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Problem Solving Activities for Preschoolers

Colleen beck otr/l.

• by Colleen Beck OTR/L
• October 22, 2021

It can be frustrating when children act without thinking of the consequences. In this blog post, you’ll learn about the development of problem solving in specific parts of our brain, discover important aspects of executive functioning that impact problem solving abilities, how to teach problem solving to preschoolers, and problem solving activities for preschoolers and young children so they can use words instead of the preschooler’s behaviors  or tantrums.

Best of all, many of our favorite fine motor activities for preschoolers support problem solving skills in early childhood.

Problem Solving Activities for Preschoolers

Before we get into the problem solving activities for preschoolers, and specific strategies to use in early childhood, it’s important to understand the development of the problem-solving process in kids. Supporting small children by giving them the skills to be problem solvers takes time and practice. We’ll get to those specific strategies below.

But first, does this scenario sound familiar at all…

I just don’t understand why Johnny keeps throwing the ball in the house. Doesn’t he realized that he could break the window? Johnny is three and he loves to play with his tennis ball in the house. Even though I have told him over and over again that we don’t throw them in the house, I still catch him sneaking them indoors at least once a week. 

Before we can address problem solving by helping kids look at the big picture and coming up with creative solutions for problem solving issues, we need to understand what is happening developmentally. Self-reflection is a challenging cognitive skill, and for young learners! 

Let’s take a better look at the development of problem solving skills…

Development of Problem Solving Skills

It’s through play, observation of others, and practice that young learners are developing problem solving skills in early childhood .

Problem solving, rational thinking and reasoning are all skills that are controlled by a part of our brain called the prefrontal cortex. Our brains grow exponentially over the first five years of life, but not the part of our brain that helps us with critical thinking and problem solving skills. This part of our brain, called the prefrontal cortex, isn’t fully developed until we turn 25 years old! 

As babies, we are exposed every day to new experiences, but at this age we don’t comprehend how these experiences affect us and those around us. If only children could think through their problems. This resource on executive functioning skills offers more information.

Have you noticed that it can be a bit scary when teenagers get their drivers licenses? They don’t always think of “what might happen.” This is due to their prefrontal cortex not being fully developed. 

But what about our three and four year olds? We know they can count, ask questions and get the cookie off the counter in a very sneaky way when we aren’t looking. In the Early Years study of 2011 called Making decisions, Taking action , they describe the prefrontal cortex entering a rapid period of development, making critical interconnections with our limbic system. (link: )

This study states “The prefrontal cortex pathways that underlie these capacities are unique to human brains and take a long time to mature. Early connections begin in infancy. Between age 3 and 5 years, the prefrontal cortex circuits enter a rapid period of development and make critical interconnections with the limbic system. During adolescence and early adulthood, the neural pathways are refined and become more efficient.”

What is so great about this part of the brain anyway? 

As the prefrontal cortex (that is located behind out eyes) develops over the years, we are able to engage with situations differently, assessing our surroundings in a new way. As we develop these new executive functioning skills, we are able to keep ourselves safe, build friendships and become successful in our careers.

Related, these friendship activities for preschoolers offers ideas and strategies to support social emotional development.

This peer reviewed report competed by Merve Cikili Utyun, called Development Period of Prefrontal Cortex, discusses how amazing this part of our brain is, and how each of the three sections control different aspects of our functioning. It states that: 

“ PFC includes the following Broadman Areas (BA): 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 44, 45, 46, 47. “The dorsolateral frontal cortex (BA) 9/46 has been functioned in many cognitive process, including processing spatial information, monitoring and manipulation of working memory, the implementation of strategies to facilitate memory, response selection, the organization of material before encoding, and the verification and evaluation of representations that have been retrieved from long-term memory. 

The mid-ventrolateral frontal cortex (BA 47) has implicated cognitive functions, including the selection, comparison, and judgment of stimuli held in short-term and long-term memory, processing non-spatial information, task switching, reversal learning, stimulus selection, the specification of retrieval cues, and the ‘elaboration encoding’ of information into episodic memory.

BA 10, the most anterior aspect of the PFC, is a region of association cortex known to be involved in higher cognitive functions, such as planning future actions and decision-making. BAs 44 and 45, include part of the inferior frontal and these regions’ functions are language production, linguistic motor control, sequencing, planning, syntax, and phonological processing.

Finally, the orbitofrontal cortex mostly (BA 47, 10, 11, 13) in the orbitofrontal cortex has been implicated in processes that involve the motivational or emotional value of incoming information, including the representation of primary (unlearned) reinforcers such as taste, smell, and touch, the representation of learnt relationships between arbitrary neutral stimuli and rewards or punishments, and the integration of this information to guide response selection, suppression, and decision making.” 

Wow! No wonder it takes so long for this part of our brain to fully develop. Problem solving skills in preschoolers take time to develop!

When Johnny is throwing the ball inside the house, he is thinking about what is happening now, in the present. Not what has happened in the past (when he broke the window at grandmas house a year ago) or that breaking a window might happen in the future. 

What are some problem solving techniques?

Solving problems is a skill that all preschoolers need support with. This critical skill doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time and practice to become second nature.

It’s hard for us, as adults, to remember that children ages 3-5 (preschool-aged) don’t yet have the brain capacity to problem solve on their own, or remember what they learned from a situation a week ago. 

Just like when Andrew was painting at the easel and his paintbrush got stuck in the container. Instead of asking for help or trying to “unstick” the brush, he screamed.  Or when Sally and Samantha ran outside to grab the red bouncy ball, Samantha screamed when Sally grabs it first. She didn’t see the other red bouncy ball in the bucket next to the bikes. 

Try some of these problem solving activities for  kids :

Observation- Children need problem solving strategies that they can observe, and then practice in their everyday lives. Let kids see you talk through problems as you “figure out” a solution. This gives children a chance to see a problem-solving approach in real life situations. They get to see problem solving scenarios in action.

Repetition- Repetition supports brain growth in every area of development including problem solving, executive functioning, motor development, language skills and social development.

Multisensory Activities- Children learn best with multi-sensory cues, learning new skills through seeing, touching, hearing and experiencing the skills they are learning. In 2013, the US National Library of Medicine published an article titled  Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat.  stating “The prefrontal cortex acquires information from all of the senses and orchestrates thoughts and actions in order to achieve specific goals.” (link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621648/)

Creative Activities- Solving problems is a skill that all preschoolers need support with. It’s hard for us, as adults, to remember they don’t yet have the brain capacity to problem solve on their own. The best way to teach children how to problem solve, it to create activities that support these new skills in a positive way, that their developing brain understands. This letter to future self is one activity to work on goal achievement even at a young age. Preschoolers can draw a picture of what they would like to do or be as an older child or as a teenager or adult.

Problem Solving Activities for Preschool

Here are 3 Simple Ways to Teach Preschoolers to Solve Problems

1.Teaching executive functioning and problem solving skills in everyday situations will support the growth of a child’s prefrontal cortex. For example, these activities that teach executive functioning at the beach show how much thought and preparation goes into building a simple sand castles.

• Children have to think about how much sand to use, how to keep it standing, how to prevent sand from getting into their eyes and how to create another one if the one they are building falls down.
• They must create, plan ahead, problem solve when things get tough and communicate to adults and peers for help.

What other activities does your child do on a regular basis that requires all areas of the prefrontal cortex to activate?

2.When children become upset, their emotions become so overwhelming that they can’t think. In order to calm down and problem solve, they need to access a multi sensory way to help them remember how to do that.

Soothing Sammy gives children tactile and visual cues that remind them how to calm down and problem solve in a developmentally appropriate way. They can be reminded of this positive reinforcement with two words “Sammy Time!”

