Essential Skills Parents Can Help Children Develop in the Early Years
The first five years of a child's life are filled with rapid growth and learning, and it’s during this crucial time that children lay the foundation for their future success. At Stepping Stone School, we recognize the importance of equipping children with a blend of academic, social, emotional, and physical skills that are essential for success in elementary school and beyond. While our nurturing environment and Future Strong™ approach provides a solid foundation at school, parents play an invaluable role in extending this learning at home. Here are key skills parents can help their chi...
Exploring Archaeology: Unearthing the Past at Stepping Stone School
At Stepping Stone School, we believe every child's education should be an exciting adventure. While preschool is often associated with basic learning skills and play, we love to introduce our young learners to a world of knowledge in innovative and enjoyable ways. Why Archaeology for Preschoolers? You might be wondering how to incorporate archaeology with your younger children. After all, isn't it a subject for older students? The truth is, archaeology can be a wonderful way to introduce young children to the joys of learning. Here's why it's the perfect fit for younger learners: ...
Happy World Water Day - Make Your Own Underwater Viewer!
In honor of World Water Day, we are sharing an activity that showcases the importance of clean water which is a vital part of the ecosystem! Help them make an underwater viewer to explore this important resource. Make It! What you’ll need: • A clean, empty metal can • Paints and paintbrushes (optional) • Plastic wrap • Rubber bands Step 1: Using a can opener, cut off both ends of the can so it’s open on the top and bottom. Step 2: Let your children paint or decode the outside of the can. Step 3: Cover one of the can’s open sides with the plastic wrap, a...
Stargazing: A Fun Family Activity!
Spending time outdoors can be both fun and educational for families. In fact, the Draconid Meteor Shower, runs through October 10th. As we venture into the final months of the year, celestial events are set to grace our night skies, painting them with breathtaking displays. According to the Farmer's Almanac, we can anticipate a shower every one or two weeks from now until the end of December. Among the meteor showers on our celestial calendar, the Orionids will take center stage, dazzling us before dawn on October 21. Then, as we transition into mid-November, the skies will come alive...
Peace of Mind for Parents - Choosing Meaningful STREAM Activities for Your Child
Young children love to explore the world around them—and STREAM activities are a great way to help them do it. STREAM stands for science, technology, engineering, arts and math. There are lots of STREAM activities available online for families and children to do at home, but some are better than others! With so many STREAM ideas to choose from, how do you find what is best for your child? Here are some questions you can ask yourself: 1. Will this activity interest my child? Is your child interested in building? Collecting rocks? Looking at the night sky? Choos...
Peace of Mind for Parents - Fun, Easy Ways to Play with Math at Home
Sing songs and chant! Many songs, chants, and verses have patterns. Learning a song’s pattern helps children remember the song. Patterns repeat in a predictable way that helps children know what comes next. Songs and chants, like “Five Green and Speckled Frogs,” “Five Little Monkeys,” “Hokey Pokey,” and “Ten Little Fingers,” teach number order—children count up or down from a number. They also teach spatial words, like on, in, out, and around. Read picture books. Visit your local library and check out great picture books about counting, numbers, p...
Peace of Mind for Parents - Going Beyond the Playground: Math, Science, and Outdoor Fun
Going outside for a walk or to a local park to play are great ways to help your children learn! In addition to spending time at the playground, take time to explore: do you see trees to count, neighbors to greet, or street signs to read? Here are some ideas for playful learning that will help you make the most of your family’s time outdoors. Street sign scavenger hunt While walking through the neighborhood, invite your child to look at and identify signs, like Stop and No Parking. Talk about them. This helps children understand that written words and symbols have many important p...
Seven Reasons Why Coding is Important for Children to Learn
Coding is a basic literacy in the digital age. It is important for children to understand and be able to work with and understand the technology around them. Having children learn coding at a young age prepares them for the future. Coding helps children with communication, creativity, math, writing, and confidence. More than just a science, coding enables students to develop important personal abilities like their sense of creativity and self-expression. When developing code, students impact the world around them while fostering problem-solving skills. Coding's simplest defi...
Finding a Balance with Technology
Technology has improved our lives in many ways and in this day and age, plays a vital role in our day-to-day activities. When it comes to children, especially, the right amount of exposure to tech can spark an interest in STEM subjects and can also enhance critical thinking and analysis into how the world works. It is important to view the use of technology as an engaging shared experience, rather than a passive activity. Our desire is to support families as they determine how to balance healthy technology usage in their homes while enabling their children to learn through the benefits tech...
