My name is Miss Amy, and I will be your STEM librarian today for a Three Little Pigs edition of Preschool Science!
I am a firm believer that STEM programming knows no age limits, and this philosophy led me to develop a preschool science series of programs at my library. Each Preschool Science Story Time involves a few main components: an age-appropriate story; a group retelling of the story with discussion of the science in the story; and hands-on activity. The most recent Preschool Science Story Time featured the well-known tale of the Three Little Pigs. The program is easily replicable; I hope you’ll try it at your library!
First, we read our story. After a brief intro song to get everyone settled into story time mode, I pulled out Bernadette Watts’s The Three Little Pigs. The illustrations in this new version are big and clear, allowing us to focus our attention on the materials in the story: straw, sticks, and bricks. Several children hadn’t heard the story before, but by the end they were huffing and puffing like the biggest, baddest wolves you’ve ever seen.
Next, we retell the story together. I started our retelling by setting the scene of the three little pigs leaving home. For visuals, I used the awesome graphics I found at Graphics by Ruth. As the children chimed in to retell the Three Little Pigs, we paused to discuss the scientific principles in the story. Why was the wolf able to blow down a house made of straw? What makes a material strong? Our science buzzwords for the program were material and strength, and our retelling really focused in on those concepts.
We always have plenty of time to be hands-on with the science. I’m a big fan of stations in preschool science programming–since caregivers tend to stay in the program room with their children, each child usually has a grown-up guide to help them through different activities. For our Three Little Pigs programming, there were three stations set up around the room: one for building structures out of drinking straws; one for building structures out of unsharpened pencils; and one for building structures out of Duplos. Each child was encouraged to build a structure and then test it. Would it withstand being blown on by a person? What about being blown by a hair dryer? After testing each structure, children could make a mark on our simple wall chart that showed the relative strength of our building materials (grown-ups were key in making the chart work, although children were psyched to add to it). I walked around the room asking children how they thought their structures would withstand the air before they tested them. Thus, from start to finish, the hands-on activities hit all the major scientific method steps.
Everyone leaves with a book and/or sheet of at-home activities to reinforce our topic. All of our versions of the Three Little Pigs were checked out after the program, as were most of our non-fiction titles on materials and strength. I also made available a one-page (front and back) activity sheet that would continue to engage children in the concepts we had talked about. One activity called for having a grown-up take the child outside to draw a picture of his or her house, then talk about what it is made of. Another section suggested that caregivers replicate our stations at home, albeit using water instead of air as a test for strength. It is important to me to have these grab-and-go preschool science activity hand-outs accessible both in the program and at the check-out desk for a week afterward; since not every preschooler can attend the in-library program, I want to ensure families have resources to support at-home science if they are so inclined. That way a huge variety of children have access to STEM activities.
Do you offer STEM programming for preschoolers at your library? What do you do, and how do you do it?
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This is brilliant, I love it! I do a “mad scientist” workshop for 3rd & 4th graders but this concept of tying in basic science to a well known story is great for younger kids. Thank you!
The illustrations in this new version are big and clear, allowing us to focus our attention on the materials in the story
How long do these programs take you to set up?
Tina, my prep work and setup breaks down approximately like this:
-Choosing a book and finding activities to help support the science = 45 min.
-Creating the at-home activities sheet = 30 min.
-Pulling books to have on display during the program = 0 min. (I have library volunteers pull these from a list I print)
-Setting up the room for the program = 30 min.
-Clean-up = 15 min.
I am really passionate about creating STEM programs that are easily replicable in all sorts of libraries–I want every interested librarian to be able to share STEM with their kiddos! So if there is anything I can do to make things easier for you, let me know. That includes using my at-home activities sheets; I’m happy to e-mail them so you don’t have to start from scratch.
Sign me up for receiving your STEM program ideas. I may have a few to swap if you’d like.
Please email me more great STEM ideas like this! I love that they use children’s books as a base.
