In a recent episode of Sid, our favorite science kid wonders, "How did my dog DO that?" Philbert can move his body and get himself into positions that Sid can't, no matter how hard he tries. And try Sid does, but no dice. Or in this case, no scratching behind his ear with his foot!

Most children are fascinated by animals - their babies, the ways they move, where they live, what and how they eat, and their unique, non-human behaviors and characteristics. Teachers can use this fascination as a way to introduce all kinds of science and math ideas.

One of my favorite anecdotes from my years (lots of them now!) as a science lady comes from the Douglass Psychology Child Study Center at Rutgers. After an investigation of their own senses and those of different animals, the kids became deeply interested in snakes so off I went to the library to pick up some books. Reading about snakes, the children were extremely excited by two facts: 1. Instead of using venom or constriction, the indigo snake stuns its prey by picking it up and flinging it against a rock (ouch!), and 2. The reticulated python can grow to be 32 feet long.

Even though it's one of our show's guiding principles that science is so much more than a collection of facts, the fact of the matter is, an interesting tidbit can spark attention and draw learners into deeper, more meaningful investigations. In the case of that reticulated python, the children's enthusiasm about a 32-foot long snake - they knew it was big but not exactly HOW big - led us out to the playground and into an exploration of measurement.

Off we went with foot-long rulers and a tape measure, ready to measure out 32 feet. We marked a line with chalk, started rolling out the tape measure from there, counting feet as we rolled, one, two, three, four...As we went along the numbers got larger, but the number of children attending got smaller as kids began wandering away. This left me wondering what I could do to rekindle their initial excitement. I mean, really, we're talking about a 32-foot long snake, and I'd somehow managed to lose their interest! Switching gears, I asked for a volunteer and had him lie down, feet on the starting line. Then another child laid down feet near the first child's head. Our wanderers started coming back. What was going on? Kids were lying down on the pavement! Why? That's worth coming back and investigating!

As children lay down end-to-end, giggling all the while, the adults measured out 32 feet. It turns out, 32 feet is equal to about 9 preschoolers which means that a reticulated python is 9 kids long! As great as this activity turned out to be, the best part was when the kids went back inside and asked me to measure out 8 feet so that they could figure out how many Lincoln Logs long an indigo snake is. This continued interest in a new problem and the transfer of knowledge and application of skills to a new situation is a highly gratifying experience for a teacher. Sure was for me!

Years later, I was introduced to Steve Jenkins's book, Actual Size (also available in Spanish - Tamaño Real ). Responding to children's interest in things that are really, really big and things that are really, really small as well as their excitement about animals, Jenkins presents gorgeous illustrations of animals and their parts, along with measurements. Kids can really see that a dwarf goby fish (1/3 inch) is, well, dwarfed by the Atlas moth, with its 12-inch wingspan. Because the illustrations are actual size, kids can compare parts of themselves to the animal parts, getting perspective on how large and small these creatures really are. Imagine the fun to be had comparing the size of our teeth to those of a great white shark (4 inches long!) or our tongues to those of an anteater (2 feet!).

Doing so, kids learn some intriguing facts, but they also use comparison and contrast to learn about themselves and the ways our bodies are similar to and different from those of other animals. We celebrate the interesting and unique capabilities and characteristics of all kinds of living creatures. So Sid can't use his foot to scratch behind his ear like Philbert can. That's ok. Philbert can't use a tape measure to figure out how long a reticulated python is!

This week on Sid the Science Kid, we celebrate engineering and technology (the E and T in STEM). It's not the first time we've done it, and it won't be the last! Honoring the innovations and innovative thinking that makes our lives better should not be a one shot deal. As much as the Sid team is excited about the natural world of science, we are just as jazzed by the ways that human beings work with nature, and maybe even enhance it, through the amazing technologies that we can, and do, engineer. We want to introduce kids to engineering and help them celebrate the emerging engineers in themselves.

