Early Learning Standards in Action
Young Children Exploring Motion
by Elizabeth A. Sherwood and Amy Freshwater
GUIDELINES FOR DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE PRACTICE and related early
childhood program standards have long been used to shape teaching practices and promote
excellence in early childhood education (NAEYC 1984, 1996, 2005; Bredekamp & Copple
1997). These guidelines emphasized the need to provide environments that support all domains
of learning and development. Today program standards support educators in designing
effective programs for young children.
Today's rapidly expanding and increasingly academic world of education for three- and four-
year-old children has led to expectations of accountability for children's achievements and the
creation of early learning standards. At least 41 states and the federal Head Start program have
early learning standards (Scott-Little, Kagan, & Frelow 2005) specifying anticipated outcomes
that teachers are responsible for helping children achieve. This article describes how teacher
educators and classroom teachers used engaging, developmentally appropriate experiences to
ensure that children had numerous opportunities to meet early learning standards. We also
suggest strategies to document the learning that takes place as children eagerly explore their
world.
Getting started: Early planning
A key science learning standard for young children is to understand and apply the skills of
scientific inquiry (National Research Council 1996). Another is to develop an understanding
of "the position and motion of objects" (National Research Council 1996, 127). As teacher
educators, the authors wondered, Can teachers use science standards to support learning and
assessment in an early childhood classroom in ways that are developmentally appropriate,
meaningful, and fun? Can children achieve benchmarks (descriptions of skills, knowledge, and
performance appropriate for children ages three to five) related to these standards, explore
several science concepts, and document their learning? To answer these questions, we decided
to explore applying the standards with a familiar activity—marble painting.
Additional goals for children included learning to use real materials in active ways, asking
and answering questions, figuring things out (using scientific inquiry), and solving problems
about position and motion. Finally, we wanted to hear children talk about their discoveries and
show us what they understood.
After reviewing the state's early learning standards to consider what the children might learn
from marble painting activities, not just in science, but in other areas as well, we created a
planning web (see "Marble Painting Planning Web") to expand and enrich the marble painting
experience (see Worsley, Beneke, & Helm 2003). We anticipated ideas the children might have
as well as activities we thought might be interesting to pursue. What might children do with a
bowling ball? How could they make marble painting bigger or smaller? What vocabulary is
relevant to this activity?
Marble Painting Planning Web
(Benchmarks are in italics)
This intentional planning allowed us to clearly identify the standards to address and
determine how they connected with goals for individual children. The steps taken in
intentional planning allow teachers to include standards in written plans, assess and document
individual children's skill development and content learning, and provide specific examples to
share with families (Gronlund 2006; Scott-Little, Kagan, & Frelow 2006) (see "It's the
Process: Intentional Planning and Documenting with Early Learning Standards"). We
partnered with a teacher in a preschool classroom in an accredited center to try out our ideas.
It's the Process: Intentional Planning and Documenting with Early
Learning Standards
What the children already knew
The preschoolers were so familiar with marble painting that, when asked how to do it,
several children were ready to show what they knew. Four-year-old Karli provided clear
directions. She picked up a paint-spattered box lid and said, "Put in a piece of paper. Put in a
marble from the paint and roll it around. You have to hold the box and tip it." She knew the
steps in the process and the position and motion of objects, and she had a simple
understanding of the physics concepts of gravity and force. Teon, age three, also understood
the marble painting process, saying, "It rolls. It gets paint on. It makes little lines where the
ball goes."
Katz says that "for conversation to occur, there must be something to talk about! Something
that matters to the talkers; something of interest and significance to them. There cannot be
real conversation without content" (2003, 12). Marble painting provided the meaningful
content. Teon observed marbles rolling. He understood that the lines of paint showed where
the marbles had traveled and could communicate his observations to an interested listener.
Talking with children as they paint with marbles helps them mentally process information
and articulate what they are learning. Sitting with children, examining their paintings, and
asking them questions supports exploration and learning. For example, Stephanie, the
classroom teacher, looked at a child's work and said, "Hmm, the blue line is going along
straight to the corner of the paper, then it turns and goes to this side. I wonder how that
happened?" In response, Teon gestured with his hands to indicate moving the box. Another
child said, "You have to move the box every way." The teacher summarized: "Oh, so when you
move the box up on this side, the marble will roll . . . ?" "Down," the children chorused. Both
children understood the cause-effect relationship between moving the box and moving the
marble. They also knew how to control which direction the marble moved.
Building communication skills
While speaking with the children about their paintings, we were struck by the importance of
communication in supporting scientific learning. In fact, communication is one of the basic
science process skills. By asking only a few questions at a time and allowing time for children
to think about them, we communicate to children that we are truly interested in their
responses.
