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Hi Morgan!

I think it is awesome that you want such young kids to explore engineering. I wish this was something that my teachers had done when I was at such a young age as well! Obviously, reading books about STEM topics and engeering is a great way to get this idea rolling in these students minds. I think another great way to do this would also be to have students explore engineering topics on their own. For example, having students create ramps and seeing which ramp they can make that allows the ball to roll the furthest. This allows students to make and learn from their mistakes. I'm sure that this could be tied to a book for kindergarten students!  I also think it could be cool to have an engineer come into the class (it'd be even cooler if it was a female engineer so that young students can see a gender rather than the stereotypical gender in this position) and have them read a book about STEM or engineering to the class and talk about their career! 

Hi Morgan,

My name is Faith and I am also getting my degree in elementary education. I think one way to introduce engineering through a literacy is to have the students create ramps and pathways. Ramps and pathways are usually made out of different kinds of wooden blocks and then you send a marcble down the ramp to see how far and fast it goes. There are many different ways you could go about doing this lesson, for the literacy part I thought you could have students write about what they saw happen when they created their ramps and pathways. You could also have the students practice thier speaking skills by telling the class about what they saw by building thier ramps and pathways. Have a great day!

Hi Morgan! 

My name is Hollie and I am also a student studying Elementary Education. I think one of the best ways to have students learn about engineering is to first let them explore! For instance, you could have your students explore building things and coming up with solutions to problems. Engineers have one of the most important jobs of being creative in their ideas surrounding something, and I think that that is one thing that kindergarteners would find interesting. One way to allow them to explore is to read books about engineering to the kids. There are many great STEM books out there for younger students and just letting the students know that there are people out there that make our world go around by their ideas is a great starting point! Another way to incorporate literacy into an engineering lesson is to give the students a prompt about what the importance of buildings things is. Although the students clearly won't have perfect writing skills or any at all, it would still be fun for them to respond to a question and at least try! They will know what they are writing about and giving them free range to just write is very valuable, in my opinion. Like another person stated in a reply, I also wish that my previous teachers would have talked more about engineering when I was a young student. Good luck with everything!

Hi Morgan,

My name is Azucena Ferrufino. I am also a student persuing my degree in EC-6 education. One thing I have learned is that you can incorporate different subjects in a lesson. How I would incorporate literature and engineering by starting of with a read aloud with the class. A good read would be Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building by Christy Hale. It is a book that demostrates the different buldings there can be. After the read aloud, there can be an independent practice activity where the students can build their own building. It should not be a complicated activity. As future educators, we have to keep in mind to keep the lesson developmentally appropriate for our students. 

Hi Morgan! I love that you are trying to incorporate engineering into lower elementary. I think that this is something we need to begin building in students so they become more advanced as time goes on. 

One of the biggest things I see a good connection with would be the Code-a-pillar. Students love to play with toys at this age, and the code-a-pillar will keep there attention for hours on end! One of my favorite activities with younger elementary was reading the very hungry caterpillar and creating a simulation of the code-a-pillar traveling to all these different snacks. We printed out copies of all the different things he ate and students had to code their caterpillar to do the same thing! It was a great literacy connection to science, and I think it really stuck with them. They understood the book better because they were seeing it acted out, but also understood coding better by creating a scenario they already knew. 

That is just one idea, but there are countless ways to integrate STEM into literacy! 

Hi Morgan, My name is Kaleigh Greufe and I am a student studying Early Childhood Education. I think it is a great idea to start introducing stem instruction and engineering into the kindegarten classroom. One way to do this is having blocks foam or wooden to allow the student to build and design. Also to encoperate books about stem or engineering to the literacy aspects of the classroom. Another idea would be to have the student create ramps and send balls down the ramp to work on their engineering skills.Also have the students write about what  they are doing or even write down their predictions for what they think will happen. It is important to remember to let those children explore and make their own discovers even if they make mistakes in the learning process but it is an important to allow them to learn from those mistakes.

Hi Morgan! I am a student at the University of Norhtern Iowa currently enrolled in a science methods course, and we have talked a bit about engineering! I think the most important thing to remember about engineering is it is not a thing by itself, but should rather be integrated with other science areas or content areas, such as literacy like you mentioned. I have done ramps and pathways systems with second graders before, and think it is something kindergarteners would love. It is basically wooden pathways and marbles, and they can create anything they want with them. To incorporate literacy into this, students could keep an 'engineering journal' and write down things that were successful, were not sucessful, or predictions. This would really help students feel like they are engineers themselves too, since they are doing the creating. Good luck! :)

Hi Morgan,

I am a student at the University of Northern Iowa, I am currently enrolled in a science methods class. I think it's great that you want to incorporate engineering along with literature in your classroom. Doing this allows the students learn different content by simply doing one activity! Something that you could do in your classroom is having them build straw bridges. Have the students start off by writing a plan on how they are going to build the bridge, why their bridge is going to be successful, some possible problems they may encounter while building the straw bridge. After they have built their bridges have them reflect on the process, what could they have done differently next time, was their bridge successful. That is just one idea of many that you can have your kindergarten students do in the classroom.