This week also marks the return of an episode on research. In it, Sid and friends learn to use the Internet and to be cautious about some of the "facts" they find there. Even adults sometimes lose sight of the fact that anyone can put information up on the web, so it's up to us to be savvy consumers of all that we find there. Sid walked away from the computer thinking that the moon is made of green cheese. It's doubtful any grown-ups would do that, but when we adults are dealing with a new topic area or one we don't know much about - just like Sid and the moon - we can be just as susceptible as he was. How do we maximize the chance that we're getting solid information and ideas, when we're researching an area we don't know a lot about?

Putting these ideas together, I find myself thinking about the teacher or parent who would like to find more resources to support kids as budding engineers. To be sure, most preschool curricula do not include engineering, so a motivated adult has to find his or her own way. Engineering is daunting for people who aren't trained in it. The Internet is an amazing resource, but just like Sid finding out the moon isn't made of green gouda, adults searching for engineering education materials have to think critically about what they might discover on the Internet and elsewhere, which isn't easy when you're a novice yourself. How do we know that the person who created them knew what he or she was doing? How do we know that an activity or a lesson is based on sound educational ideas and is appropriate for young children?

Enter a team of educational researchers from Purdue University. They don't have capes, but maybe they should! In a recent issue of Early Childhood Research and Practice, Aikaterini Bagiati and her colleagues examined web sites and documents that involved engineering education, with a particular focus on pre-K to third grade. They looked at resources that are open and available to all and that have been created by trustworthy people and organizations.

What they found is that early engineering education materials remain a small percentage of what's available, compared to the upper grades. Activities and lesson plans can be found on the sites listed just above Table 3 in their on-line article, and recommendations for selecting activities and lessons are provided in the article's Appendix. The authors note, though, that very few resources for pre-K to third grade have anything like an engineering curriculum, that contains learning objectives, connected learning experiences, and links to standards for engineering education. The activities and lessons are better than nothing at all, but they are just a start.

As educators and researchers who believe in the importance of early education as a foundation for later learning, motivation, and interest, it's our responsibility to develop and test more complete educational resources for early engineering education. Engineering is all about innovation and trying things out. We need to put that kind of can-do spirit into the design of educational experiences for young children.

Let's not wait, though. While the field is developing more complete curriculum, we still need to get kids involved in the kinds of activities and experiences that Sd and the gang are experiencing this week. Science kids are engineering kids, too. We don't know what they'll be as adults, but why not give them the experiences and thinking tools required to be anything they want to be? Like Sid's Super Dooper Ooper Schmooper big ideas, what they come up with might not be possible (yet!), but they will be exciting, engaging, and creative. And kids will love solving problems, feeling strong in themselves as thinkers and learners...maybe even while wearing a cape? You don't need to be an expert in science or engineering to want that for the kids they love and care for!

All things in moderation. Balance. Those themes are the focus of some this week's episodes, and I am trying really hard to remember these lessons as I reach for just one more tiny and delicious malted milk egg to join the others in my tummy. Every holiday has its foods, and Easter's are pretty much candy and eggs....and candy shaped like eggs.

Of course, Easter isn't unique, when it comes to the sugar rush that accompanies it. Candy and cookies of all shapes and sorts are a big part of many major holidays. On Sid, we call these "sometimes" foods, and if one only ate them on the holidays themselves, it might be ok. To do that, though, one has to stay strong through the weeks (or months!) of lead-up in stores, and the half price sales after! I didn't stay so strong. I love chocolate and a bargain, thus, those malted milk eggs, along with a few chocolate-peanut butter delicacies.

To offset, I've been running a few extra miles and sneaking in more yoga than usual, which has got me thinking, why not do that on a larger scale? Why not offset all the traditional candy with some new-fangled, holiday-related get-up-and-move, get-down-and-boogie events. Kind of like the Turkey Trots people run on Thanksgiving Day (before all that pie!), we can plan and incorporate more kid-friendly activity into classroom and home holiday traditions.

We adults (I don't think it's just me?) seem to be trained to think in terms of "if I exercise now, I can eat whatever I want later." Or, "I have to exercise because I ate too many malted milk eggs." While those attitudes are better than doing the eating and not the exercising, maybe we can do a little better for our kids? Maybe they can just have a healthy attitude about exercise and see it as just another part of daily life, what you do to feel good and keep your body feeling its best. Or, in this case, just another part of holiday traditions and one that they wouldn't part with, any sooner than I'd part with those coconut eggs my mother makes every year around this time.