It's important for children to express their ideas in their own ways. For example, Karli chose
to talk about her ideas, but Teon, at age three, used a few words and gestures to show what he
knew. Sometimes Teon said "I'll show you" and did so without additional words. Teachers can
support learning for a child like Teon by describing his experiences out loud, modeling
relevant vocabulary. Whether their communications are nonverbal or detailed and vocabulary
rich, young scientists need teachers to listen patiently to them articulate what they see and
know. By asking for clarification, showing genuine interest in and acceptance of what children
have to say, and encouraging the use of more precise language, teachers can change marble
painting from a simple art activity to a science exploration (Owens 1999; French 2004).
Asking open-ended questions allows children to reflect and speak about science (see "Idea
Starters: Asking Open-Ended Questions"). Hendrick notes that "open-ended questions foster
the production of original, divergent ideas and solutions . . . the questioner doesn't know what
the answer will turn out to be" (2001, 483–84). Open-ended discussion fosters more complex thinking in
children. If teachers wait for children to respond, children often can express their thoughts
more completely and in more detailed and precise language (Rowe 1987).
# # #
Idea Starters: Asking Open-Ended Questions
Closed questions (questions with one right answer):
How much is two plus two?
What color is this?
Which one do you like?
Teachers can tell immediately when they've asked closed questions, because
children respond with yes, no, or a single-word answer.
Open-ended questions (questions with many right answers):
I wonder . . .
Why do you think?
Describe what you see.
What does it look like to you?
How does that happen?
Why did it work that way?
What about this part?
How can you tell?
How is this different?
Teachers need to practice asking open-ended questions throughout the day!
Ideas for using open-ended questions
- When planning activities, think of open-ended questions that support
learning. Write the questions on a file card.
- Keep the file card handy as a reminder about what to ask children when
they participate in the activity.
- Plan open-ended questions related to different centers in the classroom,
write the questions on file cards, and post them in the learning centers as
reminders of questions to ask children while they play.
- Take file cards to the playground. Stay close to children's play and ask
open-ended questions outside.
# # #
To plan the open-ended questions we wanted to ask, we had to understand each child's
developmental levels and interests. In thinking about divergent questions and possible child
learning outcomes and experiences, we became more open-ended thinkers, more creative in our
ideas for teaching.
When asking open-ended questions it is essential to accept children's answers. Teachers let children know their
ideas are valued by showing respect for their responses and comments about an inquiry event—a classroom
activity to promote exploration of a topic (Owens 1999). Teachers should write down children's comments,
whether or not their perspectives are consistent with those of adults. This documentation of a child's comments
and current level of understanding can be useful in later developmental assessments. The information can also
guide teachers in providing additional experiences to enhance children's knowledge and skills.
Expanding explorations
Expanding on planned activities in response to children's interests and questions is an
important aspect of developmentally appropriate practice. For several days the children had
many opportunities to marble paint. To expand their thinking, we asked, "How could we make
bigger lines?" The children took a few moments to think and then responded enthusiastically,
"We need bigger balls!" This suggestion prompted a Ball Hunt. We searched the classroom
and playground and found golf balls, ping pong balls, a Wiffle ball, a tennis ball, and a plastic
ball with a chime inside it. As we observed the children painting using various sizes of balls,
we heard and recorded their comments: "Ooh, fuzzy," "Look, dots," "Mine has lots of lines.
It's all over lines 'cause it gots lots of balls in it," and "When it tips, they all go down."
Clearly, the children were actively engaged in inquiry and observation of details.
The children had noticed that dropping a paint-covered marble from a spoon onto a piece of
paper created a paint spot that marked the point of impact where the marble hit the paper.
When we asked, "How can we tell where Karli first dropped the blue paint golf ball?" Aisha
responded, "See the splash. There's a splash right there!" Teon replied, "Mine made the most
big splash." We recorded the children's language as they described their ideas, noted their
creative descriptions of the point of impact, and used these observations to guide us in
extending the children's discoveries. How could we use the children's interest in "splash
marks" to encourage additional exploration?
"How could we make different kinds of splashes?" was the next question we asked the
children. Our initial experiences with marbles led to experimenting with dropping different
size balls and objects of other shapes. The children then tried varying the height from which a paint-
covered object was dropped, first by standing on a chair, then from the climber outside. When the
children suggested throwing things, we hung a sheet against a wall and let them experiment with
that. These experiences supported the children's progress toward addressing standards related
to scientific inquiry, problem-solving, motor skills, and curiosity.
