My post-pandemic back-to-school guide: Confidence through STEAM
LAST week, I shared how building the 21stCentury Skill of Confidence early in our children is important. In my experience, doing so really helped equipped my kids against bullying in school. I also shared two main “self-building” activities I encouraged with my kids, which included “content” or subject learning and enrichment activities, like sports and play.
This week, let me share my “one solution” on how I combined academic subjects with play in their formative years. I have seen how these efforts have not just developed my children’s confidence, but also developed them into holistic individuals who perform well beyond academics.
I personally call this solution the Magic of STEAM, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics. I first learned of this when my kids were toddlers and preschoolers, and I felt truly relieved. I was and am still an “art” person. I always felt torn when I was growing up, because it seemed you could only be good at one thing. I was pushed to pursue the math side in me, and so I finished a course in engineering.
However, I always kept my soft, art side on my personal poetry, writing and art time. I believe this has made the difference in both my output and outlook as a person. So, finding “STEAM” showed me a path on how my kids can enjoy both worlds freely and effectively.
STEAM is very helpful for content learning in 21stcentury learner skills. Why? In my own observation, my young kids did not really know subjects at the outset. They only knew whether an activity was interesting to them or not.
And without a doubt, the most interesting to my kids was when we played. By injecting STEAM activities as early as their toddler years, they were doing Math, Science, Logic, Engineering—without them even knowing it. As they entered school age, they felt more relaxed when these subjects were presented to them.
Another main benefit of STEAM for me follows the thoughts I shared last week from Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset, especially when you expose them to various “play experiments.”
From the book A Mind of Their Own: Building Your Child’s Emotional Wellbeing in a Post-pandemic World by Katherine Hill, it shares Carol Dweck’s view that children with a growth mindset “see challenge as an opportunity to learn, and difficulty as an in evitable part of the learning process.”
It further shares that for these children, “failure means they need to try again” and they persist despite setbacks, which is a great opportunity to develop emotional resilience. I love the thought shared that “different children may have different abilities, but it is what they believe about their ability that is crucial.”
So even if STEAM might be seen as developing the “hard” skills of knowledge, I appreciate it most on how it developed the strong will of my children in pursuing tasks or goals that may seem impossible at first. I shared in past articles how my artistic six-yearold daughter was called out by her teacher for just staring at the ceiling fan every time a math problem was presented to her, but she gradually worked her way to represent her current school in MTAP competitions; or how my shy, more musically-inclined boy made a resolve to be part of the basketball varsity, even if he had been rejected for two years in a row, and now he will represent his school in an international basketball competition in Mexico this year.
Below are some STEAM tools and activities I recommend for different stages:
n Toddlers: Paints and coloring materials used to draw numbers and arithmetic symbols; sorting activities; STEAM toys, like Learn with Me Count and Learn Cookie Jar and Techno Kids Action Blocks.
n Preschoolers: As you observe more how your child learns more effectively, inject tools that promote curiosity and interest. For example, Marcus is a “tactile” learner, which means he loves tinkering with his hands when learning. I would alternately bring out my grandmother’s abacus, math bingo sets or various number blocks and games, and just allow him to just play with them. Starting science experiments early like with the Crayola Marker Maker, I believe, has helped my kids love science, as well as make them more inquisitive in the process.
n Grade schoolers: My latest discovery is a “phygital” (physical + digital) math play method that is more attuned with today’s digital kids. You can go to Youtube and find the Numberblocks channel and use Learning Resources’ Mathlink Builders to learn math skills from counting, patterns to grade school math. Injecting coding and experiments during family weekend playtime should also be a staple given the constant innovations our children need to adapt to. I found the Code and Learn Space Ship, as well as the Crayola Liquid Science Kit quite interesting. n