So? I'm imagining an event at school or home that happens near the designated holiday and that involves some "training" in advance of the big day, to extend the fun and the time spent moving. A lot of schools involve kids in a celebration before that 4th Thursday in November. Why not add a Turkey Trot of your own to the festivities? Whether it's a walk, a jog, or even an attempt to waddle like a turkey, make it the centerpiece of your celebrations each year. You might even decorate and add costumes....As Spring arrives, a Bunny Hop would be in order. How many times can you hop in a minute? How far can you hop in 5 minutes? Get out and practice. Record your results. Are you able to hop more times after a week or two of practice? How many hops did you make in total. (Kids won't be able to add up the hops, of course, but they do love big numbers so why not? It adds to the sense of accomplishment while showing math in action.) With Spring's arrival, you might celebrate with some yoga and games in the park. It's not a bad way to welcome Fall either! In the winter, dance to the Nutcracker Suite (no need to limit yourself to ballet!) As the year ends, get creative. Build an obstacle course in the weeks leading up to New Year's Day. Then run through it early in January. It could symbolize how we'll all be able to overcome challenges in the coming year. Or...it could just be a whole lot of active fun. No matter what you end up doing, just choose something fun and active that the whole gang can enjoy - like my family's annual Thanksgiving ping pong tournaments (which some of us actually train for) or the intergenerational, post-dinner walks by the lake.

These active, sugar-free traditions that you build as a family or a school can become ingrained habits and eagerly anticipated events. Who knows? Maybe the annual Bunny Hop will replace peanut butter eggs as a favorite holiday tradition? Naaaaah, probably not. But the two can co-exist. All things in moderation. Balance.

Among this week's environment-themed shows is "The Dirt on Dirt." In this episode, Sid and his friends explore piles of common backyard soil to find out what kind of stuff is IN dirt. What's it made of? What lives in it? What do careless people throw away in it? It's a great free, easy activity that supports earth science learning and observation skills - definitely worth digging into!

One thing I love about this activity is that it shines a spotlight on soil. During typical spring planting activities, soil is relegated to a supporting role for the stars of our spring show - the flowers and vegetables we grow in our gardens. The growth and survival needs of living things is a content area covered in almost any set of preschool learning standards one might consult. This is as it should be. Even though biology tends to take center stage in preschool classrooms at this time of the year, spring is also a perfect opportunity to explore ideas and inquiry practices that go beyond soil's role as a survival need for plants. A skim through many of the state learning standards for preschool yields a plethora of references to soil and other earth science materials, just waiting to be explored as the weather turns warmer and the outdoors start calling more insistently.

For example, the New Jersey Preschool Teaching and Learning Expectations (http://www.state.nj.us/education/ece/guide/), encourage the practice of inquiry skills and the investigation of matter and earth science concepts by suggesting that children have opportunities to "Observe, question, predict, and investigate materials, objects, and phenomena during classroom activities indoors and outdoors...(p. 45)" and to "Observe, manipulate, sort, and describe objects and materials...in the classroom and outdoor environment based on size, shape, color, texture, and weight." Digging in the dirt and exploring its properties - perhaps comparing it to other things like pebbles and sand and water or even dirt from another area of the playground - certainly provides a chance to engage in these inquiry practices and to meet earth science learning goals. And because children will be excited by their explorations (most of them love getting a little messy), they'll likely use language to describe and share their discoveries.

Exploring changes in liquids and solids when substances are combined (part of NJ Standard 5.2.2 as well as many other sets of standards) is as easy as (mud) pie. Just add water! Do so in varying amounts to really help children think deeply about the effects caused by combining water with soil. Ask children to apply their understandings about combining liquids and solids by encouraging them to make mud that drier, runnier, or goopier than what you've already made.

If you try the Sid Dirt Investigation, sorting things that belong in the dirt (worms, leaves, sticks, etc.) from those that do not (straws, bottle caps, plastic) is a great way to encourage children's growing awareness of the need for proper trash disposal and recycling. To extend to learning, check out this weeks' other episodes for more activities that encourage care for the earth's habitats, water, and air.

