Educating Young Children Volume 1 – Spring 2025 | Page 24

Children independently investigate the STEM concepts introduced during a large-group gathering. They work together to test ideas about how things go together and come apart.

Activities like this allow children to problem solve and create individually and together.

In addition, small groups offer time for teachers to provide targeted support and feedback. With a smaller group size, teachers can scaffold and adjust instruction to meet children’ s specific strengths and areas for growth. This personalized attention helps educators identify and respond to children’ s progress in real time, offering immediate encouragement or redirection. By building on children’ s strengths and gently challenging them too, teachers create a supportive learning environment where every child feels seen, valued, and empowered to advance at their own pace.

In small groups, educators can guide children’ s hands-on explorations. This can include acknowledging what children do and say, giving feedback about their explorations, and modeling ways to solve a problem.

This is also a time to ask open-ended questions as teachers observe children’ s investigations.