By reading the book about the sweet golden retriever, who understands that everyone feels upset sometimes, children are encouraged to use all of the sensory strategies to calm down. They can talk to Sammy about what is happening and think through their problem to create a solution.

Ashlie’s four year old daughter did just this. She reports: “When Molly was having some big emotions about coloring a picture and needed to calm down, she visited Sammy and returned with a solution to the problem she came up with all on her own (well with Sammy’s help).”

Click here for more information on the Soothing Sammy resources .

3.Problem solving requires us to remember what just happened, what is happening now and what do we want to happen next. A preschoolers brain tends to blend all three of these situations together, not able to communicate any of them until prompted by an adult. And as an adult, we are left “guessing” what our children are thinking about. Visual cues are a wonderful sensory communication tool to support both children and adults in the realm of solving problems.

Using tools like “First/Then” cards to support routine and common situations like transitions and completing tasks. Using visuals clearly communicates what needs to be done, especially if using pictures of real children doing these tasks.

A Final note about problem solving skills in preschool

Solving problems are hard for young children, even teenagers, as their prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed yet. Using multisensory teaching tools to support brain development, practicing tasks that teach executive functioning skills and using developmentally appropriate tools to help children calm down, will help even the most frustrating moments become a bit less stressful for children and adults. 

As we learn to be more patient with children, understanding that the part of their brain needed to solve problems is just beginning to develop, repeating the same directions over and over again may not be so frustrating. Our children are doing the best they can. It’s up to us to provide them with experiences to help their brains grow and develop. 

Jeana Kinne is a veteran preschool teacher and director. She has over 20 years of experience in the Early Childhood Education field. Her Bachelors Degree is in Child Development and her Masters Degree is in Early Childhood Education. She has spent over 10 years as a coach, working with Parents and Preschool Teachers, and another 10 years working with infants and toddlers with special needs. She is also the author of the “Sammy the Golden Dog” series, teaching children important skills through play.

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Problem Solving with Others

Problem solving with others.

The skills needed to solve problems are learned just like academic skills – they don’t develop on their own or overnight

At a Glance

Preschool children are still learning how to effectively resolve disagreements. To do so, they need to take the perspective of another person and understand how their actions impact others. For example, a child is not likely to think about how taking a toy from another child would make that child mad or sad, which stands in the way of finding a safe, fair solution. You can empower children to learn to solve their own problems by helping them to identify the problem, take another child’s perspective, and implement a solution when issues arise.

• Get to Know This Skill

What It Looks Like

A quick glance at how you can help preschoolers develop their problem-solving skills, practice solving problems.

Encouraging children to think about and practice problem solving can prepare them to come up with solutions in the moment.

Problem Solving During Center Time

Promote children’s problem solving skills by having them think and talk about the issue. Then work with them as they explore and agree on a resolution.

Use Solutions Cards

Using solution cards prompts children to find and accept solutions. Supports like this work to build children’s ability to problem solve.

CLASSROOM STRATEGIES

Teach, Model, Support

Young children are still learning how to socialize, collaborate, and negotiate with others. With our support, children can learn these valuable skills and work together to find solutions as challenges arise. Learn key strategies you can use to teach social problem solving in advance and support it in the moment.

TRAUMA-INFORMED CARE

The Power of Play

A brief video from the Harvard Center on the Developing Child explores how play in early childhood can reduce stress (including trauma-related stress) and scaffold problem solving.

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FAMILY CONNECTION

Families as a Resource

In this article from the Center for Responsive Schools, Carol Davis shares how educators can have conversations with families about problems that occur in the classroom.

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CONSIDERING EQUITY

Considering Culture

In this NAEYC webinar, Dr. Isik-Ercan offers transformative yet practical tips educators can use to understand children’s cultural backgrounds and to support children as they encounter and solve social problems.

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PROBLEM SOLVING THROUGH BOOKS

Share and Take Turns

Written by Cheri J. Meiners, this book provides many opportunities to talk and think about social situations that young children may encounter in the classroom, such as sharing toys or taking turns.

Activity Cards for Preschool Classrooms

Part of the streamin 3 curriculum, these activity cards provide simple and fun ways you can prompt children to collaborate and solve problems together.

Solve A Problem

Create typical social scenarios that children can use to brainstorm solutions.

Partner Talk

Invite children to turn to a peer and ask them something about their life.

Dance Party

You and children will work together to create a new dance.

People Sort!

Challenge children to sort themselves by patterns or colors on their clothing.

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10 Ways to Strengthen Your Preschooler’s Problem-Solving Skills

As an adult, you make many decisions throughout your day without even thinking twice about some– from setting up the coffee machine at home to avoiding the long line at the drive-thru that can make you late to work to having a difficult but necessary conversation with your partner about finances. These are just a few examples of problem-solving skills and how you adapt to the situations around you and use your skills to exist on personal, professional, and social levels. 

While some problem-solving skills are innate, your ability to access a situation and take a course of action is based on the fact that when you were a child, the adults around you taught you problem-solving skills. Our Raleigh early-childhood development center is sharing our best advice for anyone looking to strengthen their pre-schoolers problem-solving skills. 

What is Problem Solving in Early Childhood?

Problem-solving refers to the ability to find a solution to a problem. For preschool-aged children, this can be difficult to learn if not modeled for them through the appropriate ways to react to the issues they face. 

For instance, if two children are playing with a toy and one pushes the other in an effort to take the toy, this is clearly an inappropriate way to react to the problem. Furthermore, screaming or yelling for the child to give them the toy is also not a proper way to solve the issue. To model mature and proper problem-solving skills, adults around the child should be practicing the concept of sharing, patience, and communication while avoiding physical and emotional reactions when they don’t get what they want.

When the child learns that they can ask the other child, “Can I play with the toy next?” or understand the concept that another child was playing with the toy first, they are exhibiting the ability to problem solve. 

Why is it Important to Develop Problem Solving Skills in Early Childhood?

Children aged 3 to 5 are developmentally experiencing growth in the following areas: 

• Cognitive 
• Emotional 
• Language 
• Sensory 
• Motor 

Because this time for preschoolers is so substantial to their intellectual, emotional, and social development, the world around them can seem overwhelming, unfair, intimidating, and even confusing. By modeling and teaching problem-solving skills to preschoolers , they can learn how to react logically, think creatively, communicate their needs, and assess how best to react to a situation at hand. 

How Can You Teach Problem Solving Skills to Your Children?

It is the responsibility of the adults who raise and teach children to provide kids with opportunities to strengthen their problem-solving skills in early childhood. If you are a parent, guardian, childcare provider, or early-childhood educator, it’s important to consider the best strategies for helping little ones adapt to the world around them and learn problem-solving skills. And remember, it can be frustrating when things do not work out as expected for anyone at any age, particularly for preschool-aged children who are just learning to adapt to their surroundings. 

When teaching your preschool-aged child how to problem solve, consider these four steps that are used in early-childhood classrooms : 

• Identify the problem
• Brainstorm solutions to the problem
• Choose and implement one of the solutions
• Evaluate how that solution resolved the problem

Following this four-step guideline can help the adults in a preschooler’s life address how a child acquires problem-solving techniques to help them navigate through the difficult and everyday situations that arise. 

When teaching problem-solving, focus on developing these key skills that relate to problem-solving: 

• Lateral thinking
• Decision-making
• Communication
• Persistence
• Negotiation
• Logical thinking
• Analytical thinking

10 Problem-Solving Activities for Preschoolers

You know that you want to guide your child through developing and strengthening strategies for problem-solving, but where do you begin? Our early-childhood development school is sharing some of our favorite ways to incorporate problem-solving activities into your life so that you can teach your child to grow on a personal and social level. 

#1 – Use Everyday Moments

You do not need a textbook or outline of how to teach your preschooler problem-solving. Simply using everyday moments to demonstrate problem-solving techniques is more useful than any “how to” book or homework assignment can teach your child. 