So many learning opportunities from just a little dirt! Plus, you get dirty and muddy and get to breathe fresh air. After it all, when you're ready to clean up, science and Sid are right there with you. Try this activity to get rid of all that dirt.

Science to get you dirty. Science to clean you up. What's not to dig about that?

I don't talk politics in this blog, but recently a small piece of the political discourse reminded me of childhood games. (Not childish ones, although there's plenty in modern politics that can do that!) During primary elections, the Etch-A-Sketch found itself in the spotlight. Remember that toy? They've probably updated it since I was a kid in the 70s, but at that time, you turned knobs to create drawings with lines. All lines were horizontal or vertical, a constraint which sort of forced creativity if one wanted to try to create something roundish. If you wanted to draw something else or just erase a mistake? Shake, shake, shake and away goes the picture.

There was a big element of "How does that work?" in the Etch-a-Sketch, along with things like Silly Putty (What IS that stuff? Why does it bounce? Why does newsprint stick to it?) and Slinkies (It walks down stairs...potential to kinetic energy. We didn't know anything about that! It was just cool.). Another childhood favorite that has enjoyed renewed popularity is Mr. Potato Head. Not difficult to understand how he works, but it's still a lot of fun to play. And, that potato offers a lot of potential for some preschool senses science.

I've written before in our senses cycle description and in other posts that during the preschool years, children develop growing understanding of their senses. Research tells us that young preschoolers are just learning about the names of the senses and which actions (smelling, seeing, hearing, etc.) each is capable of. As they learn and develop, they can describe the items and events they are observing with their senses, such as quiet music, a scratchy tag, or a stinky smell. They become aware of the particular kinds of information that can be gathered (or not) using each sense, for example, coming to understand that color information is only available through vision and that you can't hear yellow or green or blue. Being able to focus on one sense and describe the information one can learn using that sense is a later development, and children continue to work out these subtleties even after preschool.

Back to our favorite spud - Mr. Potato Head becomes a teaching tool across the preschool range because of those removable sense-related parts (the hat and moustache are not quite as critical here, but they look so stylish!). With young children, who are just learning names and relative positions of body parts, as well as numbers of parts each person (or potato) has, activities can be quite simple. An adult can label a body part to find out if the child knows the label and applies it properly (He needs eyes. Can you find his eyes?) Then the child can be encouraged to place the eyes, with guidance as necessary. You might provide a photo of a face to help decide where eyes go on the face. Once one part is placed, it becomes easier to arrange others and, if mistakes are made, it's easy to try again. Spatial language will be used, too, as you and children explore the ideas of front, side, above, and below. Use these terms yourself to describe how parts are placed and encourage children to do so as well. Although it seems simple to adults, even thinking about the number of noses or ears that are needed is a learning experience for very young children. I recently found a third ear in my Potato Head accessories, which sparked some questions for me about where it came from but also inspired thoughts of how such a "problem" might provide a learning opportunity with a very young child!

With older children, you might give Mr. P one part only, say a nose, then ask children to take his perspective. What are the kinds of things he can do and learn with just a nose? Smell roses? Tell if someone is baking cupcakes? Hear a piano playing? To push thinking even further, if children are ready, ask whether he can tell that it is cold outside...Children might not think so, since this has nothing to do with the sense of smell, but ask them to consider more carefully. What part of our bodies tells us when it is very cold outside? How do we feel temperatures? Skin. Do we have skin on our noses? We do! In fact, getting kids to really think about the idea that the skin, rather than the hands only, is the sense organ for touch is a big idea and one worth exploring. Once again, our pal the potato can serve as a teaching tool as children identify all the places he has skin, and then explore how their own skin, not just their hands, can feel textures, wetness, and temperatures.

Mr. Potato Head. A simple toy, but lots of opportunities for learning. That's the sign of a true classic.

Do you remember the first amazing thing you saw or did in a museum? For me, it was the Smithsonian's mineral and gem display. It included a gigantic star sapphire and the Hope Diamond. I was already something of a rock hound, but those gems? Oh, wow, those gems! One day they'd been just stones in the ground, but now? Brilliant, blinding, treasure. Awesome and awe-inspiring.

