CC-BY, Unsplash
Introduction
Parents should be included as partners in the child’s STEM learning, since it has been proven that family involvement in the kindergarten environment has many benefits for children. Parents can prepare their children to become the creators and inventors of tomorrow with STEM. By taking traditional learning concepts and twisting them to favour hands-on experiences and real-world applications at home, parents can foster the development of their children’s innovative minds.
Fortunately, STEM is all around us, we just need to be aware of it. In every building block game there are small building tasks, collecting and organising objects, or observing nature and interacting with your environment through play. The role of educators and parents is to encourage scientific thinking in children by providing the time and material environment.
Often, the lack of encouragement for STEM at home is due to parents not feeling competent to work with children and answer ‘scientific questions’. There is also the problem of ideas about how to create a small laboratory in a simple way, using things they have at home. But this can be done by building bridges, planning meals, buying food and cooking, experimenting with coding, exploring nature and visiting museums.
Activities
Before we start explaining the experiments, we should mention – and I have emphasised this to the parents and I teach it to the children – that every experiment is learning through play, that it does not always have to succeed the first time. On the contrary, it is even good if it fails, because then we think and give birth to new solutions and ideas.
CC-BY, provided by author
CC-BY, provided by author
1) Secret Message
For this experiment, you need water and baking soda mixed together. Another liquid is alcohol and turmeric. First, a message is written on the paper with a stick for the ear using a mixture of baking soda and water. When it has dried, the children and parents pass another liquid over it and discover the secret message. Preschoolers can read what is written on their own, or they can guess together what will appear.
2) Circuit
This experiment is part of physics and we used ready-made didactic material for circuits. Children love this activity because they can see the lights go on and it makes them happy to see a concrete result.
3) Jumping Pepper
For this experiment, you will need salt, pepper, a plate, a balloon and some wool or felt. Put mixed pepper and salt on the plate. Rub the balloon on the material and bring the balloon closer to the plate. A reaction occurs in which the pepper sticks to the balloon and the salt remains alone on the plate.
4) Bee Bot
Bee Bot is a technology activity that introduces children to coding. Children learn the concepts of left, right, forwards and backwards. Parents found it very interesting that such a small robot has so many possibilities. In the kindergarten we don’t have a board, but we have worked on a hammer or on transparent foil, so below we put the photos we need depending on the project we are in.
5) PH Strips
PH strips are chemical experiments that some parents brought back from their student days. The pH strips were bought at the pharmacy, while we put in various liquids from the environment that the children use. There was Coca-Cola, plain water, mineral water, vinegar, ketchup, coffee and detergent. I made a worksheet in Canva and they had to record which liquid has which pH. This was new to most of the parents, so some also tested their body’s pH.
6) 3D Pen
As the technology is not yet widely available to everyone, many parents did not dare to touch it. They thought they would burn themselves.
7) LEGO Bricks
We all know how much children love Lego bricks. Their name also has a special meaning in Danish (“to play well”). Legos themselves cover several areas of STEM. These are engineering, technology and mathematics. Through mathematics, we can practice symmetry, assembly and disassembly and pattern building – as one of the pre-mathematical skills. So we can call Lego bricks a tool for using new shapes and forms.
8) Snote
A snote is a fun, unique and creative way to send a secret message. Snotes come in all shapes, sizes and colours. To make it even more fun, we made it look like a scratchcard. You had to scratch off the protective layer, like a lottery ticket, to get to the actual task. Even with the scratcher, there was more interest, especially as the parents had never seen the snote before.
9) A robot that follows instructions
Another digital activity. The path-tracking robot follows any bold black line you draw! They made their own paths from where the robot would go.
10) Coloured Milk
Pour milk into a deep dish, enough to cover the bottom. Add several different edible colours drop by drop, then add up to two drops of dishwashing liquid to the baby stick and use it to colour the milk as it spreads over the plate. The secret of colour cracking is in the detergent, which, because of its bipolar nature, weakens the chemical bonds that hold the milk fat molecules together. As a result, the fat molecules curl and twist in all directions when the detergent is mixed in.
11) Geo Plate
Geo Plate is a plate with wooden pins arranged in a circular grid around which elastic bands can be stretched. It allows visualisation and is an excellent tool for exploring mathematical concepts (volume, area, properties of geometric figures…). Designed for children from the age of five, for independent or group work.
12) Volcano
Put baking soda in a bottle, add a few drops of food colouring if desired, add a little vinegar and watch the volcano form. Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) is an alkali and vinegar (acetic acid) is an acid. When they react together, they form carbonic acid, which is very unstable, splitting instantly into water and carbon dioxide, which creates foam as it tries to escape.
13) Elephant Paste
Place an empty bottle in a deep tray. Mix the water and dry yeast in a separate cup (mix for 30 seconds). Pour the hydrogen into the empty bottle first, then a few drops of cake colour and finally a little washing up liquid. Gently mix, swirling the bottle until the mixture is combined. Add the previously mixed yeast and water.
The yeast acts as a catalyst (helper) for the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide (H202) into oxygen and water. The oxygen is trapped in the soapy water and the result is incredible foam coming out of the bottle opening. Because he did it very quickly, he created a lot of bubbles. Were you worried about the bottle getting a bit warm? Your experiment also created what is called an exothermic reaction. This means that it produces heat as well as foam. The foam produced by the experiment is just water, soapy water and oxygen; you can easily remove it with a sponge and rinse the bottle under running water.
About the author
Katarina Šeravić Lovrak is a master of early and preschool education, and has been an educational consultant in kindergartens for 19 years. She has been a Scientix Ambassador since 2023, as the only educator in Croatia. She is the co-author of the manual ‘Physics for Kindergarten (Magnetism and Electricity)’ and ‘Biology for Kindergarten’. The second part of ‘Physics for Kindergartens (Vibrations, Oscillations, Sound and Light)’ is in preparation.
Tags: chemistry, conceptual thinking, DIY, experimentation, hands-on, home materials, STEM education, STEM learning
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