Coding in Early Childhood

Coding is the process of creating step-by-step instructions for a computer. These carefully written instructions are necessary for the computer to successfully run its programs. The instructions for the computer are not the same as human verbal or written instructions. A computer uses the language of number. However, a computer counts differently than a human counts. The instructions use a number system that is not in base ten, but instead, a binary number system. 

Chepina Rumsey, Associate Professor in mathematics at UNI has been working with us as we explore experiences that support the kind of thinking that is required for coding, but experiences that are not necessarily electronic and don't have screens. In other words, what early experiences help build the architecture of the brain to more easily develop concepts in computer science and in coding. We happened upon research done by MIT computer scientists who are exploring this idea as well, and worked to design "materials for young children to learn the basics behind how computers work - without using computers" (Learningbeautiful.com). We purchased a set of their materials and examined them from the perspective of the young learner, and from the perspective of early childhood educators. 

One of the Learning Beautiful experiences is the Binary Towers. Although the experience is written for young children, we struggled with how young children would respond to learning a binary number system at the same time they were learning a base ten system. We questioned whether the benefits of dual number system learning would be the same as dual language learning. We have not yet arrived at an answer to this question. What we did settle on is that the Binary Tower experience would be a good introduction to the binary system for early childhood educators unfamiliar with coding. 

We invite early childhood educators and preservice teachers to explore the Binary Towers in our Integrative Classroom Studio (Schindler Education Center 116) at UNI where we are exhibiting explorations in coding in early childhood. Read the book The Binary Towers Playbook and engage with the Binary Towers materials to become familiar with the basics of how computers work. While the Binary Towers Playbook reads like a child's picture book, we feel the contents and concepts are suited for adults who want to know more about computer coding. Come play with us in our Integrative Classroom Studio and think with us on how to engage young learners in concepts of computational thinking in developmentally appropriate ways. 

The Value of Loose Parts

 This past summer and fall, the Iowa Regents' Center for Early Developmental Education had the privilege to spend learn with more than 160 Iowa educators by exploring open-ended STEM experiences involving light and shadow phenomena. Several of these experiences involved loose parts. The idea of providing young children with loose parts was initiated by British architect, Simon Nicholson as a way for children to interact with variable such as gravity, sound, science concepts, words, and people. Engaging with open-ended loose parts offers a sense of wonder to children and nurtures invention, divergent thinking, and problem solving. We encourage teachers to provide opportunities for children to work with loose parts on a light pad, using light as a tool to reveal details in human made and natural objects, discover patterns, and create their own patterns using loose parts. When PK-2 children handle loose parts, they call upon their five senses as well as their senses of weight and balance. They discover properties of the materials, and how those properties determine how these materials can be used. 

A recent article by Carrie Cutler and Diane Skidmore entitled, Creating Outdoor Loose Parts Classroom: One Preschool's Quest for Boundless STEM, illustrates how a preschool capitalized on the open-ended nature of loose parts. The article provides guidance on how to collect loose parts, how to set up an outdoor loose parts classroom, and how loose parts outdoors connects children with STEM in a way that is meaningful to the. Cutler and Skidmore discuss ways to plan and reinforce safe play, and how teachers can learn to let the child lead in loose parts play. Examples of how to observe and assess growth are listed as well as reflecting on how to adjust and improve experiences with loose parts to respect children's initiative and creativity. Click here to access a link to the article. 

How are you using loose parts with your young children?

Attention Iowa Teachers! Apply to Receive a Light & Shadow Classroom Kit and Professional Learning

The Iowa Regents' Center for Early Developmental Education is proud to announce our Light & Shadow program has been selected for the Iowa Governor's STEM Advisory Council's Scale Up Awards.  Teachers across the state of Iowa are invited to submit an application to receive an award of a Light & Shadow classroom kit and professional learning in Light & Shadow that results in a paid UNI graduate credit. Click here to begin the application process. If you need assistance in filling out the application, feel free to contact us at regents.center@uni.edu. Watch the short video below to see more about this opportunity.

  

What Babies Can't Learn from Screens by Dr. Jill Uhlenberg

 

Cultural trends indicate that many adults are not only offering, but encouraging infants to interact with screens. This is despite the research that has shown the need for very young children to experience real people and objects (Francis & Whitely, 2015; Kuhl, 2010) in order to develop spatial reasoning. Spatial reasoning is an important part of mathematics that depends on children’s manipulation of real objects and experiences with real people. Here are some of the reasons for providing these experiences rather than resorting to screen time. Items 3-6 below are ideas from (Piaget and Inhelder (1967).