Not long after, I had the chance to take home my very own amethyst geode and ruby (unpolished, hardly gem-like, but still!). I have schlepped those two items, along with a fairly extensive childhood rock and mineral collection, from Pennsylvania to California (two places) to Tennessee (two more) to their current home in New Jersey. What inspires such devotion? For me, every item in my collection is beautiful. The agates, lapis lazuli, and tiger eyes are attractive in the usual, visual way, but even the not-so-flashy specimens are pieces of the endlessly varied material of our Earth, our home. This makes them special to me. And, there is real magic in the memories wrapped up in my collection. That trip to the Smithsonian with my grandparents, who lived too far away for much "backseat driving with Grandma," crystalized my devotion to rocks and minerals as well as contributing to a lifetime spent in museums and science centers.

In this week's new Rock and Roll Easter special, Sid and the kids similarly discover the joys of rock collecting in their backyards and on the playground. Their excitement about the "average" rock is almost as great as it is for the special rocks and minerals that Teacher Susie shares from her own collection. Like my grandparents, Susie represents someone who shares her interests and supports the interests of the children in her care, which amplifies the natural curiosity and excitement they already have. From Sid's fancy pirate rock (really, iron pyrite, which resembles gold) to May's sparkly quartz to Gerald's "big, round, heavy" rock, the children are fascinated by their finds and want to learn more. Susie gives them a gift far greater than the items she lets them keep when she supports and extends their fascination.

"Real" children, likewise, are attracted to rocks they find with an interesting shape, a cool stripe of quartz down the middle, speckles, sparkles, an incredible smoothness, or a scratchy, sandy feel. And, if they're anything like my kids and me, they want to keep them and hide them and protect them and collect them. Those collections can be dust-catchers for sure, but they are also an opportunity to make careful observations with or without magnifiers, to sort items according to some rule (shape or color or even how much you like them!), and even to create your own rock museum.

While I found inspiration at a museum, my kids' interest in rocks and minerals inspired them to design their own. This spontaneous play decision by Keaton and Kieran is adaptable for classroom use. With friends, the boys collected items, sorted "exhibits," created displays, and wrote labels, in their own spelling. Encouraging your class to collect, then collaborate to create their own geology museum or rock and mineral exhibit, supports not only their knowledge of earth science but also using writing for a purpose when labeling, working together, and learning about museums. Kids can search for their own specimens (safely, of course, and in areas that allow collecting), and perhaps you can find someone among families or colleagues who has their own collection to share or even loan. Get ideas for your museum by visiting some virtually on-line or through books.

The gems and minerals room is still my favorite stop in any museum that has one, and I still pick up interesting pebbles when I find them, usually on beaches. We can encourage similar life-long interests among the children entrusted to us by introducing them to the vast world of rocks and minerals (or shells or flowers or...). Like me, some of them will become attached to a few or many of the things they find. They will put their specimens in a place of honor or a special place no one knows about. They will be reminded always of the places they've gone, the people they've gone there with, and the ways that the Earth rewards us daily with small souvenirs of our adventures on this "big, round, heavy" rock we call home.

"... being a responsive teacher is more than just providing materials and being an observer. When the teacher used various responsive teaching strategies, children learned science concepts and vocabulary; and when more explicit instruction was added, they learned both concepts and vocabulary and scientific problem-solving skills" (Hong & Diamond, 2012, p. 303).

Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) provides important guidelines for teaching young children in early childhood classrooms. One of the main principles of DAP suggests that a balance be maintained between child-initiated and teacher-guided opportunities. In other words, a developmentally appropriate early childhood classroom should provide children with opportunities to freely explore what is available in the classroom as well as opportunities to be explicitly taught by the teacher.

