EEC Science and Mathematics

Science is all about asking questions, about being curious and interested in the world around us and how things work. Rather than using pre-determined thematic units to teach science in the EEC, teachers follow the students' curiosity. They design science projects or "emergent investigations" that arise from the children's expressed interests.

It takes more teacher effort to integrate appropriate academic standards into customized science materials and activities in response to students' interests, but the reward of eager explorations is worth it. Experiential learning at this developmental stage provides a more direct understanding of basic scientific theory and concepts, which will be reinforced later. In pre-kindergarten classes, more formal science labs are introduced.

Our math instruction begins with the understanding that pattern identification is essential to any subsequent work with numbers, just as shape recognition is a prerequisite for geometry. We use a dynamic Everyday Math program, also used in Pardue Hall, to emphasize serial progression and learning to count as the foundation for basic mathematical operations - adding, subtracting, dividing, multiplying.