Puppetry Path 2 Science and Math 4 Girls

In our proposed practice report session, we will describe an ongoing project that bridges the gap between literacy, science, and math for young children. The project that will be shown demonstrates in a playful hands-on manner how using puppets taps into interests of young children in science and math as they develop literacy skills at the same time. During this presentation of our practice report, the audience will have the opportunity to explore ideas and strategies for whetting the interests of young children. Examples of integrated science/math/literacy units that are a part of the practice report will be shared. These will include hands-on activities for studying math/science/literacy topics such as weather, animals, electricity, outer-space, pond biome, and more. Educators who attend the session will see how we investigated ways to promote inquiry skills during math/science/literacy experiences. Ideas and strategies using puppets and other props will be provided that showed supportive integrated instruction. The presenters will share detailed vignettes demonstrating literacy-rich science instruction in a math/literacy context. Process skills including observing, classifying, predicting, communicating, measuring, and inferring will demonstrate how in the practice report process skills were incorporated into ways where young students think scientifically