Young children are naturally curious about the world around them. They instinctively what to know how things work, what things do and what happens next.
STEAM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math
You can further your child’s curiosity by creating STEAM investigations/experiments/activities to help foster their explorations.
Science: The process is the process of learning about and understanding the natural world. Science activities include exploring water, sand, and other natural materials like rocks and soil.
Technology activities may include computers but technology also refers to tools. Tools are used to make jobs easier. Simple machines like scissors, gears, wheels, and pulleys are hands-on ways to experience technology. Tools help your child develop fine and gross motor skills, and hand-eye coordination. Tools can help strengthen muscles for pre-writing skills.
Engineering is the process of building and designing something to solve a problem. Engineering activities regularly happen with playing with blocks. As your child plans and design structures and buildings.
Art is the process of designing creative solutions to a problem. Open-ended process art activities allow for new ways to develop self-expression and experiment.
Math is the process of understanding relationships among patterns, numbers, and shapes.
What makes an activity a STEAM activity?
STEAM activities combine two or more subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math.
A STEAM activity is a hands-on activity that encourages your child to explore, make connections and express their thinking.
By drawing connections between these subjects and using the scientific process or engineer design process your child will learn to question, investigate, analyze, and evaluate. Through this process, we can help foster a lifetime love of learning and discovering.
In the next few lessons, we will dig deeper into each STEAM discipline. I will also include an example of a STEAM activity to help get you started!
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