Going to the grocery store, driving in the car, making dinner at home, and cleaning the house are all everyday opportunities to present your child with decisions related to problem-solving. Having your child put ingredients away in the pantry while you cook, asking your child what aisle at the supermarket they think you can find a particular item, or seeing that there is a mess of toys and supplies and directing the child to initiate where they should be placed prior to starting a new activity are ways to integrate problem-solving into everyday moments. 

#2 – Look to the Child for the Solution

As your child grows up, they will not always have you by their side to solve each and every problem that arises. From issues with friends, future relationships, and future careers, the child you raise will one day become an independent adult who needs to problem-solve on their own. 

Asking children to weigh in for solutions to problems as they arise is one way to get them thinking critically early on in life. When a child is taught to not only assess an obstacle but to trust their own decision-making abilities to resolve a problem, they will be better equipped for success as they get older. 

#3 – Solve Mathematical Problems

Mathematics is a great way to engage children at an early age in problem-solving and solution-making activities. Math is logical and non-emotional, having very clear set rules and boundaries with a single solution is one prime example of problem-solving. When children are given age-appropriate mathematical problems and math word problems, they are given opportunities to troubleshoot and follow an order of operation that leads to a solution.

#4 – Ask Open-Ended Questions

As adults, we often find that the most convenient way to get through the day when caring for a preschooler is to complete tasks for them so that we can get on with our busy day. However, it’s important to pause and present your child with the opportunity to find their own solutions to problems they are faced with by using open-ended questions. 

For instance, your child cannot find their favorite pair of shoes. Rather than tear the house apart on your own looking for them, present the child with a question: “Where did you last wear those shoes?” or “When did you last see your shoes?” This requires your child to consider where they last may have placed them. Additionally, a question like, “If we can’t find those shoes right now, you’ll need to choose a different pair to wear so we aren’t late.” guides them toward finding an alternative solution to the problem. 

Giving children the opportunity to find their own solutions to issues that arise by asking open-ended questions equips them with problem-solving skills they will need throughout life when things do not always go as planned. 

#5 – Puzzles and Board Games

Puzzles and board games, much like math equations, allow children to use their cognitive problem-solving abilities to complete tasks in a fun and unique way. Pre-schoolers are often drawn to images and visual learning components as well as interactive play. Putting puzzles together allows for pattern recognition, while board games allow for interactive problem-solving techniques to be utilized through a set of rules. Incorporating puzzles and games into the lives of children are excellent ways to get them to think critically and find solutions that offer immediate results. 

#6 – Read Books and Tell Stories

Books and storytelling are always exceptional ways to build vocabulary and introduce kids to characters and situations outside of their own. When children are given the opportunity to relate to characters and situations, and then address how those characters can react and engage in their conflicts and interpersonal relationships, it not only fosters imagination and creativity but also problem-solving skills. 

#7 – Center Emotions

As adults we understand that while reacting emotionally to a situation is sometimes natural, it does not get us very far when it comes to solving a problem. Children should be taught how to center those emotions, without shame or guilt by providing an alternative to emotional responses. This is often in the form of learning communication and language. 

If your son’s best friend hurt his feelings, he should not be made to feel that he shouldn’t feel how he is feeling. Having your feelings hurt, particularly by a friend, is, well, hurtful, and there should be no shame attached to that feeling. However, when it comes to addressing those hurt feelings to the friend, it would be inappropriate to shout, “I hate you!” or “I don’t want to be your friend anymore!” Rather, providing your preschool-aged child with words and phrases for when their feelings are hurt is essential to emotional and social development. 

Teaching your son to tell his friend, “It hurts my feelings when you say that” or “I get sad when you are mean to me” are great ways to help children not only process their emotional feelings but express them in appropriate ways that lead to a resolution. 

#8 – Model Problem-Solving Behaviors

Children look to the adults in their lives for how to handle the problems they face in the world. If your child sees you politely ask a waiter to return a plate of food that was incorrectly served, they will learn that proper communication, respect, and patience lead to resolution. In contrast, if a child sees their parents speak rudely and blame a waiter for an incorrect order, they will learn that emotional reactions are the way to address problems. As a parent and caretaker, it is your responsibility to use mistakes, obstacles, and hardships as learning opportunities passed on to your preschool-aged children, demonstrating first-hand that non-emotional responses, kindness, and communication are the keys to getting most issues resolved. 

#9 – Break Down Problems into Chunks

As an adult, one of the ways to get through major projects at work is to set up a schedule that breaks down a large-scale project into smaller portions. Using this technique in childhood education and development is a successful way to teach children how doing one small task can lead to an overall greater, larger picture in the long run. Since a large task can seem overwhelming or even impossible, breaking it down into smaller, easily achievable pieces that will eventually lead to the full, complete picture is a wonderful way to help children of any age, but particularly preschool-aged, tackle large issues without feeling the weight of the big picture.

#10 – Utilize Natural Curiosities and Interests 

Using natural, organic opportunities for learning and problem-solving is always one of the best ways to foster creativity as well as logical and analytical thinking. All children are naturally drawn to some interest– whether it’s unicorns, dinosaurs, airplanes, trucks, or the color blue… every child has something that they become naturally drawn to, often to the surprise of their parents. 

For example, maybe every time your daughter sees the mailman drop off the mail, she is fascinated. Maybe her face lit up with interest and excitement to check what was left in the mailbox today. This is an opportunity to ask questions that lead to analytical thinking and problem-solving. Inquiring, “what does the mail carrier drop off at other houses?” or teaching the concept of writing a letter to grandma and how it goes through the mail can continue to foster interests while teaching logical steps, planning, and problem-solving techniques. 

Enroll Your Child in an Interactive Preschool Care System 

It’s no secret that when a child is at preschool age they are naturally curious and soak up all the information around them. By teaching your child problem-solving skills, they are better equipped to handle the everyday struggles the world has to face. However, the professionals at our preschool development center understand that busy working schedules, multiple children, and life’s responsibilities do not always make it easy for parents to dedicate time to fostering and strengthening problem-solving skills in their children. 

If you have a preschool-aged child who will benefit from emotional, social, and personal development related to problem-solving, contact Primary Beginnings to enroll your child in our 5-star preschool program in Raleigh. 

Contact us today at 919-790-6888 for our Spring Forest Rd. location or 919-785-0303 for our North Hills Dr. location, or fill out our contact form below. 

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Importance of Problem Solving Skills  and How to Nurture them in your Child

We all face problems on a daily basis. You, me—our kids aren’t even exempted. Across all different age groups, there rarely is a day when we don’t experience them.

Teaching our kids to develop resilience can help as they face these challenges. Practical problem solving skills are just as necessary to teach our kids. The methods needed to resolve problems may require other skills such as creativity, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, teamwork, decision making, etc.

Unlike with math problems, life doesn’t just come with one formula or guidebook that’s applicable to solve every little problem we face. Being adaptable to various situations is important. So is nurturing problem solving skills in your child. 

Here we’ll take a look at the importance of problem solving skills and some ways to nurture them in your child. 

Why do we need problem-solving skills?

One thing that always comes up when we speak of problem-solving skills are the benefits for one’s mental health .

Problems are often complex. This means that problem solving skills aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution to all problems.

Strengthening and nurturing this set of skills helps children cope with challenges as they come. They can face and resolve a wider variety of problems with efficiency and without resulting in a breakdown.

This will help develop your child’s independence, allowing for them to grow into confident, responsible adults. 

Another importance of problem-solving skills is its impact on relationships . Whether they be friendships, family, or business relationships, poor problem solving skills may result in relationships breaking apart.

Being able to get to the bottom of a problem and find solutions together, with all the parties involved, helps keep relationships intact and eliminate conflicts as they arise. Being adept at this skill may even help strengthen and deepen relationships.