What babies can’t learn from screens:

1. Sensory development. How things (I am including people here!) taste, smell, feel. While screens can provide sound and colors, they limit the full sensory experiences involved with real objects.

2. Textures. Again these can be depicted visually but screens cannot engage children with differences in textures other than visually. 

3. Depth perception. Very young infants begin their understanding of space with the concepts of near and far. On a screen everything is the same distance from the infant—distant objects are smaller and nearby objects are larger, but this may just be size rather than closeness. 

4. Separation of objects. On a screen, everything is all part of one thing—the screen. Real objects are separate from each other. Infants learn that objects are separate by grasping and handling them.

5. Object permanence. This begins early in life through learning the continuity of objects. By turning objects in their hands, babies learn that the object continues on different sides. 

6. Object constancy. A solid object’s size and shape does not change. On a screen we can easily enlarge or reduce these. This is the beginning of concepts of conservation.

I admit to allowing my grandchildren use of tablets and other screens. However, my goal has been to ensure that more time is spent with real people and objects than screens. Francis and Whitely (2015) report that young children do not readily transfer knowledge about two-dimensional objects to three-dimensional objects. They need practical experiences examining all kinds of objects in order to develop a
strong understanding of spatial reasoning.

For ideas on supporting your infants and toddlers as they interact with objects, click on Contents and Containers, Block Play  Exploring Light and Exploring Sound.  

Francis, K., & Whitely, W. (2015). Interactions between three dimensions and two dimensions. In B. Davis et al., (Eds.), Spatial reasoning in the early years: Principles, assertions, and speculations (pp. 121-136). New York: Routledge.

Kuhl, P. (October, 2010). The linguistic genius of babies. Retrieved from Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies | TED Talk

Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1967). The child’s conception of space. New York, NY: Norton.

The Other Side of Math for Infants and Toddlers by Dr. Jill Uhlenberg

 

Many adults focus on numerals, counting objects, and helping young children learn the order of numbers. While these are important basics for mathematical learning, there is another side to math that is just as important; that is, learning about spatial relationships. Spatial understanding is a foundation for a substantial amount of math that we use as adults. This includes map-reading, measuring, classifying, recognizing and developing patterns, and more.

Infants and toddlers can develop spatial understanding through exploration of simple household items like plastic storage containers with lids, nesting cups and spoons, and muffin tins, along with objects to place inside these containers. Given plenty of time and adults who are willing to observe rather than direct the children’s experiences, young children can construct basic knowledge of spatial relationships. We collected 50 hours of video in order to examine how 12- to 36-month-olds used contents and containers and what they learned in the process. Adults can support this learning in the following ways:

    

Provide a variety of containers and objects for the children to explore. If possible, include a container that is large enough for the child to climb into. You will observe them placing containers on their heads, feet, and hands. Placing everything in a tub or drawer that is accessible will allow the children to engage freely, learning about the materials, then combining the materials in different ways to see what happens.

    

Spend time observing these explorations. You may want to name the materials and actions using spatial terms: you put the scarves in the bowl; I see you put the red ball beside the yellow ball; oh, the canister is on your head! You may be surprised at how the children use the materials. Over time, you will see growth in the children’s understanding of space and shapes. We also noticed that the children spent long amounts of time exploring, busting the myth of short attention spans typically attributed to toddlers.

  

 Allow the children to decide whether a problem has been solved rather than the adults expecting perfection. That is, we suggest accepting approximation. If a child is satisfied with the result of some experience, note this as a step in their development of spatial understanding, and watch for refinement in future explorations.

    

The favorite materials in our observations were plastic balls (ball pit type) of different sizes and colors. The children combined these balls with muffin tins (we had three sizes from mini-muffin to large muffin sizes). Using these materials, very young children began by testing whether one ball would fit in each of the 12 cups of the muffin tin. As adults we know these sizes are constant, but at 12 months of age, this is new knowledge. Other spatial understandings/math learning constructed with muffin tins and balls included these examples:

• One-to-one correspondence—one ball fits in one cup;

• Estimating space—using the medium ball in the medium-sized muffin tin; noticing which balls fit and which did not; pouring a bowl full of balls into a too-small canister; trying to place a lid on a too-full container;

• Classification—sorting balls by color or size; older preschoolers may use two characteristics, but infants and toddlers can generally only sort on one attribute;

• Patterns—placing balls in the muffin cups in a particular order (color, size, selected cup, etc.) that is repeated;

• Distribution—performing the same act on the same materials repeatedly, like placing the same ball in each of the muffin cups one by one; this mathematical process shows up later when adults are calculating equations.

