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  • Live! And recorded, music and nature

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    How is the experience of listening to, attending to, live music different from listening to a recording? I can be very moved by recorded music, moved to sing along or dance. A particular piece of recorded music can…

  • Week of the Young Child from NAEYC, April 24-28

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    How will your early childhood program celebrate the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s (NAEYC) annual “Week of the Young Child?” Explorations that relate to all five daily themes offer many…

  • When early childhood educators conference & talk about science education

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    The National Science Teachers Association’s annual conference brings educators from many places in the world together to build their science teaching skills, science content, reaffirm connections with colleagues and…

  • The Early Childhood STEM Institute

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    Guest blogger Cindy Hoisington is a Senior Curriculum/Instructional Design Associate with Education Development Center. Hoisington believes that authentic, cognitively challenging science experiences can be…

  • Experiencing nature–educators make it happen for children and other teachers

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    Nature play and exploration varies in early childhood (broadly: infant to grade 3) programs and are subject to the local and state licensing regulations, a program’s choice of curriculum, the local environment and…

  • Building with blocks, building skills and memories

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    I still have the wooden unit blocks that were central to many of my childhood play scenarios. The wooden blocks did not stick or snap together so we had to consider balance and how to make a sturdy base to support our…

  • Maple trees and squirrels: a relationship

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    The Silver maple tree is flowering, early for the season in my region, but right on schedule for the way the season is unfolding this year. Although the flowers are tiny, the details can be seen with a magnifier. When…

  • Big learning from short observations of birds: February 17-20, 2017

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    Walk outside with your children, watch and count birds for 15 minutes while recording the names of those you know, and report your bird count to be part of a world-wide citizen-science project to collect data on…

  • An ECSTEM conference experience

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    An early childhood education conference is an opportunity to meet others who share a passion for improving our science teaching practice, meet our education mentors and gain new insights into why certain educational…

  • Weather watching and phenology support using evidence to state a claim

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    Noticing changes in the growth and habit of plants is part of the science of phenology. We do this casually when we comment on the buds swelling on the maple tree (yay! not as many branches are dead as I feared) or the…

  • A love note to education conferences

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    In my suitcase I have a collapsible jug, tube, funnel, glitter, pebbles, foam hearts, sea shells, and empty plastic bottles—all part of the materials I need for a presentation at the 2017 ECSTEM conference (February 3-4…

  • Children use technology to send messages

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    Children like to share their work and tell their families what they do at school or at other times when they are not together. While babysitting for a friend, I appreciated her 2-year-old child’s excitement when she…

  • Citizen science + Photos of signs in public spaces = literacy and spatial awareness

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    If you and the children need to be active to stay warm outdoors in cold temperatures, consider walking fast on a walking field trip to locate and document signs around your community. In the September 2011 issue of…

  • Seeing the Real Me: Using Loose Parts from Nature to Create Self Portraits

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      Guest bloggers Stacey Francois MS, and Hannah Goble presented a poster session at the national conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. I was delighted to be able to talk with…

  • Noticing natural phenomena

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    This week friends who live on opposite sides of the country messaged me to go look at the Moon and a bright “star” in the southern skies, the planet Venus. The Geminid meteor shower is also happening but the urban…

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