 Today, I'm going to talk about a science activity I do with my kindergarten students that is focused around what scientists do and even more specifically, engineers. So the first thing I do is I will show the students a glass and I'll say, boys and girls, what is this? And they'll tell me it's a glass. And then I'll say, what do you do with a glass? And they'll mostly they'll say, you'll drink out of it or you pour stuff in it or you put milk in it. Any kind of those responses are correct. I'll say that's correct. This is a glass and you drink out of it. This is the structure, the physical thing that you can touch. And then it has a job. It's to hold some liquid so that you can drink out of it or so that you can pour from it. And then I'll tell them, did you know that somebody had to create this and make this? And they're very surprised and excited by that. And I said, we call those people scientists and engineers. So an engineer designed this glass so that it can hold things and that in turn you can use it and it's easier for you to use. So then I go into saying, we're going to go ahead and talk about engineers and some of the things that they do and use some specific vocabulary that engineers use. So then I'll say, we're going to read a story and we're going to look specifically for a structure in the book that's important in the story. And just like the glass, this is a structure, there's a structure in here. This one just happens to be the three billy goat's gruff. It could be any story that has some kind of structure in it. This one has a bridge in it. So what I do is I read through the story and when I get to the part where there's a bridge, I'll stop and I'll say, boys and girls, this is a bridge. The bridge is the structure. That's what it is. And the function is to cross water or to be able to get across it. And so we'll read through the rest of the story. We'll talk about the definitions of structure and function. I'll read through the story a couple of times and then I'll give the kids just various materials. So for example, when we did this science activity, I showed them things like twigs, popsicle sticks, clay, glue, tape. Really any materials you have available to you, I put all these materials into a center for the kids. And then I'll say, you are going to be scientists today. You are going to engineer a bridge. That's your job. It has to have structure and function. And so what we'll do is talk about the materials and the proper way to use the materials. And then basically I let the kids create on their own. I'll leave pictures of bridges for them to refer to. I'll also leave the book there. And what I'm doing is listening to them as they're working in their centers and creating their bridges. I want to hear the language that they're using to see if they're using the science vocabulary that I've talked to them about. And also I want to listen to them do some problem solving. So for example, if they're sitting at the center and they're creating the bridge, someone might say, no, no, we can't use those popsicle sticks. We can't stand them up this way because if I put my Play-Doh on top of it, it's going to fall down. So I want to hear problem solving. I want to hear them using vocabulary. And then after we've spent some time working on their bridges, we come back together and we have a discussion about what's going well with your structure and what isn't going well. And then we also have a talk about how scientists do the same thing and they collaborate together to try to come up with new ideas their problem solving. So that's just one way I teach science to my kindergarten students. Thanks.