Mathematics Development and Learning
The “M” in S.T.E.A.M. stands for Mathematics! Concrete experiences with math concepts and interactions with teachers have a direct impact on your children’s acquisition of mathematical skills. When children manipulate materials in their classrooms and learning centers, they practice math skills. All Children at Stepping Stone School: Use number concepts and operations Explore and describe spatial relationships and shapes Compare and measure Demonstrate knowledge of patterns For example, in block centers, children explore the differences in sizes and shapes ...
The Five Best Coding Toys that Won’t Break the Bank!
At Stepping Stone School, we are excited to unite technology and learning as we teach introductory skills in our early childhood classrooms by focusing on Coding Foundations. Coding foundations include higher order thinking skills associated with the coding process, including tasks like analyzing, predicting, planning, patterning, sequencing, sorting, organizing, and evaluating. Before introducing children to the technology tools used for coding, we practice the concepts of higher order thinking skills through screen-free, hands-on activities basic to the coding process. These a...
Screen Time Guidelines
At Stepping Stone School, we continue to explore the latest research on behalf of our families to remain current with the most up-to-date educational practices regarding early childhood development. In doing so, we have closely monitored the developing body of research surrounding the use of technology in early childhood education. Our desire is to support families as they determine how best to balance healthy technology usage in their home while enabling their child to learn about the benefits technology offers. In recent months, much research has surfaced regarding the effects of e...
Coding Foundations
This past Saturday, I sat waiting for my four-year-old to complete his swimming lesson. Looking around the pool deck, I noticed several people (children included) who were engaged with electronic devices: tablets, cell phones, e-readers. I began to think about the many aspects of our lives affected by changes in technology both socially and economically. Due to advancements in technology, the job market has changed doing away with some current jobs, but also creating new ones. Years from now, there will likely be jobs available which do not exist presently, but are brought abou...
Loose Parts
Four-year-old, Ethan, was huddled over a pile of rocks he had collected from around the playground. As I walked over to him, he told me he was looking for “interesting” rocks. Naturally, I wondered what made a rock “interesting.” As I watched, he began sorting his rocks into several piles according to the level of interest: crystal-like formations, streaks of a different color, or a unique shape. I asked him to tell me which pile had more and then watched as he pointed. Pressing further, I inquired as to how he knew it had more. First, he compared the size of the piles sh...
Block Play for Essential Early Development
It is a widely-held belief that block play is an essential part of early childhood development, but why? What do these seemingly simple toys help cultivate and why is it so vital to development? Here are some reasons you should consider forgoing those new expensive toys for this simple and superior option: Problem Solving – Intentional “I want to build a house.” And unintentional – “if I want to make it high on this side how can I do it?” The child has to figure out how they will accomplish these tasks and answer these questions. Self-Expression – Blocks offe...
Embracing Nature!
In the spirit of fall, I took my children to a nearby farm for some outdoor fun. Squatting in a small field, I attempted to capture some cute pumpkin patch photos while the children sat on the itchy hay squinting in the sunlight: “It too bright, Mommy!” my three-year old says. My older daughter whines, “I’m hot!” And then the baby falls back, hits her head on a pumpkin and begins to wail. Outdoor time over… All too often outdoor time is grouped in the “Maybe later…” category of our lives or we shorten it to fifteen minute chunks of time and call it reces...
The Effective Use of Computers with Young Children
Stepping Stone School recently made a major investment in new computer hardware and learning software which has been installed in every three year old through school age classroom at each campus. The use of computers with young children has been intensely studied since the early 1980s. Research has taught us that technology can change the way children think, what they learn, and how they interact with their peers and adults. It can also be used to teach the same old stuff in a thinly disguised version of the same old way. That is why Stepping Stone School has been a pioneer in the placement...
Discoveries in Nature
Children’s discoveries in nature can be made wherever there are trees, grass, dirt, leaves, twigs, sunlight or rain. We facilitate the discoveries by pointing out leaf shapes, insect life under a rock, ladybugs on a plant, worms in the soil and thorns on a rose bush. Of course, children really don’t need our assistance to make their own discoveries! They love the open-ended play of digging a hole in soft garden soil and adding a bit of water. They may make mud pies for a picnic or their own garden by “planting” twigs and leaves. Nature supplies the materials for play. Natur...
Math for All Ages
Concrete experiences with math concepts and interactions with teachers have a direct impact on your children’s acquisition of mathematical skills. When children manipulate materials in their classrooms and learning centers, they practice math skills. For example, in block centers, children explore the differences in sizes and shapes of blocks, count the blocks in a tower and experience cause and effect when the tower tumbles down. In the library center they find books that promote shape recognition and sequencing knowledge, and teachers may read stories that focus on problem sol...