Hi Morgan,

You asked an excellent question! I am also a college student and I am majoring in Early Childhood Education, so this question is very relevant to me! I think it is very important to start getting kids involved with engineering and STEM skills while they are young, so I think this is great that you want to integrate this with kindergarten. With young children, learning is done best through hand on activities and play! PLAY is so important. I think one way to introduce kindergarten students to engineering is by giving them centers or stations to play at during free time that involve engineering practices. This way kids can freely explore and create their own interest in it before they are prompted by the teacher to do so. Then I think you could move into adding some teacher prompting and guidence afterward. I worked in a 4 year-old preschool and we did ramps and pathways which would be a great unit/lesson to do with kinders as well! To do this trough a literacy lesson, you could find books related to building and engineering and read it aloud while pulling out important vocab and having a discussion before moving forward with the hands-on activites. I hope thid helps!

Hello Morgan! I think it is great you are trying to integrate enineering into literacy at such a young age. Legos (as others have mentioned) are a great way to build and design things in a classroom. For content, maybe trying working a real-life problem or something that they can think about, and are able to use physicals to heelp with their thinking. As you know, kindergardeners are naturally, insanely curious! Another option that has been mentioned is that of books. This will give you quite an array of topics and ideas to help assist you.

Morgan,

I think it is great that you are looking for ways to incorporate engineering into a kindergarten classroom. When thinking about engineers and how they solve real-world issues using technology, I think even introducing technology to young students, like your kindergarteners, can help bring that into practice. Using a literacy lesson, you could read a book that presents a problem. Have students define the problem they hear in the book. Have them think of possible solutions! They could draw/illustrate the problem and solutions. This basic engineering process can be simplified greatly to be at the level for kindergarteners. 

Morgan,

This is such a great question! I am also a current college student majoring in elementary education. I think it is incredibly important to get kids involved in sciences and engineering at young age, so I'm glad you are thinking so much about doing engineering with Kindergarteners. Especially since they are so little, I think it is important for them to do a hands-on activity so that they can get up and move around while they are learning. I work in a day care and one of the things that the preschool teachers do there is create different centers and stations for the kids to play in thst get them thinking about engineering practices, but they don't even really notice because they are having so much fun! With kids who are a little bit older, I think this would be a really great idea so that students can start thinking about engineering practices on their own before being actually taught by their teacher. One unit that I think would be a lot of fun is creating different ramps. This will get the students thinking more critically about engineering. You could incorporate literature by finding books about building and engineering that you can read aloud to the class. There are a lot of great childrens books that you could find about building and engineering that will have important terms that you can pull out of the book and teach to your students. I hope this helps! 

Hello Morgan, 

I am also a college student, I am getting my degree in Early Childhood Education. I think a great way to introduce engineering into a kindergarten literacy lesson is to begin with a question that a student has come up with associated with engneering. I would write the question down on a large white paper so that students are able to see it. I would have students come up woth their own solutions for the topic question. Students can conduct investigatons and keep notes in a small journal. The problem sloving experiences the students are having when they are seeking the answer to thier question demontrsates engineering practices for young children. 

As I read through your post, Morgan, as well as some other posts, I was amazed at all the different ways educators can easily integrate engineering into their classrooms! For example, while I read down the replies, I came across one from Camille that talked about a game I had been introduced to last spring semester (January of 2018) called Code-A-Pillar. As this jogged my memory, I also recalled another game called Makey-Makey that I had been exposed to. This game is one that allows students to experience engineering in a simple, unique way. They are creating things such as a piano out of alligator clips and bananas. There are several other 'inventions' that can also be made, but when creating a piano using Makey-Makey, students must be reading the directions and eventually reading some music to create the sound. Those are two cross curricular connections that are able to be made. 

I believe these games would be a very beneficial piece to add to any classroom, but especially to those desiring to integrate STEM instruction. Some of the most important pieces of STEM instruction are inquiry and play. These allow students to do the exploring and creating on their own, which supports the constructivist view of education. 

Hi Morgan,

The great thing about STEM is that I feel you can incorporated in various subjects! In my level three experience, I was in a transitional kindergarten classroom, and she had STEM activities for the students to play/work on in the morning. There were a variety of different activities. Some of the activities were, creating a car, rollercoaster, or train, different books about STEM, puzzles, and cups. I thought it was so cool how my cooperating teacher had STEM activities for TK! I feel a good start to introduce enginerring through a kindergarten literacy lesson would be reading books about waht engineering is. The next thing you could do is find an engaging activity that includes STEM. I read an article about 'An Engineering Pancake Recipe.' I have seen cooking being done with preschoolers, so I know that kindergartners would be able to do cooking as well! You could do this activity by doiing a KLEWS chart. The chart will help your students figure out what they know, what they have learned, their evidence, their wonderings, and scientific terms. To start to figure out what your students know, you could have your students make a web. The students would be able to write what they know about pancakes. This is a great way to incorporate literacy. 

Hi Morgan!