What steps can you take to nurture your child’s problem-solving skills?

Nurturing problem-solving skills in your child requires more than just focusing on the big picture and laying out steps to resolve problems. It requires that you teach them to find and focus on a problem’s essential components.

This may challenge your child’s critical thinking and creativity, among other things. 

Critical Thinking

This refers to the ability of breaking down a complex problem and analyzing its component parts.

The ability to do that will make it easier to come up with logical solutions to almost any problem. Being able to sort through and organize that pile of smaller chunks of information helps them face problems with ease. It also prevents your child from feeling overwhelmed when a huge barrier is laid out in front of them. 

Help your child practice critical thinking by asking them questions. Open-ended questions specifically help them think outside the box and analyze the situation.

Teach them to look into possible reasons why something is the way it is. Why is the sky blue? Why are plants green? Encourage them to be curious and ask questions themselves. 

Creative thinking is being able to look at different possible reasons and solutions in the context of problem-solving. It’s coming up with ideas and finding new ways of getting around a problem. Or being open to different ways of looking at an object or scenario.

Creative thinking is best nurtured with activities that involve reflection.

Try getting your child’s viewpoint on topics that may have different answers or reasons for taking place. Get them in the habit of brainstorming ideas, doing story-telling activities, and reading books. All of these help broaden a person’s thinking and flex their creative muscles.

Encourage Independence 

It’s important to retain your role as an observer, supporter, or facilitator. Step back and let your kids try out their own solutions. Watch what happens while ensuring their safety and well-being.

As an observer, you encourage independence by stepping back and watching how your child resolves the problem in their own way. It may take longer than it would if you jumped in, but leaving them to their own devices can do a lot for nurturing their skills at problem solving. 

Support your child by appreciating and acknowledging their efforts. Create a space where they can freely and effectively express their ideas without fear of judgement. Present them with opportunities to play and solve problems on their own. Encourage them to express themselves by brainstorming activities that they might want to do instead of telling them what to do.

These simple steps of overseeing your child can help them become more independent and be resilient enough to tackle problems on their own. 

Here at Early Childhood University , we value the importance of enhancing problem solving skills, creativity and critical thinking. Send your little ones to a school that focuses on a child’s holistic development. Give us a call for more information. 

10 Simple Activities to Teach Your Preschooler Problem Solving

By: Author Tanja McIlroy

Posted on Last updated: 7 April 2024

Categories Activities for Preschoolers & Kindergarteners

During the first years of a child’s life, an important set of cognitive skills known as problem-solving abilities are developed. These skills are used throughout childhood and into adulthood.

Find out what problem solving is, why it’s important and how you can develop these skills with 10 problem-solving games and activities.

What is Problem Solving in Early Childhood?

So, what exactly is problem solving? Quite simply, it refers to the process of finding a solution to a problem .

A person uses their own knowledge and experience, as well as the information at hand to try and reach a solution. Problem solving is therefore about the thought processes involved in finding a solution.

This could be as complex as an adult working out how to get out of a financial crisis or as simple as a child working out how two blocks fit together.

Problem Solving Skills for Kids

Problem-solving skills refer to the specific thinking skills a person uses when faced with a challenge. Some problems require the use of many skills, while others are simple and may only require one or two skills.

These are some examples of problem-solving skills for preschoolers , as listed by kent.ac.uk .

• Lateral thinking
• Analytical thinking
• Decision-making skills
• Logical reasoning
• Persistence
• Communication skills
• Negotiation skills

The Importance of Developing Problem-Solving Skills in Early Childhood

Problem solving is a skill that would be difficult to suddenly develop as an adult. While you can still improve a skill at any age, the majority of learning occurs during the early years.

Preschool is the best time for a child to learn to problem solve in a fun way. The benefits of learning early will last a lifetime and the beauty of learning anything at a young age is that it is effortless .

It is like learning to play an instrument or picking up a new language – it’s just much easier and more natural at an early age.

Of all the many things preschoolers need to learn , what makes problem solving so important?

There aren’t many situations in life, at work or at school that don’t require some level of problem resolution.

Child’s play itself is filled with opportunity upon opportunity to solve all kinds of tricky situations and come up with solutions to challenges.

Problem Solving in Preschool

During the foundational years, children are constantly solving problems as they play .

Here are just a few examples of problem solving in early childhood :

• Resolving a fight over the same toy
• Reaching a ball that’s stuck in the tree
• Forming a circle while holding hands
• Making a bridge to connect two block towers
• Tying or untying a shoe
• Making up rules for a new game
• Trying to get the consistency of a mud cake right so it stops falling over

The more creative play opportunities and challenges children are given, the more they get to exercise their problem-solving muscles.

During free play , there are non-stop experiences for this, and parents and teachers can also encourage specific problem-solving skills through guided activities .

Problem Solving for Older Children

During the grades, children experience problems in many forms, some of which may be related to their academic, social and emotional well-being at school. Problems may come in the form of dealing with life issues, such as:

• Problems with friendships
• Struggling to understand something during a lesson
• Learning to balance the demands of sport and homework
• Finding the best way to study for a test
• Asking a teacher for help when needed

Problems will also form a large part of academic life as teachers will be actively developing this skill through various activities, for example:

• Solving a riddle or understanding a work of literature
• Working on projects with a friend
• Finding solutions during science experiments
• Solving mathematical problems
• Solving hypothetical problems during lessons
• Answering questions and completing exam papers

Children who have had practice during preschool will be a lot more capable when facing these challenges.

Solving Problems in Mathematics

Mathematics needs to be mentioned separately as although it is part of schooling, it is such a huge part and it depends heavily on a child’s ability to solve problems.

The entire subject of mathematics is based on solving problems. Whether you are adding 2 and 3, working out how many eggs will fit into each basket, or solving an algebraic expression, there is a problem in every question.

Mathematics is just a series of problems that need to be solved.

What we refer to as problem solving in Maths is usually answering word problems .

The reason many children find these so difficult to answer is that the question is presented as a problem through a story, rather than just numbers with symbols telling you what operation to use (addition, division, etc.)

This means a child is forced to think carefully, understand the problem and determine the best way to solve it.

These problems can involve various units (e.g. mass, capacity or currency) as well as fractions, decimals, equations and angles, to name a few. Problems tend to become more and more complex over the years.

My experience in the classroom has shown that many, many children struggle with solving word problems, from the early grades right into the senior years.

They struggle to analyze the question, understand it, determine what information they’ve been given, and what exactly they are required to solve.

The good news is that exposing a child to regular problem-solving activities and games in preschool can greatly help him to solve word problems later on in school.

If you need one good reason to do these kinds of activities, let it be for a smoother experience in mathematics – a subject so many children unnecessarily fear.

Problem Solving in the Workplace

Adults in the workplace seldom thrive without problem-solving skills. They are required to regularly solve problems .

As adults, employees are expected to independently deal with the frequent challenges, setbacks and problems that are a big part of every working environment.

Those who can face and solve their own problems will go further and cope better than those who seek constant help from others or cannot show initiative.

Some  career websites even refer to problem solving as a universal job skill. They also mention that many employees are not good at it. 

Again, although it may seem far removed, learning this skill at a young age will help a child cope right into adulthood and in the working world.

How to Teach Children Problem-Solving Skills

If early childhood is the best time to grow these skills in your young children, then how does one go about teaching them to toddlers, preschoolers and kindergarteners?

Problem solving can be taught in such a way that you expose your child to various opportunities where they will be faced with challenges.

You would not necessarily sit your 3-year-old down and tell or “teach” him all about fixing problems. Instead, you want to create opportunities for your child to grow this skill .