The children examined the different balls and tried using several at one time in their
paintings. They used their senses to observe the results of their explorations, which is a basic
science skill. For example, they talked about the different sounds the balls made as they hit
the surface, making sounds themselves like sploosh and bonk. They were beginning to
understand that changing the direction of a force (tipping the box up) not only resulted in a
change in the direction of the balls, but also affected how fast the balls rolled, key concepts in
physical science. They understood that balls with different textures produced different effects
with paint, and they tried to describe what they saw, saying things like "Look at all the dots"
about a Wiffle ball and "It makes bigger lines" about a tennis ball.
When asked "How can we make the balls go farther?" the children responded, "We could
throw the balls" and "We could get a great big, big, box." We tried using a very large box.
Additional questions invited the children to explore further:
- What if we used the large playground balls as our "marbles"?
- What if we increased the weight of the "marbles" by putting paint on bowling balls
and rolling them around on a sidewalk?
- What if we put paint-covered balls on paper inside a plastic wading pool?
- How can we get the marbles/balls to move without a box to tip?
In addition to supporting science learning, presenting children with questions such as these
and asking for solutions shows respect for their ideas, enhances their self-esteem, and
addresses social and emotional benchmarks such as cooperating with other children to solve
problems (Marion 2003).
Marble rolling moved outside where a sidewalk served as the paint surface. The
developmentally appropriate activities created in response to the children's interests required
their cooperative efforts. For example, two girls tried unsuccessfully to cover a bowling ball
in paint the same way they had the marbles. Suddenly, one girl said, "Paint brushes!" Soon the
girls had the ball completely covered in paint and ready to roll across the sidewalk "to make
more lines." Another group made a giant painting with plastic-covered playground balls. They
quickly became aware of the power of wind, shouting, "The wind—it's blowing the paper.
Look! Our ball! The wind's blowing it to me!" It took the cooperation of the entire group to
move the balls across the large area and to keep the paper from blowing away. When the
painting was complete, teachers and children worked together to get it safely inside, despite
the gusty winds.
# # #
Working with Standards: Challenge Yourself
We've described how thinking about and planning with standards enriched the
children's work with marble painting. What about you? What ideas do you have
about favorite activities and how to use them to support early learning standards?
If you are new to working with early learning standards, begin with a simple,
enjoyable activity. The possibilities are endless! Try out intentional planning with
Ramps—playing with cars and other things that roll in the block area; exploring
outdoor slides.
Water play—finding the best squirters; how are other liquids different from water?
Making play dough—comparing different recipes, allowing children to create their
own recipes ("Can you make play dough without water?").
After choosing an activity, look at the early learning standards for your state and
the related benchmarks. Which ones can be addressed by the activity? Write your
thoughts and note how the children could meet the standards through their learning
experiences.
Practice communicating your assessment of individual children's learning. For
example, based on information in this article, what information about Teon's skill
development and science content knowledge could you share with his family?
# # #
Documenting learning
Our observations indicated that the children, as a group, had done lots of things with various
kinds of balls and paint. Laughter and enthusiasm were signs that they had fun, but how did
we know what, if anything, individual children learned? Effective assessment gathers
information from many sources about children's performance in real situations over time
(NAEYC & NAECS/SDE 2003). Our sources, gathered over several weeks, included these:
A videotape—As we played the videotape for the children,
we recorded their comments as they spontaneously narrated the action. The comment "Look,
the wind is making it go," as the wind moved a playground ball during outside painting,
indicated achievement of the science benchmark "describes the effects of forces in nature."
Digital photographs—Some of the children arranged a
group of photographs in the correct sequence and provided appropriate captions, such as
"That was the first time, because there was one line" or "That was the tenth, 'cause there's
lots of lines." These children effectively communicated their own observations, a science
benchmark, and demonstrated an understanding of sequencing, a mathematics benchmark.
Teacher observations—The teachers recorded information
on individual children's learning related to specific benchmarks. These observations
included
- Karli: "grouped paintings by which ball was used—marble, Wiffle, golf" (Mathematics—
sort and classify objects)
- Teon: "when asked, motioned with hands how to get ball from one side of box to other,
then did it" (Science—position/motion of object can be changed)
- Aisha: "said, 'You guys, lift it high so it goes to Enrico'" (Science—describes the effects
of a change in motion).
The teachers also made notes on other aspects of individual children's development:
- "When urged to join us with big balls, Blair and Rico sat back and looked on. Prefer
nonmessy activities?"
- "Mia and Keni joined Ali in lifting sensory table with both arms. [Cooperation and
motor skills]"
- "Gia and Marie decided to apply paint to bowling balls with paint brushes before they
rolled them to each other. Worked better than trying to roll ball through puddle of paint.
[Problem solving]"
Observations such as these help teachers refine ongoing experiences to meet the needs of all
the children.
Work samples—The teachers collected samples of
individual children's paintings over several weeks. Some children's paintings showed very
little change, while other children's paintings became much more complex over time.