I am a student at the University of Northern Iowa studying early childhood education. I am particularly interested in teaching young children and I think that kindergarten students are such a fun and exciting age to be working with because they are so inquisitive. Some suggestions I have to help implement engineering into literacy would be to let the children explore as much as possible. You would be amazed at what they can discover on their own if you give them the time. I would also suggest looking for storybooks that incorporte engineering in some way; many students this age love to be read to. I am currently placed in a pre-k classroom and I have been implementing a ramps and pathways center for the past several weeks, which is also something that I would suggest as it gives the students the opportunity to design and build unimaginable structures! Initially I simply introduced the materials for the center to the students and let them explore while also asking them productive questions to further their thinking. I am amazed at the things they have discovered in such a short period of time, but it just goes to show how well a student can learn just by exploring the materials given to them. I hope these tips help you in some way! Best of luck. 

Rachel Bronson

Hey Morgan!

I think that there are many different ways to incorpate engineering and literacy together. Engineering is basincally being able to solve real world poblems by using scientific knowledge. This can involve baking, making a roller coaster ride, makingleo/toothpick bridge, or even creating the best boat to hold the most pennies. To incorporate the literacy aspect, have the students make a diagram, a web chart, a cute poster, or even make videos to help them explain what they learned. All of these different activites get up and moving and collaborating with their classmates, which is very beneficial.

I hope this helps!

-Marissa

Hi, Morgan!

My name is Jade, I am an elementary and middle level major at the Universtiy of Northern Iowa.  I think it's great to implement STEM into any classroom.  Students of all ages, I think, are going to learn more and be more engaged when they are given the opportunity to explore.  You can make ways to implement these to any grade level based on what you are doing.  You can implement literacy into engineering by having kids create something where they simply have to read and follow the directions.  Any other activites you have students do, you can simply have them create the literacy portion such as a poster, video, or written directions where others have to follow to create what they did.

Hi Morgan! I am also studying Elementary Education. I am enrolled in a science methods course and we have been discussing how to incoperate STEM into lessons. I think its great that you are thinking aount incorperating literacy as well. There are many ways that you can go about this, but I think that it is important that you give the students an opportunity to play and explore an idea or engineering practice before teaching the lesson. This gives the stundet the opportunity to have inquiry-based learning. During this time, the stundets can be making predictions and recording what they are seeing, which would be incorperating literacy as you mentioned you wanted to do. Some ideas on how to do this is to work with coding/robotics, marbles/ramps, and exploring real world situations. Best of luck! 

Hi Morgan,

It's awesome that you want to try and incorporate engineering into your classroom, more teachers need to follow your example. The great thing about engineering is that it encompasses a wide variety of things. What I would do is to try and find someone that works with dealing with engineering problems and have them come and read a story related to what they do. After the story, the guest speaker can go more in-depth about certain terms. I feel that bringing someone in to talk to the students is a great way to help introduce real-world ways engineering can be applied and help them stay engaged for future lessons. Another way that you could help incorporate engineering is after reading about some type of engineering have the students build something themselves! This is a great hands-on-activity that will get them to use their critical thinking skills and ability to problem solve. I hope you have an awesome time in your field experience and I hope this help!

Hello Morgan! 

STEM is an amazing thing and I'm also learning about it to become an Elementary teacher right now! One way that I immediately thought about was having students draw inventions they couldn't live without. (Eg. Light bulbs, how would you see in the dark??) From these drawings, you could have a large group or partner discussion about the problems that these inventions solved. Why did people make the things we have now? 

All of these questions are great for deepening understanding about engeneering and getting young students thinking about why and how. 

Hope it all went well! :)

Elvira,

I think your post responding to Morgan is wonderful! While reading Morgan's post, I was trying to think of ways to help her. It is crazy how simple it can be. It seems we tend to get caught up in trying to make sure everything flows right and is aligned with standards correctly that we forget its the little things that can make a difference. I love the idea of simply reading a book and building robots with simple materials. It shows kids that we are giving them responsibility and trust them to lead their own learning. I work at a daycare and it is so amazing the things kids build with legos. One of my 3 year olds, built a ship one day and explained every piece to me. Turns out his father is an engineer so he really knew what he was talking about! How amazing! -Beth

Hi Gabe!

My name is Kasey and I am currently an elementary education major. I love the advice you had for Morgan! During one of my field experiences I was in a 6th grade science classroom and my mentor teacher tried to incorporate engineering every chance he got. During a unit on heat, the students created their own thermoses to try and conserve as much heat as they could. The students loved it and learned a lot while doing it! They learned all about conducting experiments and collecting data. They got to work in teams and collaborate on their thermoses, and really branch out and grow as learners. Engingeering can be really easy to integrate into your classroom and can be exrtemely beneficial for both teacher and student!

Courtney,

I am also studying elementary education at the University of Northern Iowa. I agree that in elementary school I do not remember engaging in anything to do with engineering. I love the pancake recipe idea, you could really do it with any easy type of recipe, the students would be engaging in both engineering practices as well as literacy while the students just think that they are playing and having fun. Another way that you could integrate engineering into literacy would be to use trade books and after you read it to the class you can pose a question to the students that would engage them in an engineering activity. There are a ton of lists of really good trade books found in the NSTA resources.