Using the brain to think and find solutions is a bit like working a muscle over time. Eventually, your muscle gets stronger and can handle more “ weight. ” Your child will learn to problem solve in two ways:

• Incidentally – through free play
• Through guided opportunities provided by a parent or teacher

If you make a point of encouraging thinking through games and activities, your child will develop stronger skills than if you let it all happen incidentally.

Problem-Solving Strategies and Steps

If we take a look at the steps involved in solving a problem, we can see that there are many layers involved and different types of skills. Here are the problem-solving steps according to the University of Ken. 

Step 1: Identify the problem

Step 2: Define the problem

Step 3: Examine the options

Step 4: Act on a plan

Step 5: Look at the consequences

Therefore, activities at a preschool level need not present complicated high-level problems.

• A simple activity such as identifying differences in a picture can work on the first skill needed – identifying a problem.
• Playing with construction toys can develop a child’s ability to try various solutions and examine the options when faced with a problem such as trying to find the best way to build something.
• Playing Tic-Tac-Toe would make a child predict the consequences of placing their mark in a particular square.

The most basic of activities can work on all these skills and make children competent solution finders.

How to Teach Problem Solving with Questions

The language you use around your child and your questioning technique will also greatly affect their understanding of a problem or challenge as merely something waiting for a solution to be found .

While your child is playing or when she comes to you with a problem, ask open-ended questions that will guide her in finding a potential answer independently. Use the steps listed above to formulate your questions.

Here are some examples of questions:

• What do you think made the tower of blocks fall down?
• If we build it again, how can we change the structure so that it won’t fall down next time?
• Is there a better way we can do it? If you think of a different way, we can both try it and see which works better.
• Did that work? The tower fell again so let’s try another solution.

Resist the temptation to fix every one of your child’s problems, including conflict with friends or siblings. These are important opportunities for children to learn how to resolve things by negotiating, thinking and reasoning.

With time, your child will get used to seeing a problem, understanding it, weighing up the options, taking action and evaluating the consequences.

Problems will be seen as challenges to be faced logically and not “problems.”

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10 Problem-Solving Activities for Preschoolers

Here are 10 simple, easy games and problem solving activities for kids at home or at school. Many of them are the kinds of activities children should have daily exposure to.

Puzzles are one of the best thinking activities out there. Each puzzle is basically one big set of muddled-up things to be sorted out and put back together again. Find out why puzzles are important for development .

Children should have regular exposure to puzzles. They are great for developing thinking skills.

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2. Memory games

Memory games will develop your child’s memory and attention to detail.

Get your own memory game cards by downloading the FREE set of printables at the end of the post.

Use pairs of matching pictures and turn them all face down, shuffled, on a table. Take turns choosing any two cards and turning them face up on the table. If you turn over a matching pair you keep the cards and if the pair doesn’t match, turn the cards back over until it is your turn to try again.

Encourage your child to concentrate and pay attention to where the pictures are and try to find a matching pair on each turn. 

3. Building with Construction Toys

Construction toys such as engineering blocks, a proper set of wooden blocks or Legos (shown below) should be a daily staple in your home.

Everything your child builds is a challenge because it requires thinking about what to build and how to put the pieces together to get a design that works and is functional.

Leave your child to construct freely and occasionally set a challenge and ask him to build a specific structure, with conditions. For example:

• Make two towers with a bridge joining them together
• Build a creature that stands on its own and has 3 arms.

Then watch your child wracking his brain until he finds a way to make his structure work.

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4.  Activity Books

These activity books are really fun and develop a child’s ability to identify problems and search for information.

• Pomaska, Anna (Author)
• English (Publication Language)

• Handford, Martin (Author)

• Books, Webber (Author)

5. Following Patterns

This simple activity can be played with a set of coloured blocks, shapes or counters.

Simply make a pattern with the blocks and ask your child to continue it. Vary the pattern by changing the colours, shapes or sizes.

This activity will train your child to analyse the given information, make sense of it, recognise the pattern and re-create it.

6. Story Time Questions

Get into the habit of asking questions during your daily story time that develop higher-order thinking skills . Instead of just reading and your child passively listening, ask questions throughout, concentrating on solving problems.

Here are some examples:

• Why do you think the bear did that?
• Do you think his friend will be happy? Why?
• What would you do if you were the monkey?
• How do you think Peter can make things better with his friend?
• If the crocodile had decided not to eat the rabbit, how could the story have ended?

7. Board Games

Board games are an excellent way to develop problem-solving skills.

Start off with simple games like Ludo and Snakes and Ladders to teach the skill of following rules and moving in a logical sequence.

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Card games like Go Fish are also great for teaching young children to think ahead and solve problems.

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8.  Tic-Tac-Toe

This is a perfect game to teach decision-making skills , thinking before acting and weighing up the possible consequences.

Use a Tic Tac Toe Board or d raw a simple table like the one above on paper or a chalkboard.

• Wooden tic-tac-toe game board with eye-catching red, orange, blue, and green color pattern
• Includes white-framed wooden board with indented squares for mess-free play, 10 colored x and O game tiles,...

Take turns to add a nought or a cross to the table and see who can make a row of three first.

Your child will probably catch on in no time and start thinking carefully before placing their symbol. This game can also be played with coloured counters or different objects.

9. Classifying and Grouping Activities

This activity can be done with a tin of buttons or beads or even by unpacking the dishwasher. The idea is to teach the skill of classifying and categorizing information by learning with physical objects. Here are some other ideas for categorizing:

• Separate the washing – mom’s clothes, dad’s clothes, etc; or socks, tops, shorts, etc.
• Empty out the cutlery drawer for cleaning, mix all the utensils up and then sort into knives, tablespoons, teaspoons, etc.
• Classify and sort out the toys in your child’s bedroom together – all books, construction toys, soft toys, etc.
• Play category games .

Here are more button activities for kids .

10. Building a Maze

This activity is lots of fun and suitable for any age. It is also going to be way more fun than doing a maze in an activity book, especially for younger children.

Draw a big maze on the paving with sidewalk chalk . Make passages, including one or two that end in a dead-end. Teach your child to find her way out .

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As your child gets better at figuring out a route and finding the way out, make the maze more complex and add more dead-end passages.

If you’d like to receive a FREE set of fun printables, games and rhymes for preschoolers, as well as regular emails with useful tips and play-based activity ideas, join either the Newsletter for Parents or the Newsletter for Preschool Teachers below.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Friday 3rd of June 2022

hi maam , This Is Uma from India,Can i get this in pdf format or a book. Thank You

Tanja Mcilroy

Monday 6th of June 2022

Hi Uma, thanks for your message. These articles are not available in PDF, but you are welcome to copy and paste them from the website, as long as you add the reference: https://empoweredparents.co/problem-solving-activities-preschoolers/ Thanks for reading!

Wednesday 20th of May 2020

Very very useful content. Good work. Thank you.

Friday 22nd of May 2020

Thanks Ann.

Tuesday 19th of May 2020

Would like to download the free activity pack please.

Hi Kelly, Please download the activity pack on this page: www.empoweredparents.co

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How to Teach Kids Problem-Solving Skills

KidStock / Blend Images / Getty Images

• Steps to Follow
• Allow Consequences

Whether your child can't find their math homework or has forgotten their lunch, good problem-solving skills are the key to helping them manage their life. 

A 2010 study published in Behaviour Research and Therapy found that kids who lack problem-solving skills may be at a higher risk of depression and suicidality.   Additionally, the researchers found that teaching a child problem-solving skills can improve mental health . 

You can begin teaching basic problem-solving skills during preschool and help your child sharpen their skills into high school and beyond.

Why Problem-Solving Skills Matter

Kids face a variety of problems every day, ranging from academic difficulties to problems on the sports field. Yet few of them have a formula for solving those problems.

Kids who lack problem-solving skills may avoid taking action when faced with a problem.

