I write a weekly note home to the families to accompany some photos for families to look at together and reflect on the week’s explorations with their preschool child. Sending a note home to families is part of an early childhood program’s way to strengthen the home-school connection to support families’ important work as part of the educational team. Science and Children editor Linda Froschaur cautions us to “Don’t Forget Families” and describes the benefits revealed by research about parent/family involvement, in her Editor’s Note in the February 2012 issue. Not surprisingly, student achievement, graduation rates and enrollment in post secondary education go up. 

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) recognizes the importance of connecting with families by making some articles from the journal, Young Children, free to all, such as, “What Parents Have to Teach Us About Their Dual Language Children” by Sara Michael-Luna in the November 2015 issue, Volume 70 No 5.

Additional articles, such as, “The Gifts of the Stranger: Learning From Others’ Differences” by Susan Bernheimer and Elizabeth Jones in the September 2013 Young Children, support early childhood educators in embracing the increasing ethnic diversity of our population, or other changes in our educational community. A family-teacher book club is another idea described in an article in Young Children. If the length of a book is daunting, perhaps the discussion group could focus on articles from Science and Children.

NAEYC also has a section of its website called “For Families,” with articles about child development, math, music, science, writing and reading. Read my article (for families and educators), “Turn Any Walk into a Nature Walk,” for ideas on exploring nature on a walk anywhere, including around a city block. The bonding, listening and other skills and knowledge learned while singing with an adult are some of the same skills that allow children to build understanding of science content. Such learning begins in infancy as Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer describe in “10 Ways Babies Learn When We Sing To Them!”

In “Families Learning Together: An elementary STEM-focused event brings students and families together” (Science and Children July 2015, Vol. 52 No. 9), Sarah MacDonald and Matthew Maurer describe how to use a Family STEM Night (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) to show families how STEM can be fun and exciting for K–4 students. Through the use of hands-on science and engineering activities integrated with content from separate disciplines, families were given the opportunity to work alongside and support their children’s learning.

In my experience with parents of preschoolers, seeing their child learning science content through hands-on experiences, and reflecting on them, makes an impression and supports their understanding that science learning is for everyone. If their 4-year-old can explore the electromagnetic spectrum (use flashlights to learn about light), then they will succeed, and should enroll, in science classes in high school.