This is great. We have just started to really focus on using STEM more in our school. I would love copies of your worksheets and any other books that you have developed STEM activities for. It is so nice to be able to share ideas and not ahve to create everything from scratch.
Thanks,
Heather
I love doing STEM programming! My weekly story time is entirely focused on STEM, primarily math and science. We sing our opening alphabet book (Jim Ayleworth’s Old Black Fly) and the “This Story Time is Brought to You by the Letters …” and a few minutes on different words that start with the two letters. Then we read the first book and do a short science/math activity (typically science) as a group, a song or fingerplay to regroup, our second book followed by a science/math activity (opposite of first activity) one on one with the parent/caregiver, and our closing book with a quick art activity or craft. I’m going through the alphabet in order one letter from the front, one from the back and I do my best to make sure that the science/math concepts can be connected to the letters that sponsor the story time (for example: next week we’ll be doing D & W and the activities will be around dinosaurs and water; A and Z was apples and zoo, B and Y was butterflies and yoyos, C and X was all C related (cats, color) cause there isn’t much you can do with X)- my 13 week story time season will get me through all the letters and I’ll start over again in the spring cycle.
Some of my kid’s favorite activities from last season’s story time have included: flight w/paper airplanes (throwing into a fan, in front of a fan, up the stairs, down the stairs, etc.), anything with water (will it sink/float, how much weight can the boat take), sending cars down ramps of different heights and using cars with wheels of different sizes, mixing colors to make new colors, constructing with Legos, sorting buttons/beads (by size, by color), using shapes to make pictures of things (think tanegrams)… there are a lot of great books that give ideas for science activities with preschoolers. I’d encourage anyone to add a little science or math into your story times.
This is fantastic! I’m leading a preschool teacher inservice in March called “Why? Science for Preschoolers.” I hope you don’t mind me borrowing a few ideas from this post! Thanks!
Kary, I should be posting at least one more Preschool Science program plan, probably two, before your inservice in March. Please use what you like! Spread the word about STEM!
I’ll look forward to reading your posts. Thanks for sharing!
What was the age range of your target audience?
My target audience for Preschool Science programs is kids ages 3-6. I would say the majority of attendees were in the 4-5 range, with siblings making up the outliers.
We are working to bring STEM concepts into some of our library programing. We have a pretty traditional approach to storytime. For example:
Opening Song
Book
Fingerplay
Nursery rhyme
Book
etc.
Closing Song
Coworkers and library patrons seem to like what we already do. I want to come up with a plan to do more Lego/STEM activities without “upsetting the fruit basket.” I’m curious if you are doing the science/math programs as an additional storytime or if you have worked it into a traditional storytime or morphed into something entirely different. Do you have other children’s staff members? and do they buy into what you’re doing?
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I started a STEM storytime at our library last September. My formula is:
Welcome song
story
action song
story
song
story
game
experiment
goodbye song
The program lasts 30 to 40 minutes and the kids love the action. The experiment is tied into the theme for the day (Rainbow theme Rainbow in a jar experiment).
I also send home a sheet that explains the experiment so the children and their parents can duplicate it at home. I also suggest how they can change the experiment to get different results so they can compare the experiments.
I would love to see your activity sheet.
At first I was kind of stumbling my way through but it has gotten easier and I look forward to the reaction from the children. Last week the experiment did no go as planned but we talked about variables that may have caused things to go wrong. Everyone was excited to go home and try the experiment so they could report back to me the next week.
This is a great idea! We are just starting to use STEM in our kindergarten classroom. Our last project was to create a paintbrush, paint a picture with it, and then reflect on what they would change. We are trying to find ways to incorporate our STEM projects into LA. We are doing the 3 little pigs this week and creating houses. I just cannot figure out if they should work in groups, alone, or if we should do it all together as a class. I am interested in the worksheet that you send home. Is it possible to get that emailed to me? If not I understand. Thank you so much!
Kristie
Please e-mail me your STEM ideas, they are so wonderful!
Thanks,
Megan