    

The more experiences, the more advanced the children’s use of materials became. Eventually they began
combining materials in creative ways by constructing towers of bowls, canisters, nesting containers, and other objects. These explorations lead logically into the use of blocks, another strong component of spatial understanding. When you recognize and celebrate infants’ and toddlers’ bent for objects and containers, you are supporting their beginning spatial understanding. You will be surprised at the wealth of knowledge they construct over their first three years.

Toddlers and STEM Experiences: Adults as Learners

The struggle to find out the material world through science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) begins at birth. Lucky are the infants and toddlers who have observant, caring adults who support STEM learning from the start. 

This is the last in a series of four blog posts written by Dr. Jill Uhlenberg who describes four types of effort adults can employ to nurture STEM from the beginning. 

Toddlers and STEM Experiences: Adults as Learners

Dr. Jill Uhlenberg

The fourth kind of effort in supporting STEM with Toddlers is the adult's role as a learner. Most of us do not know all there is to know about STEM areas, so we are forever learning more about science,

technology, engineering and mathematics. Many toddler teachers are very unsure of their ability to offer technology and engineering experiences to their children. If we accept that technology is NOT limited to screen time, this becomes much easier to understand. Technology is the tools we use to complete a task or solve a problem. The paper taped to the classroom table in my first blog entry is technology - the teacher solved the problem of paint dripping down the classroom easels by providing a horizontal surface for the children to paint. The sippy cups I wrote about in the second blog entry about curriculum development also would be considered technology. And engineering is the process we use to address those problems that we find and solve.

Even as we learn more about STEM, toddler teachers must also learn more about the children in their care. Each of the individuals has different interests, families, backgrounds, favorite toys or foods, and experiences. The more we learn about each one, the better we can be at teaching. So we must learn to view toddlers as learners who need freedoms, good curriculum, routine and variety, and a teacher who wants to know them as an individual.

Although there are many more kinds of effort toddler teachers must expend each day, from hugs, supporting toilet learning, supporting parents, documenting, clean-up, and more, engaging in these four kinds of effort produce high quality experiences for children. All four roles—liberator, curriculum developer, chief historian, and learner—interact to support toddlers in their exploration of STEM experiences.  

[For a fuller explanation, see Uhlenberg, J. (2016). The four roles of a master toddler teacher. Early Education and Development, 27(2), 240-258. DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2016.1088313]

Toddlers and STEM Experiences: Adults as Chief Historians

 

The struggle to find out the material world through science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) begins at birth. Lucky are the infants and toddlers who have observant, caring adults who support STEM learning from the start. 

This is the third in a series of four blog posts written by Dr. Jill Uhlenberg who will describe four types of effort adults can employ to nurture STEM from the beginning. 

Toddlers and STEM Experiences: Adults as Chief Historians

Dr. Jill Uhlenberg

STEM with toddlers that leads to successful experiences is supported by a teacher who is the chief historian. Toddlers have not lived long enough to have experienced much of history. The teacher becomes the lead in this process, which involves repetition and variety.

Toddlers need routines to provide them stability in their environment. They want to know what to expect in the daily schedule so that the routines of the day give them a framework for their lives. Breakfast is followed by learning center time. Then comes outdoor play, lunch time, stories, and naps.

Within those regular daily events, we can provide variety, such as the ideas I wrote about for curriculum development. Providing water play as a daily offering at a center time builds a history of opportunity for STEM exploration. When the toddlers seem less interested in the water table, adding some new containers will re-strengthen that interest and provide new ways to engage with the water and other materials. In my toddler classroom, the water table was available every day of the year because it was so interesting to the children.

Adults can remind the toddlers of previous actions, also building history. “Remember when we found the caterpillar on the playground? Let’s look at the caterpillar book again.” Building routines and providing variety will support curriculum development as well as supporting children’s ability to make choices and share power in the classroom.

[For a fuller explanation, see Uhlenberg, J. (2016). The four roles of a master toddler teacher. Early Education and Development, 27(2), 240-258. DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2016.1088313]