the goal, but number recognition, number order, and quantity comparisons were integrated. 

They were allowed to play and do the activity unsupervised after our introductory session.

You can see the level of engagement and curiosity. Make it fun, and they don't even know how much they are learning.

Functional Learning vs. Rote Teaching

Our education system likes to teach. A lesson + an activity = you should know this and be assessed on it. Learning is not like that. Learning is incremental scaffolding through discovery and processing over time.

There is a huge difference between knowing something and being able to USE information in a continuous learning process. Some information floats around and is picked up as a type of appetizer, nice but not filling and while it serves a purpose, it is not a foundation. Some information is the meat and potatoes that other, important, learning builds upon.

I had a client dad ask a few months ago about his son's ability to identify numbers. "He doesn't seem to know what a 7 looks like." 

I kinda blew him off, saying something about his child not needing to know that and I don't teach it. 

That conversation sat uncomfortably with me for the rest of the evening and night and I got back to him the next morning.

I had a similar conversation with a mother a few weeks ago. They were at Thanksgiving and her sons' cousin, who is a few weeks older, could identify all of his ABC's. "So, how is [my son] doing on his letter recognition?"

Again, I don't teach that.

This time, however, I was prepared with the better explanation I had given the dad the day after I kinda blew him off with a non-answer.

I explained:

Most preschools teach letter identification, and usually only uppercase letters. They also teach number identification to 10 and a set of primary color names. 

Here, I teach functionality. Your child may not be able to identify a 7 as a seven, but he can do one-to-one correspondence counting, even in a scatter group and COUNT to seven. He can COUNT to 20, possibly with some errors, in any manner required. He can simply look at a group of four items and know it is a quantity of four. He can count, with some ability, imperfectly, to 100. At 3 1/2 years old. A person can count without knowing number names. We are working on counting and quantification.

Your child may not be able to label an A as an A, but he can say that both upper AND lowercase Aa's say "ah." Uppercase recognition, when 90% of reading is lowercase letters, has very little functionality. If a person never, ever, learned letter names, they could still learn to read if they knew phonics. I am working on them reading.

Your child, at 3 1/2, can also identify around 12 shapes and colors, and I never stood in front of them and held a lesson and "taught" them anything.

I didn't even get into the fact that these children can pattern [#1 indicator of future math success], sort, graph, etc., which most other preschools are not even attempting to expose their students.

These children have been exposed to, and picked up through environmental, functional, exposure, LIVING experience, these SKILLS. There is no letter of the week, color of the day, flash cards, or expectation of memorization here. 

"Can you hand me that WHITE towel, please?"

"Do you want the BLUE or the PURPLE cup?"

"How many kids are here today?"

"How many cars do you have?"

"We are having eggs for lunch, how do you think we would spell EGGS? Let's sound it out. Eh, yep, gg, yep, ssss. Yeah. In this word, eggs has two g's, so it would be E-G-G-S. Eh, g, s. Eggs."

"Which one is your cubby? How do you know? Yes, it's your color, but it also has your name on it. Let's sound it out."

"We have to put your name on your art so I know who it belongs to. How do we spell your name? Let's sound it out."

They all pick up the letter and number names by kindergarten, but knowing their phonics and counting methods means that they are learning numeracy and literacy far earlier than their traditionally "taught" counterpart preschoolers. 

BECAUSE: 

• Their learning has meaning. 
• It has functionality. 
• It is important to THEM. 

Graduate of mine who placed in the top 2%
INTERNATIONALLY in Math Olympiad

They may not be able to do a dog and pony show for the relatives, but they can do important WORK. 

This is why my kiddos historically leave here for kindergarten reading and doing math at a 2nd grade level. 

I think that the ability to read or DO math, is much more important than rote memorization of letter and number names. It's worked so far. Very well.

Knowledge is only powerful if you can USE IT.

Teaching Twos - Science

Please remember that this is child-led learning through play and movement. No drills, worksheets, etc. I'm going to present them in a series of subjects:

• Language
• Mathematics
• Science
• Social/Community
• Gross Motor
• Fine Motor
• Art

SCIENCE

I feel like much of childhood is living in the scientific method: systematic observation, measurement, and experimentation; and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.

They observe, they test, they assess, they try something else, and keep evolving their beliefs through data collection and analysis.

Basically, childhood IS living science.

Just as all children are born artists, they are also all born scientists. We do them a grave disservice when we limit their ability to observe and experiment.

What do two year olds learn about science?

Physics
One of the first concepts is gravity. They drop items simply to see them fall. They quickly learn through throwing things up in the air that what goes up will come down.

Force and resistance are learned as they fall, bump into things, and throw things. Even something as low-key as a bead chase teaches gravity, force and motion.

Playing with inclined planes, changing the angles, changing the items rolled down, all work on force, motion and resistance concepts.

As they mature in this concept, they begin to manipulate force and resistance, and to play with forces. They learn if they use more force, they gain more distance. If they use more force, they dig up more sand. If I use more force, they go higher in the swing. If they use more force when pushing their friend, it leads to problems. We explore force and motion a lot with our pulleys and pendulums play. The twos love them.