Teachers also saved digital photographs of paintings with captions that documented
children's description of the process used to create the works. Comments ranged from
"That's mine" to detailed step-by-step explanations. These items provided a clear snapshot
of the children's language and observational skills at that point in time.
Conclusion
Our original goal for marble painting was to use it as a vehicle for helping children to
understand and apply the skills of scientific inquiry and to develop an understanding of
motion. The information gathered from the sources above indicates that, after the marble
painting activities, most of the children had a beginning understanding of these skills and
concepts. However, it quickly became apparent that the "simple" science activity had become
multifaceted and addressed many benchmarks, including some related to language arts,
physical development, social and emotional development, and approaches to learning. The
children were actively engaged in developmentally appropriate experiences that were richly
satisfying and meaningful to them. The classroom teachers, through thoughtful preparation,
questioning, and detailed observation, ensured that the children were actively engaged in
meeting early learning standards.
References
Bredekamp, S., & C. Copple, eds. 1997. Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs. Rev. ed.
Washington, DC: NAEYC.
French, L. 2004. Science as the center of a coherent, integrated early childhood curriculum. Early Childhood Research Quarterly
19: 138–49.
Gronland, G. 2006. Make early learning standards come alive: Connecting your practice and curriculum to state guidelines. St.
Paul, MN: Redleaf.
Hendrick, J. 2001. The whole child. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Katz, L.G. 2003. State of the art of early childhood education, 2003. Based on a lecture presented at the University of Louisiana,
Lafayette, Louisianna, May 20. Eric ED475599.
Marion, M. 2003. Guidance of young children. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
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through age 8. Washington, DC: Author. Online: www.naeyc.org/about/positions/pdf/PSDAP98.PDF.
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education. Washington, DC: Author.
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childhood curriculum, assessment, and program evaluation: Building an effective, accountable system in programs for children birth
through age 8. Joint position statement. Online: www.naeyc.org/about/positions/pdf/CAPEexpand.pdf.
National Research Council. 1996. National Science Education Standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Owens, C.V. 1999. Conversational science 101A: Talking it up. Young Children 54 (5): 4–9.
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# # #
Resources for Early Learning Standards and Science
To learn more about your state's standards, visit the Web site of the Early Childhood
Assessment Consortium of the Council of Chief State School Board Officers:
www.ccsso.org/content/PDFs/ECstandards.pdf. Scroll down and click on your state.
Many state child care resource and referral agencies also provide resources and professional
development opportunities related to early learning standards. Head Start teachers can find the
Head Start Child Outcomes Framework online:
www.headstartinfo.org/pdf/soutcomespath28ppREV.pdf
Resources on Standards from NAEYC
NAEYC & NAECS/SDE (National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State
Departments of Education). 2002. Early learning standards: Creating the conditions for success.
Joint position statement. Available online: www.naeyc.org/about/positions/early_
learning_standards.asp.
Gronland, G. 2006. Make early standards come alive: Connecting your practice and curriculum
to state guidelines. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf. Available through NAEYC.
Resources for Learning More about Science and Young
Children
Chalufour, I., & K. Worth. 2003. Discovering nature with young children. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf.
Available from NAEYC.
Chalufour, I., & K. Worth. 2004. Building structures with young children. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf.
Available from NAEYC.
Chalufour, I., & K. Worth. 2005. Exploring water with young children. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf.
Available from NAEYC.
Harlan, J., & M. Rivkin. 2004. Science experiences for the early childhood years: An
integrative affective approach. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall.
Koralek, D., ed. 2003. Spotlight on young children and science. Washington, DC: NAEYC.
Rockwell, R.E., E.A. Sherwood, & R.A. Williams. 1987. Mudpies to magnets: A preschool
science curriculum. Beltsville, MD: Gryphon House.
Winnett, D.A., R.E. Rockwell, E.A. Sherwood, & R.A. Williams. 1996. Discovery science:
Explorations for the early years. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Worth, K. 2003. Worms, shadows, & whirlpools: Science in the early childhood classroom.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann; Washington, DC: NAEYC.
It's the Process: Intentional Planning and Documenting with Early
Learning Standards
Elizabeth A. Sherwood, EdD, is an assistant professor of early childhood education at Southern Illinois University
Edwardsville. She has worked for the past 30 years as a teacher, program director, and consultant. She is
coauthor of Mudpies to Magnets, Discovery Science, and other books for teachers of young children.
Amy Freshwater, PhD, is an assistant professor of child development at South-east Missouri State University.
She has contributed to teacher education efforts in Missouri for 24 years. Her research interests include early
childhood teachers' characteristics, attitudes, and behaviors, and international teaching.
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