Facilitator Resources
Building The Capacity Of Educators
Suites of resources on a range of early STEAM topics for facilitators and coaches to use in professional learning with educators.
Strengths-Based Approach to STEAM Family Engagement
CPE offers a strengths-based approach to family engagement in STEAM. A strengths-based approach recognizes and builds on ways families already support children’s well-being, development, and learning. Let’s explore family engagement in STEAM through the CPE principles:
- Math and science mindsets matter.
- Math and science are everywhere.
- Math and science are fun and playful.
- Math and science are for everyone.
Observe: STEAM Learning Starts Early
Observe this CPE “I’m Ready!” video showing how everyone from infancy to adults can explore STEAM.
Reflect:
How might the CPE principles raise your awareness of families’ existing STEAM practices? How might the principles help focus your agency’s STEAM family engagement efforts?
Math Transit
Math and Science Mindsets Matter
Math and science mindsets are a combination of:
- how someone feels about math and science
- what someone thinks about their own math and science ability
- what someone thinks about the math and science ability of others
Families hold the most important role in promoting children’s early math and science learning. The way families feel and think about math and science—their math and science mindsets—impacts:
- their awareness of the importance of math and science learning
- their confidence in fostering children’s math and science learning
- their family practices, such as the math and science vocabulary they use or the playful activities they do with their children
- children’s math and science mindsets
Explore the resource Engaging Families in Early Math to learn more about family beliefs and feelings about math, home math activities, and ways that educators can support family engagement in math.
Explore this Resource
Math and Science Are Everywhere
Children and adults have many opportunities to engage in math and science in homes, communities, or early learning settings. Homes refer to any setting where families provide care for their children. Early learning settings are environments where educators teach and care for children.
Families may engage in STEAM learning in the larger community, such as parks, sports fields, museums, colleges, cultural events, grocery stores, or wildlife centers. In the previous CPE “I’m Ready!” video, you observed infants exploring math concepts on the bus.
Explore community spaces as sites for STEAM family engagement experiences. Connect with community partners that reflect the diversity of families, communities, and early learning settings that your agency serves.
Observe: Everyday Play
Observe this CPE “I’m Ready!” video of a family exploring math during an everyday experience—playtime at the park.
Reflect:
- In what ways did the family playfully explore math and other STEAM topics?
- What additional opportunities for STEAM learning might there be at a park?
- How do these playful experiences strengthen family relationships and the child’s STEAM learning?
Playground Adventure
Math and Science Are Fun and Playful
Play provides many opportunities to develop and use math and science thinking skills. As people play, they make discoveries, solve problems, and collaborate.
Playful learning can deepen children’s understanding of STEAM concepts. Families may participate in playful STEAM events in their community. For example, families may join a library’s STEAM story time, visit a community art show, or attend a county fair to observe a giant pumpkin contest.
Expand on ways that families joyfully explore STEAM.
- Offer opportunities for families to co-plan family engagement experiences that are culturally meaningful to the community.
- Invite family members to join children in being curious, making discoveries, wondering, and experimenting.
- Design STEAM experiences that allow families to participate in different ways.
- Encourage children to take the lead in STEAM learning experiences.
- Offer encouragement and guidance, as needed, while families explore.
Math and Science Are for Everyone
Children naturally explore STEAM.
Impactful STEAM learning connects to children’s lived experiences, interests, and questions. Learning experiences may be inspired by families’ knowledge of the arts, such as mask-making or dance performances.
- For example, families may share their knowledge of Mexican folk dances (“baile folklórico” in Spanish), including the patterns of rhythm sticks and dance movements.
- Hmong families might participate in a cultural arts preservation group that performs traditional dances at public gatherings.
Everyone can learn math and science.
Given equitable access to opportunities, all children and adults—of any background, race, culture, ethnicity, language, gender, ability, or socioeconomic status—can learn math and science.
- Support families’ exploration, experimentation, and communication (Hardy & Kozlowski, 2020). Offer multiple representations of STEAM topics for families to connect with, such as books, songs, storytelling, videos, and tactile activities. Enable families to work together and share ideas.
- Honor existing practices, like the ways Latinx families share sayings and fables (“dichos y moralejas” in Spanish). These practices help children to analyze, persist, and problem-solve (Díaz Lara, Ochoa, & Alcalá, 2025), which are essential skills for exploring STEAM topics.
Everyone belongs in STEAM.
STEAM learning experiences increase the sense of belonging for diverse groups, such as girls, children of color, children with disabilities, and children living in low-income communities. Make STEAM accessible to all children and adults by offering:
- adaptations for access to materials and the physical learning environment (Wade et al., 2023), such as microscopes with adaptive grips or large image displays
- experiences that reflect diverse STEAM professionals and their contributions, such as a community exhibit about mathematician Gladys Mae West’s work on satellite technology
- materials that are recycled, natural, low cost, or free, which promotes equitable access for families with low incomes or who have difficulty accessing materials to tinker and engineer at home
Responsive STEAM Family Engagement Experiences
Let’s explore some ways that STEAM experiences can be responsive to the families in your community context.
- Facilitate STEAM experiences in families’ home languages (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2024).
- Plan STEAM experiences that build on the cultures of the families you serve. For example, your agency might support communities with storytelling traditions, such as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islanders, to co-create a learning experience on digital storytelling and animation.
- Welcome and value fathers, especially fathers of color. For example, some agencies host online monthly meetings for fathers to explore early math books and activities. Find out what STEAM experiences interest the father figures in your community.
- STEAM learning experiences may build on existing family and community knowledge. For example, an exploration of math and art may be inspired by intergenerational Native American knowledge of patterns and shapes in beadwork (Colbert, 2019).
- Children and adults may use gestures to share an observation of the natural world, draw an engineering idea, or physically explore a science concept by jumping or swinging. Pay attention to verbal and nonverbal communication.
- Notice the ways families support children’s self-esteem in STEAM topics like math, such as through praise and other forms of interaction and communication (Cunningham, 2021).
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Self-Study Modules
Building Your Capacity
Modules for leaders, professional learning facilitators, and coaches to build their knowledge and skills in how to provide early STEAM professional learning.
