To cure diseases, or land robots on mars, our kids will need strong math and science skills, a process that starts with positive parenting. There are a lot of reading programs available to support early literacy at home, but much less to help math and science early learning. However, a new study has shown that the earlier you expose your kids to math and science, the better they will achieve in school.
As everyone knows today, it's important to support your children before they start kindergarten, and there are many ways to do it; bedtime stories, bedtime math, bedtime science, and much more. The big problem is that, while many families have well established reading routines, many parents don't know what to do when it comes to teaching science.
A study of more than 1,400 households with three to six years olds has shown that 90% of parents are used to educational activities with their children, but that about half of these same parents avoid activities about science, a matter in which they tend to have low confidence, because of their own lack of knowledge and experience.
According to Dr. Paul L. Morgan, director of the Center for Educational Disparities Research at Pennstate University (Pennsylvania), parents can look for everyday ways to engage kids in math and science, starting at home. “Get down on the carpet or on the floor and work with them. Build with blocks like an architect or pretend to fight fires. In the kitchen, cook with kids. Measure out ingredients, talk about the sequence involved in recipes," says Morgan. Go outside and ask your children about what they see around them in nature (animals, flowers, trees, rivers, sun, clouds, etc.) or at a construction site (buildings, machines, workers, etc.), to name just a few examples.
Picture: The Voyager Spacecraft - NASA Science Update (Wikimedia Commons, w/Effects)