In a recent study, Karen Diamond at Purdue University and I investigated two common early childhood teaching approaches as they could be applied to science instruction: Responsive Teaching (RT) was a child-initiated and child-directed approach in which the teacher provided materials and opportunities for exploration without explicit instruction; while Responsive Teaching and Explicit Instruction (RT+EI) combined child-directed exploration with implicit teaching strategies and explicit teacher guidance and support. Four- and 5-year-olds participated in four sessions of science activities related to buoyancy, interacting with objects that sank or floated. The goal of these sessions was to help children learn vocabulary words such as weight, size, float, sink, larger, smaller, heavier, and lighter, as well as concepts related to those words (e.g., when two objects have same size, the heavier object is more likely to sink than the lighter object). In the process of scientific investigation, children also had opportunities to learn processes like 'prediction,' 'hypothesis,' 'experiment,' and so on.

To give you an idea of the differences between the two instructional approaches, the table below describes portions of the activity sessions. The RT+EI approach contains both implicit and explicit opportunities for children to learn concepts and scientific problem-solving skills (e.g., asking specific questions, going through scientific problem-solving steps such as making predictions, experimentation, etc.) whereas the RT approach includes implicit teaching strategies (e.g., describing what child does and what happens, modeling, playing in parallel). Our findings showed that the teacher in the RT approach enhanced children's science learning significantly, but children who experienced the RT+EI approach demonstrated even higher learning outcomes, picking up science concepts and vocabulary as well as the skills needed to make scientific experiments.

Example of RT:

The teacher described what children were doing with plastic container, small bottles, etc. and described what they were doing. "Anna is putting small rocks in the container." "Taisha is helping Anna put bigger rocks in there, too! That now looks so heavy." When the child accidentally or intentionally dropped the container in the water, the teacher said, "It sank in the water. With all those rocks, it must have become very heavy."

Example of RT + EI:

The teacher first reviewed what children learned in the previous sessions by asking the question, "Do you remember what we learned last time?" After reviewing previous sessions briefly, the teacher introduced several different objects (e.g., plastic containers, small water bottles, boats, different sized rocks, etc.), and asked, "Do you think this bottle will float or sink in the water?" Then she had children put them in water and see what happened. Then she asked, "How can we make this bottle sink in the water? Who can tell me how we can make it sink? I need some good ideas to make this sink in the water." When children provided their ideas, the teacher wrote them down on a large piece of paper. "These are our predictions, and now let's see if these actually work." Then she had children take turn carrying out the predictions and see whether the objects sank in the water. While doing this, she asked, "what can we do to...." and "why" questions. After the lesson, children were encouraged to explore materials and make things that float sink in the water.

So, what does this all mean for a teacher in a preschool classroom? (1) Preschool children can learn science concepts, vocabulary, and scientific problem-solving skills when appropriate guidance is provided. Teachers can use explicit instruction as an effective tool (in addition to child-directed exploration) to promote children's understanding of science concepts. (2) Teachers can go through the process of scientific problem-solving (i.e., asking questions, constructing hypotheses, making experiments to test hypotheses) with children. This will be an effective educational activity if it involves certain level of explicit guidance by a teacher.

Some of the teaching strategies that support young children as they learn science concepts and scientific problem-solving skills are:
• Describing what children are doing and saying,
• Modeling what children could do with the materials,
• Playing in parallel with children,
• Providing materials and ideas that challenge children's thinking, and
• Explicitly teaching concepts, vocabulary, and problem-solving skills.

By intentionally engaging children in these ways, teachers extend the benefits of responsive teaching to further boost children's learning of science vocabulary, content, and processes.

Soo-Young Hong is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her research focuses on professional development of early childhood educators in the area of science education. She has a three-year-old boy who loves water play!

My friends who ski have been mightily disappointed by the fact that Old Man Winter didn't show up for work this year. I'm sympathetic - to a point - but I can't say I've missed scraping the windshield and shoveling the walk and driveway just to undertake a white-knuckle drive to the office. I'm also excited by the fact that the balmy temperatures have brought on early blooming. It's not just that the flowers are early this year - they actually seem better! They look simply amazing. It is a blooming, buzzing confusion of color, and I LOVE IT!

In the spring, most preschool teachers' plans include engaging children in planting and gardening activities. I know that the teachers I work with are all ready to roll up their sleeves and dig in! In conjunction with these hand-on activities, teachers can share any number of related books with kids about flowers, gardening, and plants, not to mention butterflies and ladybugs and worms. It's a fertile topic, no doubt! Just like them and you, I'm designing learning experiences and weeding through piles and piles of books to find those that I think will best support my growing learners. One of my current favorites is Flower Garden written by Eve Bunting and illustrated by Kathryn Hewitt.

