Science in Early Childhood + Steve Spangler Twitter Chat

Twitter Tues #TeacherFriends! 

Have you heard about our ongoing weekly Twitter chat called #TeacherFriends? If you've been wanting to join and just haven't plunged in yet -- this is the week! We have Steve Spangler in the cyber-wings ready to inspire and support you on all things SCIENCE! Yes! There will be prizes! 

FIRST Let's sort out this whole Twitter business. 

SECOND Let's have some science show & tell! 

Thought it was time for a quick review on navigating Twitter. 

1. Open a Twitter account. 

2. In a perfect world you would add your profile picture and a nifty description. 

Lovely, but not technically critical for participation.

3. Follow me @Kweezlequeen and I will follow you back!  

4. At 8:30 PM EST on Tuesday, several of us moderator-hostess types will be available to answer your questions, support your tweeting and offer encouragement. This is the time to tip-toe quietly and slowly into the water. If you're new, by all means plan to arrive closer to 8:30!

Type #TeacherFriends into the Search Bar on Twitter to Find the Conversation 

5. All you really have to 'do' is type #TeacherFriends into the Twitter search bar and our 'conversation' will suddenly appear! All tweets (conversation contributions) will be sorted out and visible in chronological order. To use this method of chatting, you periodically will need to refresh the page. When you refresh the page, you may notice that you suddenly have 19 new tweets to read. Just about the time you read through all of those and hit refresh, you'll find that there are 23 new tweets on the hashtag..... and on and on it goes until 10 PM. 

6. Of course we would be delighted for you to arrive at 9 and stay the whole hour, but that is not quite how real-life works. Think of a chat like an open house. You drop in as you are able. You are most welcome for any length of visiting. 

7. Because we have prizes to give out every week, you're going to want to make sure that you get your name entered into our weekly Google Doc. Enter one time any time between 8:30 and 10. Winners will be announced just before we conclude. The link to the Google doc will be tweeted periodically through the evening. Watch our hostess @fuzzlady66 Kristen Poindexter for tweets leading to the doc. 

Here's what I'm using now. Tweetdeck.

 I am now using a free site called TweetDeck. 

All of the tweets in one hashtag appear vertically.

You can arrange/rearrange the columns as you wish. 

That's 'us' #TeacherFriends in the first column. 

I have #Kinderchat in the second column. 

And #tlap Teach Like a Pirate in number three.  

8. Our hostess @MaggiesKinder will tweet out clever certificates for participants. You deserve to have a tangible reminder of your new found progress in joining the world wide education movement.  

9. At the conclusion of the chat (about half an hour later) 

our hostess @educatorsspin will create an archived version of the entire evening's chat. This is the PERFECT way to digest all that happened at the speed of lightning. 

STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Math!

Is your school district expanding it's emphasis on STEM projects? 

Are your parents asking about STEM goals for your year ahead? 

Are you on the lookout for STEM to integrate with young children? 

Let's begin today with S = Science!

How can we use science to enhance creativity? 

SCIENCE! Did someone say science?? 

What does 'science' look like for our youngest? 

Simple. 
Science is literally all around us waiting our further exploration. 

Simple Weather Graph

Keeping track of the weather is an obvious science exploration that can begin quite simply in preschool with observation and documentation. These charts can be expanded upon through out kindergarten and the early grades. These are examples of kindergarten graphs kept over the course of the entire school year in individual science notebooks. 



What about those amazing botany experiments of yore? Delayed gratification and science all rolled into one biology experiment on the window. Solar greenhouse, anyone? 

And of course there is always the incubator-in-the-spring that is always brand new and full of anticipation for young children. 

One of the best things about science in the mind of the young child? 

There are COOL TOOLS!!

Combining magnets and children is just a short extrapolation beyond the combination of peanut butter and jelly. I have this same exact set of scientific tools in my workshop. Seriously. I never tire of chasing those magnetic colorful spheres around.

In case this is your first time here -- I'm an author and illustrator of picture books. These photos are from my school visits around the countryside. I LUV any chance to 'sing' the message home. Here's a cute piggy-back song, easy to implement.... whatever age the students. 





Science exploration is indeed universal. These two images are from my day of exploration in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Their pine cones look pretty similar, don't they? 

LUV LUV LUV the way their seasonal mural turned out!

Here's another overview of seasons, as created in collaboration in kindergarten. These were HUGE in real life! Took up the ceiling to floor hallway. 

What do we know about bats?
Chart for prior knowledge

My first 'digital download' lesson for Teachers pay Teachers is based on my ubber-science friendly song entitled "Pollywog." My four verse dittie unveils the predictable cycle of metamorphosis following the entire tadpole to frog cycle. I've created numerous support materials to help augment the lesson for your kiddos. 

Chances are you don't know my little classic. I have a YouTube video of the song to serve as your introduction.

'Hop' on over to my Teachers Pay Teachers shop to purchase your instant download of the Mp3 version of the song and all of the support materials. I can't wait for your feedback! 