It always fascinates me when they come up with something like this, where the two's started playing with centrifugal force with the large bowls. They even taught a 4 year old something new. Exploring science concepts within play is natural. They got them moving, then they started adding in other bowls, balls, and items to see how it worked. Many small figures went flying across the room, which they thought was a total hoot.

Chemistry
Yes, art teaches chemistry. Color mixing, making play dough, exploring the viscosity of shaving cream, adding herbs into play dough thus changing the feel and smell, is all chemistry related.

Helping to make food teaches a lot of chemistry.

Yeah. This.

States of matter. Dirt going to mud. Solid to liquid. The boys really understand this one.

Bubbles popping and disappearing really works on manipulation of all three states of matter. Learning through play.

Probably discussing and helping with food making is the best introduction to this concept. Observing how cheese melts and becomes gooey, playing in the sensory bin with ice and water, discussing the steam rising on the pasta pot. It's not a set concept at all, but just an introduction through observations that will make sense later.

They are also naturals at experimenting with solutions and mixtures, and exploring viscosity, and our outdoor environment is well suited to that.

Meteorology
Since we are outside a LOT, and we garden, the weather isn't just a circle time blip here. We discuss the weather daily in relation to its importance to US. It's sunny again today, so the ground is too dry, so we need to water the plants. It's cold out, so we need to wear our jackets. It rained, so we need to wear our boots. The clouds are dark and cover the sky, so it looks like it might rain. The frost on the ground means the end to our tomatoes. Watching the wind blowing the leaves off the trees and feeling it against their bodies is a physical and visceral immersion into weather.

Biology & ecology
We discuss how our animals need food, water, and shelter just like us. The children here are never allowed to chase any animal. The wild bunnies and squirrels will often come fairly close for observation. The kitty patiently teaches the two's how to be gentle and responsible when around animals.

In the spring we incubate eggs and hatch chicks, that end up in my farm's coop making eggs for us to eat. It is an awesome lesson in many biology concepts. We study an egg theme and life cycle theme.

2016 we had ducks, instead. The two year olds were FASCINATED. For children that are usually go, go, go, they would stand or sit around the duck enclosure for up to an hour, just watching them.

We also have tadpoles from the farm pond every spring.

While the two's aren't able to understand deserts, mountains, and other biomes not within their realm of reference, they can understand that different parts of our outdoor environment provide different living conditions for different plants and animals. 

They know that some bugs live under the bug boards where it is moist and shady. They know that some bugs, different ones, live on our squash plants in the sun. They understand that the squirrels live in the trees and the bunnies on the ground. 

I can, however, create artificial biomes to introduce some expanded diversity of creatures and environments.

Physiology & anatomy
I start teaching body parts as soon as they can talk. It's one of the first rounds of vocabulary they get down. At two, we move on to more advanced body parts, and bodily functions. We talk about healthy foods and how certain foods help us to do certain things. They begin to learn about their muscles, heart, five senses, that they are growing, how they can get sick, and how to take care of their bodies.

Entemology & bugs
We have a very diverse outdoor environment. We have access to a wide variety of bugs, and the children are encouraged to explore them. Worms. They LOVE the worms and know where to dig them up. They also know they have to put them back where they got them so they can go back to their worm family.

Botany & mycology
We have a large organic garden. The two's help start plants, assist with garden chores, harvest, and even prep items like cherries for eating or freezing.

We also have a very diverse plant and tree population. The children are encouraged to explore the flowers, leaves, herbs, and fruit within the environment with all their senses.

Data collection and interpretation
A LOT of this is going on within them, as they assess, interpret, re-direct, assess, interpret, etc. They are just two, but we still talk about how many we planted, how many we harvested, if we have more pumpkins or more carrots today. We talk about why there are more rolly pollies under the board today than yesterday. We talk about how it is hotter today than yesterday. We talk about why the worms like to live in the leaves, but not in the sand.

Astronomy
Not much, but the two's can find the moon if it's out, tell you if it is a circle or crescent moon, and we talk about how the moon changes and moves over us. They know about stars and we talk about the sun being a star. We talk about living on a ball called earth and that it is a planet.

Geology & archaeology
Again, not much, but I have collected rocks from my travels that they can wet down and see the stratification and coloring. We have limestone with fossils laying around. We also have rock collections I've bought. We talk about dirt, rocks, stuff in rocks, and sand being smashed up rock.

They learn that there is interesting stuff down below the grass and dirt to explore.

Summary
Children are natural scientists. Their understanding of scientific concepts comes, in a large part, fluidly from exploring a dynamic environment. The problem is when the environment is sterile. When children are spending days in an unnatural environment, on playgrounds full of only mulch with metal and plastic play structures, without even a stick to dig with, their scientific learning is stunted. Environments need to be engaging to all the senses with unlimited opportunities to explore scientific concepts.