Flower Garden tells the story of a young girl, living in the city. She and her father are grocery shopping to pick up food but also to get plants and supplies for a special garden. Using simple rhymes, the author nearly creates a song as she describes the steps taken to bring the garden to life: shopping at the store, walking and riding the bus home, climbing the stairs to their apartment, filling window boxes with soil, adding the flowers, and placing the garden in the window. The story goes on to describe the pleasure of passers-by as they see the "color jamboree." It seems as though the story has ended but Mom arrives home to a birthday surprise.

If you know the book, you might be wondering why I'm touting it in a science blog. There really aren't any overt science themes of facts in this book, so why do I, the science lady, like it so much? Well, once in a while I'm willing to acknowledge that there's more to early education than science (just every once in a while!), and this book provides opportunities for children to think about language, as they hear rhyming words and learn to anticipate them. There is rich and unusual vocabulary to label different types of flowers: pansies, daisies, daffodils, geraniums, and tulips. The book supports children's early social studies knowledge by presenting daily life in a city - grocery shopping, carrying groceries home (and not in the trunk of a car!), riding the bus, living in an apartment building - experiences that not all children will be familiar with. On the other hand the life described is something that many, many children living in urban settings are familiar with so Flower Garden provides an opportunity for those kids to see themselves and their neighbors and neighborhood represented in a book. Plus, it's a tale about love and giving. There are no front-and-center "lessons" about how to treat others, just a dad and daughter quietly doing something special for a wife and mom.

And, of course, there is science in this book. We see and hear about the tools and supplies needed for planting even a small garden: a trowel, potting soil, planting mix, and window boxes. We hear a bit about insects interacting with the flowers. The book subtly illustrates how machines make carrying and hefting easier, both by showing ways that machines help (a shopping cart with its fabulous wheels and the bus that allows us to put down our heavy packages and take a ride on more fabulous wheels) and by showing how much we can miss them when we have to carry a heavy load up multiple flights of steps!

Flower Garden is a book that requires a conversation to bring out the science ideas. It doesn't "teach" science so much as create an atmosphere that encourages the discussion of the ways that gardens and planting can be a part of anyone's life. It doesn't require a big space or complicated tools or even a whole lot of time to create a tiny, bright jewel that enriches lives. Kind of like preschool science itself. It doesn't require a big space or complicated tools or even a whole lot of time to create a tiny, bright learning experience that enriches lives.

Do you have a favorite planting/garden book to share? Do tell!

Are you singing it? S (s,s,s) A (a,a,a), F (f,f,f), E (e,e,e) T (t,t,t) Y (y,y,y,) Safety! Dance!

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out this video from Men Without Hats. It's one of those songs that takes me back to my youth and always gets me singing and dancing. It's infectious and just plain fun.

I was reminded of this song recently, through an interesting coincidence of art and science in a classroom I visit in Long Branch, New Jersey. The children had seen a dance performance by a high school ballet troupe earlier in the day. When I visited, their teacher was engaging them in a discussion and some activities about friction. The kids loved whizzing a compact disk across a tile floor and were very interested when it didn't slide well at all on a yoga mat. They tested it on carpet, too. Their teacher had collected a whole bunch of materials to try in this way, hoping to get kids thinking about the differences in the friction created depending on which two materials were paired.

The children were interested in this, but they also wanted to dance. Their responsive teacher quickly adapted the activity suggesting that the children try dancing and twirling on different surfaces in their shoes versus their socks (carefully on the tile in socks, of course). The children showed their understanding of friction when they avoided the yoga mat as a dance surface for the kind of twirling and sliding ballet moves they wanted to practice.

In the midst of this dance party, one of the girls indicated that her socks weren't sliding. She turned over her foot to show everyone the "bumps" the bottom. The rubber lettering was creating friction with the tile and the carpet, and this was interfering with her dancing. All the children gathered around to observe the bumps by looking and feeling. I tell you, it warms a science lady's heart to see kids discovering science in dance, but it also reminds a science lady and her young pals that while too much friction can be a dance party pooper, too little friction can result in slips and falls. And that's no good either.

