Integrating STEM experiences in early education is a truly pivotal step in preparing young kids for future challenges. STEM in the early years transcends individual subjects and helps create a holistic approach to problem solving and critical thinking. Incorporating hands-on STEM learning in early childhood classrooms sparks curiosity and engages children in the wonders of the natural world. Through these age-appropriate experiments, interactive games, or creative projects, kids can develop a foundation in scientific inquiry and mathematical reasoning. Early exposure to technology and engineering concepts enhances their digital literacy and problem-solving skills, setting the stage for future technological advancements. By nurturing their curiosity and critical thinking skills from an early age, STEM in early education paves the way for a generation of adaptable and innovative thinkers.
Early STEM learning also helps students foster collaboration and teamwork skills by working together to explore, experiment, and find solutions. These collaborative experiences help them build social skills and a collaborative mindset that's increasingly important in the professional world. STEM activities also promote creativity by encouraging children to think outside the box. Designing or building structures, experimenting with basic coding, or exploring physics principles all help kids learn to innovate and imagine. Also, STEAM in early education provides a solid foundation for lifelong learning. It instills a love for discovery and problem solving, ensuring that students enter higher education and the workforce equipped with key skills needed to navigate an ever-evolving, technology-driven world. Find our insights on STEM in EarlyEd below, including suggestions for tech tools.
From kindergarten through high school, coding helps all students develop real-world hard and soft skills—even if they are not planning on pursuing a computer science career. Plus, getting started isn’t intimidating either and, in fact, introducing programming often involves some extremely simple CS tools in kindergarten before working in those with more STEM possibilities.
To use the Bee–Bot See & Say model with a device, kids can download the Bee–Bot app from the app store. It’s available for iOS devices (iPhone and iPad) and Android devices, offering them the chance to bolster new coding skills while playing games. Most importantly, it creates a stepping stone to the next level of coding with the Bee–Bot
A large percentage of parents and K–12 teachers are aware that computer science and STEM education can impact children starting at a very young age. They may not, however, have all the key information when it comes to how to facilitate these learning experiences. From kindergarten up through high school, these robotics tools help kids progressively develop CS skills.
Designed to closely resemble the tried-and-true Bee–Bot coding robot, the Blue–Bot Robot from Terrapin provides ECE teachers and students with an upgraded learning experience. It’s still simplistic enough for kids to use as part of Pre–K, kindergarten, and early elementary lessons but also features added Bluetooth functionality to ensure for progressive skills development.
Though she works mostly with kindergarten aged students, Sara truly sees immense value in exposing kids to STEAM learning in early education. Not only does she truly consider this an opportunity to help them build relevant skills, she also knows the importance of inspiring them to get more excited about using new ideas to solve simple or complex problems.
STEM includes a massive area of content and subjects, making it possible for educational leaders to implement any number of strategies, technology tools, and ideas for creating STEM learning that’s suited for their particular students. And, one of those areas is early childhood STEAM—the relevant, hands-on learning experiences that students can have early in their lives.
Since our mission is to get every student learning and exploring with technology, we know that we first need to make completely certain that every STEM tool on our store is useful to them. That’s why our team vets everything we recommend to educators, so they know it’s worthwhile for both them and their students as they work to prepare
The all-new Sphero indi robot is nearing the end of its pre-order period! Shipping real soon, this entry-level robotics tool is the first of its kind from Sphero. With the indi, students can truly engage in open-ended, play-based STEAM learning and problem solving in the early grades as they explore computational thinking through play-based exploration!
While not quite ready to ship to educators, the Sphero indi robot will be impactful. Seeing a need for coding in early education, the Sphero team designed the indi to provide that option. The indi is perfect for students from ages 4-7 and provides them with hugely beneficial opportunities for screenless coding and learning.
The Cubetto offers a worthwhile solution with a cute, little, wooden robot that teaches coding—without a device! Just place it on one of its cloth maps, have kids read the story, and send Cubetto on a journey! Cubetto is designed specifically for children in Pre-K and kindergarten to learn the basics of coding—and it’s plenty simple for kids that age!
