6+ Activities To Help Young Children Develop STEAM Skills

While early literacy skills are beneficial to young children, early STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) skills are also just as important.

STEAM skills help children to think critically and creatively whether or not they will enter the Science stream. In other words, these skills will help them in any field they decide to enter.

Children are already naturally curious about their world and are capable learners but they are often discouraged from doing so. Thus, it's up to the adults to help keep that curiosity alive.

Here are some tips for the adults to help young children develop good STEAM skills:

1. Encourage children to be observant

Observation is one of the important skills in scientific process. To become better scientists, it’s good to get children to practice being observant.

Children are already much more observant than adults but steer them to notice more detailed or scientific features such as a new flowering bud on a plant.

Also, use the language associated with observations such as noticing and observing.

2. Get the kids to describe what they see and do

Getting children to describe what they can see or what they are doing helps them to build up vocabulary and confidence in using the STEAM language.

Get them to describe the attributes or feature of the object they observed.

For instance, if they see a ladybug, ask them to describe it by asking what’s the colour, shape and size of the insect. Other words to use include predict, experiment and measure.

A study done showed children who have had certain types of language socialisation are likely to choose to study or learn STEAM.

3. Ask ‘what’ rather than ‘why’

Asking children questions that they can answer allow them to have a sense of satisfaction of answering the questions correctly.

This builds confidence and they are more willing to try and learn from the mistakes than just being discouraged.

Questions such as “What is happening to the bubbles?” is much easier than “Why are the bubbles sticking together?” It also provides the opportunity to have a discussion with the child.

The reasons why bubbles stick together can be discovered together after. The goal is to create a friendly learning environment that allows discussions to move forward.

4. Encourage children to count using one-to-one correspondence

Counting can be achieved through memorization skills but do the kids know the meaning of “one”? Children need to know that “one” equals to one object, “two” equals two objects, and so on.

Instead of using boring learning materials, get the kids to collect five clothes pegs while hanging the laundry or get them to get you two eggs for cooking.

They wouldn’t even know you’ve sneakily made it into a learning session!

For older kids, get them to play board games. They’ll experience one-to-one correspondence when they have to move the pawn on the board according to their die roll.

5. Encourage spatial skills in children

Research has shown links between spatial skills and STEAM skills in children. To help them develop the skills, get them to think about where they are in space.

For example, if the family is in the zoo, ask the child to point out where they are on the map of the zoo. Another option is to ask them to give directions while driving back to the house or to school.

Another trick is to encourage them to use and remember landmarks when driving somewhere.

Can they recognize their own house from the road or point out where their bedroom is in relation to the kitchen?

6. Do not be afraid of arts and music

Arts and music help young children think outside the box aka creatively as compared to our already rigid 'adult' minds.

Parents should ask open ended questions to encourage young children to express creativity in their thoughts and communication.

Anytime a child embarks in a creative endeavor, parents could ask questions such as:

• What are you working on?

• Tell me about your drawing

• How did you make this PlayDoh sculpture?

• What happens if you mix these two colours?

Of course, parents should always show genuine interest in a child's project or attempt at creating something. A way to show interest and appreciation is to display their artwork!

Parents will also find that by supporting their child's creative journey, they are improving their own ability to think creatively too!

Soon, parents will be surprised that they'll be able to see something they recognize in the vague paint splats or spills ;)