What we learned was that the amount of friction that's desirable depends on the job or activity at hand. Try doing those down dogs and warriors in socks on a gym floor, and you will appreciate that yoga mat a whole lot more. Try opening a tight pickle jar using a silk scarf and you'll be thankful for your ridge-y fingertips while you're enjoying some half-sours or gherkins. When you're headed up and down wooden stairs, those rubber-soled socks can be your best friend. As for dancing, when you're doing the Sid Slide to the Side, socks and a nice smooth floor are almost required equipment. To jump and hop, though, consider shoes or socks with some bumps. Call it the Safety Dance.

Change and Transformation is this week's Big Idea on Sid, and it's also a big idea for many of us outside the TV who are eagerly anticipating the change from winter to spring and all the transformations it entails!

One of those changes is in the weather. Spring showers are on their way, meaning days spent inside and teachers and parents with a need to change disappointment into fun - and learning - with indoor activities. One of my favorites as a kid, parent, and Science Lady is play dough. If you take some time with it, making dough from scratch rather than using commercial products, you can transform a typical preschool activity into a set of learning experiences that allow children to engage multiple science inquiry skills (including observation, prediction, describing, cooperating and working together). At the same time, children get the satisfaction of creating the materials for new play activities will keep the good times rolling and will stretch out the fun.

Before making anything, just explore the four main ingredients. (There are recipes for non-cook play dough all over the Internet. I use 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt, 2 cups of lukewarm water, and 2 tablespoons of oil, plus food coloring and/or scented extract for fun!) Ask children to observe, describe, and compare flour, salt, oil, and water. Look, feel, smell...maybe even taste. There are lots of opportunities to introduce and use new descriptive vocabulary during this phase of the activity: Salt is grainy and feels like sand. Flour is fluffy. Oil is slippery and greasy. If you'd like, record children's descriptions to reinforce "concepts of print," illustrating that spoken words relate to written words and that words are written from left-to-right.

Before putting everything together, encourage children to make predictions about what will happen when the dry and wet ingredients are mixed. Have them think about related experiences that will help them make their predictions - maybe you've baked in class before or they can think about what happens when dry dirt mixes with wet water - stuff that they are basing on prior knowledge, not just random guessing. We've said before that cooking is chemistry - here, play dough is chemistry as children think about properties of matter and about cause and effect relationships.

Introduce your chosen recipe, written on large chart paper. The chart will include written words, pictographs, and numerals that detail the procedure for making play dough. You can encourage preschoolers to read numerals, to compare amounts of ingredients, and to practice using measurement tools (cups and spoons), all of which are important mathematical skills. "Reading" the recipe also provides practice with sequencing, a thinking skill that cuts across language, literacy, mathematics, and science. Have children work in small groups to practice cooperation while they measure and mix, rather than you doing all the work - and having all the fun! Direct participation will keep kids engaged and learning. For the big event, measure it, mix it, and knead, knead, knead it! Talk about how the ingredients are changing and, be sure to use lots of action words to describe what you are doughing..uh,..doing.

At some point in the near future, consider expanding the inquiry even further by having children consider the effects of changing the recipe in specific ways. For example, ask "How would the dough be different if we put in 2 cups of water instead of 1?" Then try it, and reflect on your findings. Did the results match your predictions? Once you've made dough that is too wet, invite children to brainstorm ways to "fix" the wet dough. Children will be putting their knowledge of the properties of the substances to use as they reason. More generally, asking children to ponder and reflect on cognitively challenging questions such as, "what would happen if..." stimulates language development and is a classroom practice that research tells us is underutilized.

While this might seem like a long, drawn-out process when one could so easily open a can, you know that we at Sid are all about the inquiry. Yes, we want to complete an activity or find an answer to a question, but taking the longer route often takes us on a journey of inquiry, and that's always a trip worth taking with young scientists.

Tell us. What are some of your favorite activities for transforming a rainy inside day into a super science exploration?