“The birds are chirping so loud—I think they’re scared,” said Vera as she looked up at the sky with a pair of certified safe eclipse glasses pressed against her eyes. She was absolutely right! The singing birds—along with the chirping crickets and the barking dogs in the neighborhood—were louder and more intense than usual as the Moon slowly moved between the Sun and the Earth. They must have sensed that something out of the ordinary was about to take place! This scene was from our previous eclipse party on August 21, 2017, when we witnessed the last total eclipse of the Sun in our early chi ..read more

  Hello, Hallo, Hej Hej, Hola, Ciao . . . well, you get the idea! To expand our reach to families and early childhood educators around the globe, we’ve added a translation option to our Early Math Counts website. With this new functionality, our readers can now translate Early Math Counts into more than 100 languages. Breaking down language barriers and making our content accessible to a diverse global audience is important to us. This new feature will enable more families and early childhood educators to access the tools, insights and resources they need to help children succeed in kind ..read more

“LOOK!” Ellie summons us with such joy that there’s no doubt she has spotted something wonderful. Our eyes follow the four-year-old as she dashes to a very large, very hollow tree. A tree that is still alive and thriving—with an opening over four feet tall just inviting a group of children and their teacher to peek inside. “Who lives in there?” asks Clare as she summons up the courage to move closer. Can we go inside the tree?” asks Veronica, although the question is a rhetorical one because the three-year-old has no intention of venturing inside. “Is the tree hollow all the way up to the top ..read more

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice three-year-old Saaliha, who is patiently working her way through a rainbow puzzle. Her friends are busy in other parts of the classroom, but Saaliha is problem-solving her way to puzzle mastery. I sit down next to her to observe her learning style, and she is so engrossed in her learning that my presence goes unnoticed. Open-ended materials such as Saaliha’s rainbow puzzle often lead to long periods of deep concentration and learning. Today is no different.  Although this rainbow puzzle often lands in the block area in the shape of a snake, a tunne ..read more

  “Saaliha, come with me to the light table,” Evelyn whispers. “I have to show you something!” Hand in hand, the two preschoolers quietly make their way over to our light table. This darkened corner of our classroom never fails to mesmerize the children with its soft glow and luminous colors. As the days grow shorter and darker—and the hectic holiday season approaches—it’s the perfect time to engage children in calming investigative play with light and color. Before we gather around the light table, I dim the lights in the classroom and put on some soft music to create a soothing and tr ..read more

Autumn has flown by—and winter is almost upon us! Here in Illinois, that means cooler temperatures and wrestling with winter outerwear. But here’s the good news: Getting the children dressed for outdoor play is a great way to meet your early math standards. Outdoor play in the winter months includes snow or rain pants, boots, coats, hats and mittens. Getting my young group dressed for outdoor play used to be a challenge. But math—specifically sequencing—came to the rescue!  By breaking this dressing activity down into smaller steps, you can boost your early learners’  self-con ..read more

“We can’t reach the top to make it bigger!” says Rowan with a giggle. “Can we stand on this table to make our tower taller?” Linnea pleads. Four-year-olds Rowan and Linnea have taken over the front foyer of our early childhood center for some serious block play. This bustling area will soon be filled with parents picking up their children—and the heavy traffic will no doubt send this tower crashing to the ground. But who among us can resist a great tower-building moment? Early childhood is a unique developmental period when children are learning how to learn. They follow their own interests ..read more

“Oh, I like your mosaic, Avery!” says Claire, who has wandered over to look at the mosaic that Avery has just created with sidewalk chalk and tape. “Yours only had triangles. We did squares and triangles and those long skinny squares.” “Oh, you mean rectangles! I want to see it!” Avery exclaims. He jumps up to compare their creations. Our days have been full of busy children drawing shapes and creating colorful chalk mosaics on the sidewalk. This activity offers many opportunities to work on shape recognition while extending the learning to the outdoor classroom. Start by creating a shape ..read more

“When we drive to school in the morning, the sunflowers are facing one way and when we drive home after school they are facing the other way. That’s because they always want to see where I am going!” brags Melania to the other children on the bus. “That’s not true,” grumbles Roberta, who is clearly not a sunny morning person. “Yes, it really is true! Melania insists. “Ask my dad!” I planned this morning field trip to a local sunflower farm to set the stage for some hands-on STEM learning. But it’s going to be a long Thursday if the kids are already arguing about the science behind the su ..read more

  “Five green and speckled frogs…sat on a speckled log…eating some delicious bugs. Yum yum!I hear a chorus of young voices singing in our outdoor classroom as three young friends hold hands and frolic around in a circle.  When we sing counting songs such as “Five Green and Speckled Frogs” or “This Old Man,” we introduce counting and numbers andmath concepts such as removing one from a group. The repetition and rhythm in these songs make it easy for very young children to remember the name and sequence of number patterns. As they learn to anticipate these patterns and the sequence ..read more