Rather than put their energy into solving the problem, they may invest their time in avoiding the issue.   That's why many kids fall behind in school or struggle to maintain friendships .

Other kids who lack problem-solving skills spring into action without recognizing their choices. A child may hit a peer who cuts in front of them in line because they are not sure what else to do.  

Or, they may walk out of class when they are being teased because they can't think of any other ways to make it stop. Those impulsive choices may create even bigger problems in the long run.

The 5 Steps of Problem-Solving

Kids who feel overwhelmed or hopeless often won't attempt to address a problem. But when you give them a clear formula for solving problems, they'll feel more confident in their ability to try. Here are the steps to problem-solving:  

• Identify the problem . Just stating the problem out loud can make a big difference for kids who are feeling stuck. Help your child state the problem, such as, "You don't have anyone to play with at recess," or "You aren't sure if you should take the advanced math class." 
• Develop at least five possible solutions . Brainstorm possible ways to solve the problem. Emphasize that all the solutions don't necessarily need to be good ideas (at least not at this point). Help your child develop solutions if they are struggling to come up with ideas. Even a silly answer or far-fetched idea is a possible solution. The key is to help them see that with a little creativity, they can find many different potential solutions.
• Identify the pros and cons of each solution . Help your child identify potential positive and negative consequences for each potential solution they identified. 
• Pick a solution. Once your child has evaluated the possible positive and negative outcomes, encourage them to pick a solution.
• Test it out . Tell them to try a solution and see what happens. If it doesn't work out, they can always try another solution from the list that they developed in step two. 

Practice Solving Problems

When problems arise, don’t rush to solve your child’s problems for them. Instead, help them walk through the problem-solving steps. Offer guidance when they need assistance, but encourage them to solve problems on their own. If they are unable to come up with a solution, step in and help them think of some. But don't automatically tell them what to do. 

When you encounter behavioral issues, use a problem-solving approach. Sit down together and say, "You've been having difficulty getting your homework done lately. Let's problem-solve this together." You might still need to offer a consequence for misbehavior, but make it clear that you're invested in looking for a solution so they can do better next time. 

Use a problem-solving approach to help your child become more independent.

If they forgot to pack their soccer cleats for practice, ask, "What can we do to make sure this doesn't happen again?" Let them try to develop some solutions on their own.

Kids often develop creative solutions. So they might say, "I'll write a note and stick it on my door so I'll remember to pack them before I leave," or "I'll pack my bag the night before and I'll keep a checklist to remind me what needs to go in my bag." 

Provide plenty of praise when your child practices their problem-solving skills.  

Allow for Natural Consequences

Natural consequences  may also teach problem-solving skills. So when it's appropriate, allow your child to face the natural consequences of their action. Just make sure it's safe to do so. 

For example, let your teenager spend all of their money during the first 10 minutes you're at an amusement park if that's what they want. Then, let them go for the rest of the day without any spending money.

This can lead to a discussion about problem-solving to help them make a better choice next time. Consider these natural consequences as a teachable moment to help work together on problem-solving.

Becker-Weidman EG, Jacobs RH, Reinecke MA, Silva SG, March JS. Social problem-solving among adolescents treated for depression . Behav Res Ther . 2010;48(1):11-18. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2009.08.006

Pakarinen E, Kiuru N, Lerkkanen M-K, Poikkeus A-M, Ahonen T, Nurmi J-E. Instructional support predicts childrens task avoidance in kindergarten .  Early Child Res Q . 2011;26(3):376-386. doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2010.11.003

Schell A, Albers L, von Kries R, Hillenbrand C, Hennemann T. Preventing behavioral disorders via supporting social and emotional competence at preschool age .  Dtsch Arztebl Int . 2015;112(39):647–654. doi:10.3238/arztebl.2015.0647

Cheng SC, She HC, Huang LY. The impact of problem-solving instruction on middle school students’ physical science learning: Interplays of knowledge, reasoning, and problem solving . EJMSTE . 2018;14(3):731-743.

Vlachou A, Stavroussi P. Promoting social inclusion: A structured intervention for enhancing interpersonal problem‐solving skills in children with mild intellectual disabilities . Support Learn . 2016;31(1):27-45. doi:10.1111/1467-9604.12112

Öğülmüş S, Kargı E. The interpersonal cognitive problem solving approach for preschoolers .  Turkish J Educ . 2015;4(17347):19-28. doi:10.19128/turje.181093

American Academy of Pediatrics. What's the best way to discipline my child? .

Kashani-Vahid L, Afrooz G, Shokoohi-Yekta M, Kharrazi K, Ghobari B. Can a creative interpersonal problem solving program improve creative thinking in gifted elementary students? .  Think Skills Creat . 2017;24:175-185. doi:10.1016/j.tsc.2017.02.011

Shokoohi-Yekta M, Malayeri SA. Effects of advanced parenting training on children's behavioral problems and family problem solving .  Procedia Soc Behav Sci . 2015;205:676-680. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.09.106

By Amy Morin, LCSW Amy Morin, LCSW, is the Editor-in-Chief of Verywell Mind. She's also a psychotherapist, an international bestselling author of books on mental strength and host of The Verywell Mind Podcast. She delivered one of the most popular TEDx talks of all time.

Teaching Problem Solving Skills for Kids the Ultimate Guide

Hey there, little problem-solvers! Imagine your brain as a superhero headquarters where problems are challenges waiting to be conquered.

Today, we’re going to dive into the world of problem-solving skills – the secret powers that make you a superhero in the game of life!

Why are Problem-Solving Skills Important in Early Childhood?

Picture this: you’re the captain of your ship, and problem-solving skills are your navigation tools.

These skills help you sail through the sea of challenges, making you independent, super smart, and ready for anything that comes your way.

They’re not just skills; they’re your superhero gear for life’s adventures! See below list for more details.

Helps to Think Critically

Developing problem-solving skills in early childhood is essential for children to develop the ability to think critically and logically.

Problem-solving skills help children find solutions to everyday issues, such as how to solve a complicated math equation or fix a practical problem.

Helps with life lessons

Problem-solving skills also provide children valuable life lessons on better managing difficult situations as they mature into adulthood.

They learn that it’s ok to experiment with different approaches when faced with a challenge and eventually come up with the best possible solution.

Allows to use creativity and imagination

Solid problem-solving abilities allow children to use creativity and imagination when faced with challenging tasks rather than relying solely on instructions presented by adults to guide them.

This teaches them to make decisions based on their judgment and reasoning rather than succumbing to peer pressure or unthinkingly following orders.

Helps to think outside the box

By developing early childhood problem-solving skills, children can think outside the box, which helps them build self-confidence, an essential part of development as they grow older.

When allowed independent thought without fear of failure or criticism from other people, they are more likely to take risks and ultimately reach their full potential throughout life.

Lays the foundation for success

Investing in developing problem-solving skills in early childhood will lay the foundation for success for children later in life since good problem-solving skills are essential in many college courses and professional careers in all industries.

Like, medical research, engineering, and computer science up through management jobs or CEO roles where decision making is critical.

Role of Problem-Solving Skills in Holistic Development

Let’s connect the dots between problem-solving skills and your superhero team – cognitive development .

Just like superheroes need strong teamwork, your brain’s problem-solving skills work with cognitive development to make you a master thinker and decision-maker. It’s like having a dynamic duo inside your head!

Ultimately it will boost your child’s Holistic Development !

Key Aspects of Problem-Solving Skills Development

Identification of problems.

Think of this as your superhero radar. Teaching you to identify problems is like giving you the power to spot challenges from a mile away.

Activities like treasure hunts or detective games can help you become a problem-finding expert. Why? Because superheroes need to know what they’re up against!