-- Debbie -- 

I have an entire pin-board collection dedicated to tadpoles, metamorphosis and all things Frog! 

Look at the picture I took today! 
My three babies in one photo!

Science: Growing Grass Seed for "Photo Hair"

Simple Science for Springtime!

This spring has been a superlative season of dashing about the countryside, making my author-illustrator school visits and sharing my work at Early Childhood Conferences. A week ago I got to spend some QUALITY time with the two genius hearts and minds behind the blog, "Kindergarten Rocks." Here we are about to head out into the c-o-l-d! We were all presenting up in Menominee, WI for UWI-Stout's ECE conference. BTW: Amber was given an award for her contributions to the conference! They really do r-o-c-k! 

Last year about this same time, I was able to schedule visits to each of their schools. I went to Amber first and after my presentation was able to take scads of pictures. This next series of photos have been my most popular 'pins' of the year! Thank you Amber for allowing me to share your awesomeness and bring new eyeballs here to me in the process. LUV me some Pinterest people!

To make a long story short, I just found the photos from the day that I presented my songs and picture books at LuAnn's school! EXACTLY 366 days ago! It is a VERY big deal to me, when I make the 'morning message!' We posed this next photo, just for you, and as an attempt to contain their excitement before I started. Her kinder-kids were so eager to have me tour their room!

I thought you'd want to see LuAnn's 'tweak' on the growing 'hair-as-grass' theme. She, too, took photos of the kids heads. The main difference in her presentation, over Amber's above, is in the use of TWO plastic cups for each student. Look closely at this upcoming photo {which I realize has terrible focus, but it is apparently the only one I took} to see what I mean. VOILA! A 'cross section' of roots! Up close and personal!

Cup A has the dirt and the growing grass seed. 

By nesting Cup A into Cup B where the photo is adhered, 

the students can see all of the root activity and growth from their seeds, 

when they slide Cub A 'out' to take a peak. And believe me. EVERY student wanted to show me THEIR root colony to get the day started! 

Why. Yes. It does seem that their grass is quite literally on FIRE with greenness. I'll have to ask LuAnn what seeds you uses to get that EXTREME green look.

This project combines two of my favorite things! Delayed gratification {which I have written about earlier in this spring growing article and this science article} and NOVELTY! This is the perfect time of the school year to be introducing elements of 'novelty.' 

Everyone is into the various rhythms of classroom routine. Things are humming right along toward the finish line. Now? MIX it up! This project gets funnier and funnier and more and more 'novel' with each day's growth of grass/hair. You could even have the kids act as barbers and have them 'trim' the hair/grass! Too funny! 

I KNOW that you enjoy looking over my shoulder and seeing how other teachers organize their rooms. This little 'mini-tour' is certain to put a smile on your face. Again. I took these pictures with your curiosity in mind. Here's a couple of snaps to see the kind of excellence in early education that I have become accustomed to documenting.  

Are you getting ready for some serious shopping at Teachers Pay Teachers? 

I will be participating in the BIG Teacher Appreciation  sale! 

My little store will be reduced by 20% add the code and save a total of 28%! 

My two biggest sellers for the End-of-Year festivities are:

"Red, White and Blue"

and 

"You're Wonderful" 

as both are suitable for 'performance' using sign language. 

Which will be performed for Memorial Day Observations. 

It is the perfect addition to your program. 

Many schools across the country will incorporate my song (and book) "You're Wonderful" in their EOY/graduation festivities. 

Look at this sweet email I just received. 

"We met at the RMECA conference; I am a pre-kindergarten teacher at The Fisher Center at DU.  We spoke a bit and I purchased two of your books.  Just have to tell you that we have been learning "You're Wonderful" and are using it as our song for our parents at our graduation ceremony on May 30!  Graduation for pre-kindergarten?, you may ask.  Oh yes, this is DU; we have gowns and diplomas and the whole 9 yards.  We'll record the ceremony and thought you might find it a useful endorsement.  The kids are already very proficient with the song and hand signs; many parents are already commenting on the wonderful lyrics.

So glad I found your wonderful books!"

Regards,

Tracy 

Rainbow Fish Teacher

I'm a huge fan of Pinterest! 

Would you be kind and help my grassroots campaign to share my work? 

Every pin is an enormous asset. 

Thank you!

I now have 150,000+ followers on Pinterest! Join us!

We're getting ready to hit the road again in the morning for another 'tour'. I have an all-school visit in Indiana and then on to give another installment in my on-going series of annual visits to St. Paul in Westerville to visit their kindergarten classrooms. We will be spending time with our WonderPeeps in central Ohio over NEXT weekend. I promise to attempt to keep my Instagram feed from going awash with their antics 24/7. 

Then I am going to attempt something brand new! I have FOUR school buildings scheduled in ONE school day! Rural Indiana. Whooooop! Whoooooop! It looks 'do-able' on paper. My dear hubby will be with me to do the driving and the four set-up/tear downs. Hopefully it won't take me a year to share all of this wonderment.