Generation of Solutions

Now, it’s time to put on your inventor’s hat! Guiding you to generate solutions is like giving you a toolbox full of ideas.

Brainstorming sessions, role-play scenarios, or solving riddles are like workouts for your creative muscles. The more solutions you think of, the stronger and more creative you become!

Decision Making

Welcome to the superhero control center! Decision-making is choosing the best tool from your toolbox.

Weighing pros and cons, using decision-making charts, or even flipping a coin (yes, superheroes can be a bit whimsical!) are ways to make sure you pick the perfect solution. Decision-making makes you the captain of your ship!

Evaluation and Learning

After every adventure, superheroes gather to share their stories. Evaluating outcomes and learning from experiences is like your superhero debriefing session.

Reflective discussions help you understand what worked and what didn’t, making you wiser for the next challenge. Learning from experiences is how superheroes become legends!

Strategies to Teach Problem Solving Skills

Now, let’s talk about the superhero training camp!

Teaching problem-solving strategies is a critical component of early childhood problem-solving. Strategizing will help a child break down a complicated issue into smaller and more manageable steps, making finding solutions much more accessible.

Strategies like brainstorming, breaking tasks into small steps, or trying different approaches can promote creative thinking and teach children how to persevere when faced with a challenge.

Provide Guided Support

When teaching problem-solving skills to young children, it is essential to provide guided support throughout the process.

Although it might be tempting to jump in and provide solutions, offering guidance instead can help foster a feeling of autonomy for your little ones.

Ask them questions about their ideas and encourage them to come up with solutions on their own.

Encourage Open Communication

Open communication between yourself and your child is another critical component to successful problem-solving in early childhood.

You want your little one to be comfortable bringing any questions or concerns directly to you instead of bottling it up or feeling too intimidated or embarrassed to speak up.

Encourage them to talk openly about anything troubling them — whether figuring out how many pieces are left after you cut a cake into eight slices or thinking through their feelings when someone makes fun of them at school.

Talk About Feelings

It’s also important that young kids learn how each emotion manifests differently as soon as possible — this will enable them to act appropriately regardless of their environment or circumstance.

Talk about negative emotions (ex: anger) if something has upset them and positive feelings (ex: excitement) if they have accomplished something great like mastering a new skill or puzzle!

This exercise will encourage verbalization and increase understanding of self-regulation techniques, which will prove helpful far beyond primary school age.

Ways to Teach Problem-Solving Skills To Preschoolers

Learning how to solve problems is one of the essential skills your child will ever develop. After all, problem-solving and critical thinking are vital components of successful learning in any subject ranging from mathematics to social studies.

To help your child build those skills and gain a better understanding of problem-solving, here are seven tips that you should consider:

1. Break down complex tasks and concepts: 

Complex tasks and concepts such as counting or sorting objects can be tricky for preschoolers to understand.

It is essential to break these tasks into smaller and more manageable pieces that preschoolers can easily understand.

2. Create games: 

Games are a great way to encourage problem-solving skills in preschoolers. Incorporating puzzles, drawing activities, or letter identification games can be fun for kids while also helping them practice their problem-solving skills.

Puzzles are excellent tools for teaching young minds about problem-solving strategies. For example, you could attempt jigsaw puzzles or logic games like Sudoku or Chess.

3. Ask open-ended questions: 

Asking open-ended questions encourages preschoolers to think creatively and come up with answers independently without being given all the correct answers upfront.

Questions such as “What do you think will happen if you move this block?” allow kids to explore and experiment before they figure out the answer themselves.

4. Utilize trial and error: 

Preschoolers learn best through trial and error-based problem-solving approaches; instead of immediately answering, let them try different solutions to see the result themselves!

5. Encourage collaboration over the competition: 

Collaborative problem-solving is vital for promoting problem-solving skills in preschoolers; it helps children establish cooperative relationships by encouraging teamwork over competition!

6. Make use of props :  

Props such as Legos, dolls, or even stuffed animals are valuable tools for teaching problem-solving strategies; these items allow children to build upon what they’ve learned visually!

Furthermore, using props also gives kids something tangible they can refer back to while playing or completing tasks with others who may not have seen what was built previously!

7. Celebrate each success : 

Problem-solving is a process of trial and error – don’t get discouraged if preschoolers make mistakes along the way; instead, celebrate every small success they have to keep motivation high!

8.   Teach Them to Break Problems Down into Smaller Parts

Sometimes a complex problem can seem overwhelming for children. Teaching them how to break down a significant issue into smaller pieces makes it easier to understand and focus on one task at a time.

Encourage them to divide each problem into steps that can be completed individually – this can give them the confidence they need to tackle the challenge head-on.

Simple Activities To Teach Problem-Solving To Your Preschooler

As you plan activities for your preschooler to help them become creative and efficient problem solvers, it’s essential to remember that this process never stops.

Therefore, it’s crucial to maximize their early development. Here are some simple activities you can use to teach your preschooler problem-solving skills.

Drawing Links Between Ideas: 

This activity gets kids used to figuring out how different ideas are connected and relies on creativity rather than knowledge of many specific facts.

Get a whiteboard or paper and divide it into four equal quadrants. In each of the four corners, have the child draw a picture related to other images on the board (e.g., a bird in one corner and a nest in another).

Ask the child how all objects relate by drawing lines from one thing to another where appropriate (e.g., from the nest to the bird).

Word Puzzles: 

Word puzzles encourage kids to figure out patterns between words as well as help them learn new sight words, and reinforce spelling when they write down their answers. Print off simple word puzzles for your child, such as crossword puzzles, Mad Libs stories, or Scattergories lists with prompts or objects your preschooler might know, like animals, colors, and shapes.

After they finish writing down their answers depending on the puzzle, either set up the rules where applicable (Scattergories) or read their story aloud (Mad Libs).

Pairing Relatable Subjects: 

Have your child select two categories they enjoy – favorite animal names and superhero names are usually easy picks – then create pairs made up of items within those categories by positioning one thing right above or beside its counterpart (e.g., Black Panther with Panther).

Next, allow them to check if these relational pairs hold throughout these categories by creating charts using Post-it notes while also letting them elaborate why they think specific pairings might not be proper at times –such as wondering why The Flash doesn’t have a Pet Flash.

Loose Parts Play Space: 

Loose parts play is an ideal way for preschoolers to learn about problem-solving, motivate experimentation and build self-regulation skills through unstructured play that promotes discovery and exploration instead of enforcing completion goals; all projects here are successful regardless of the result!

Get some loose parts –think art supplies like tape, feathers, sequins, etc., building blocks are great, too– from around the house, such as empty boxes/bottles/cans with lids/paper towel rolls, etc. Now give them an open invitation, “Build me something!” so they can explore their ideas!

Examples Of Problem-Solving In Early Childhood

1. working out how to put together a toy or game that siblings have taken apart:  .

Toddlers will often have to use their problem-solving skills to figure out how all the pieces of their toys go back together, as they’ve likely been taken apart or mixed up by older siblings.

2. Making decisions between two similar activities they both want to do: 

Young children often try to determine which action is better when presented with two toys or activities they want to engage in.

This could include picking between two colors for a building block set or deciding which book should be read first in storytime.

3. Determining how far away an object is: 

Toddlers need to learn about spatial relations, and determining how far away something is from them can be tricky but essential for their development; this includes things like being able to gauge when someone is too close or too far away from them.

As well recognizing when an object is within arms reach of them vs. needing help getting it down from a higher shelf.

4. Creating solutions to move on from complex emotional states: 

Even in early childhood, problem-solving can extend beyond physical objects and come into play making decisions about their own feelings and emotional states.

Finding ways to manage strong emotions during temper tantrums, peaceful resolution strategies during quarrels with other children, and coming up with creative solutions to work through boredom or loneliness while at daycare/preschool.

Obstacles in Problem-Solving Skills Development and Solutions

Sometimes, young minds face obstacles on their problem-solving journey. Overcoming fear of failure, lack of independent thinking opportunities, or excessive guidance from adults is key.

Promoting a growth mindset, providing open-ended tasks, and allowing children to make mistakes and learn from them are strategies that transform obstacles into stepping stones for success.

Problem-Solving Skills and School Readiness

As kids embark on their school journey, problem-solving skills become their trusty companions. These skills influence academic performance by fostering critical thinking, logical reasoning, and adaptability.

The ability to handle school-related challenges is heightened, setting the stage for a successful and fulfilling educational adventure.

So, little problem-solvers, the world is your puzzle, and you’ve got the pieces. With each challenge, you’re not just finding solutions – you’re discovering the superhero within.

Keep exploring, keep solving, and get ready for a future filled with exciting adventures and triumphant victories!

I’m a former teacher (and mother of Two Childs) with a background in child development. I’m here to help you with play-based learning activities and crafts for kids ages 0 – 8. ( Cledemy.com is my Next startup on Pre to 8th Grade Printable and Worksheet Education Resources)

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• Angles, Polygons, and Geometrical Proof
• 3D Geometry, Shape and Space
• Measuring and calculating with units
• Transformations and constructions
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• Handling, Processing and Representing Data
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• Thinking mathematically
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For younger learners

• Early Years Foundation Stage

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Published 2016 Revised 2019

Mathematical Problem Solving in the Early Years: Developing Opportunities, Strategies and Confidence

• familiar contexts
• meaningful purposes
• mathematical complexity.

• which they understand - in familiar contexts,
• where the outcomes matter to them - even if imaginary,
• where they have control of the process,
• involving mathematics with which they are confident.
• taking some from one doll and giving to another, in several moves,
• starting again and dealing, either in ones or twos,
• taking two from each original doll and giving to the new doll,
• collecting the biscuits and crumbling them into a heap, then sharing out handfuls of crumbs.

• brute force: trying to hammer bits so that they fit,
• local correction: adjusting one part, often creating a different problem,
• dismantling: starting all over again,
• holistic review: considering multiple relations or simultaneous adjustments e.g. repairing by insertion and reversal.
• getting a feel for the problem, looking at it holistically, checking they have understood e.g. talking it through or asking questions;
• planning, preparing and predicting outcomes e.g. gathering blocks together before building;
• monitoring progress towards the goal e.g. checking that the bears will fit the houses;
• being systematic, trying possibilities methodically without repetition, rather than at random, e.g. separating shapes tried from those not tried in a puzzle;
• trying alternative approaches and evaluating strategies e.g. trying different positions for shapes;
• refining and improving solutions e.g. solving a puzzle again in fewer moves (Gifford, 2005: 153).
• Getting to grips:     What are we trying to do?    
• Connecting to previous experience:  Have we done anything like this before?
• Planning:      What do we need?
• Considering alternative methods:   Is there another way?
• Monitoring progress:    How does it look so far?
• Evaluating solutions:    Does it work?  How can we check?  Could we make it even better?

• Construction - finding shapes which fit together or balance
• Pattern-making - creating a rule to create a repeating pattern
• Shape pictures - selecting shapes with properties to represent something
• Puzzles - finding ways of fitting shapes to fit a puzzle
• Role-play areas - working out how much to pay in a shop
• Measuring tools - finding out how different kinds of scales work
• Nesting, posting, ordering - especially if they are not obvious
• Robots - e.g. beebots: directing and making routes
• preparing, getting the right number e.g. scissors, paper for creative activities
• sharing equal amounts e.g. at snack time
• tidying up, checking nothing is lost
• gardening and cooking  e.g. working out how many bulbs to plant where, measuring amounts in a recipe using scales or jugs
• games, developing rules, variations and scoring
• PE: organising in groups, timing and recording

• Decision making - what shall we call the new guinea pig?
• Parties, picnics and trips e.g. how much lemonade shall we make?
• Design Projects - the role play area, new outdoor gardens or circuits
• Hiding games - feely bags with shapes, the 'Box' game
• Story problems - e.g. unfair sharing, with remainders and fractions, making things to fit giants or fairies

Ten of our favourite early years problem-solving activities

A lot of the time when we hear the term ‘problem-solving’, our brain jumps back to the tricky maths teasers from our school days, and we immediately recoil a little. However, problem-solving is much more than number conundrums.   

Problem-solving is a key part of early years development and can support learning across many of the My First Five Years streams. The skill of problem-solving starts developing very early in a child's life and stems from the knowledge of the world that they are constantly building.[1]. For instance, your baby may cry when hungry as they know that crying gets the attention of an adult who can feed them.   

Problem-solving is a part of everyday life for children, from being a baby through to their future adulthood. When children learn how to solve problems, it can support them in building resilience, self-confidence and self-esteem. Taking part in problem-solving activities with others can also help children develop social skills, communication and relationships.[2]   

Psychologist Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development also focuses on the importance of problem-solving for early childhood development. In each developmental stage of his theory, the psychologist emphasised the importance of play-based learning for young children when it comes to problem-solving, and in turn building skills across the spectrum.[3]    

Supporting problem-solving  

When thinking about problem-solving activities for your child, it can be difficult to know where to begin.   

To keep children engaged, enabling them to take the lead and follow their interests, is key. Play-based, hands-on learning makes acquiring new skills more interesting and memorable for young children.[4]    

Many activities can support children when developing their problem-solving abilities – the possibilities are wide open. When considering which problem-solving activities are the most effective, it is also important to consider how they can be adapted to multiple interests, abilities and how accessible they are when it comes to using resources and materials.   

To help you out, here are ten of My First Five Years’ favourite problem-solving activities that you can try with your child.   

1) Den-building

Den-building is brilliant for problem-solving as it requires creative and critical-thinking, foresight, and planning. It is also a wonderful way to promote sustained shared thinking with your child. Sustained shared thinking is a way of working together that encourages individuals to evaluate the problem that they are working on and is focused on collaboration, using experiences and prior knowledge.[5]  

When building a den with your child, encourage your child to take the lead. You could provide materials such as boxes and blankets, or you could even ask your child to decide what materials you need before starting, encouraging them to plan out their work. Den-building can also be done both indoors and outdoors and with children from a young age. You may find that people have already started creating these in your local woodland that you can add to, adapt, or just enjoy!  

2) Cooking and baking

Cooking and baking are not only fun activities, but they also focus on mathematical problem-solving. To bring problem-solving into a cooking and baking activity, you can ask your child to count out simple measurements, for instance, cups of flour or sugar. Activities like cooking or baking are great for children to be able to take ownership of what is happening; encourage them to choose what you will make and allow them to do all the elements themselves.   

What’s great about cooking is it really doesn't matter how it turns out! Problems can arise often in cooking or baking, for example, the mixture may turn out too dry, you may be an ingredient short, or your cakes might not rise how you expected them to. If this is the case, talk to your child about what might have gone wrong and how you can rectify it next time! Then when they come to do it again, they can use their prior knowledge to help them.   

3) Playing with patterns

Patterns are a great activity for mathematical problem-solving. You can create patterns of any objects that you can find! For example, with pieces of fruit, pebbles from the garden, building blocks or even snacks! You could encourage your child to continue patterns, fill in the missing pieces or even create their own for you to solve problems with as they grow more confident. 

4) Sorting and categorising

Sorting and categorising objects is an activity that supports children in mathematical problem - solving and can be easily adapted to individual children’s abilities . You could encourage your child to sort by shape, size, colour, or better yet , their interests . For example, if they are a dinosaur enthusiast, they could classify them by wh ich is their favourite or least favourite , or order them by the size of their feet. They may even find enjoyment in helping you with daily sorting such as recycling or washing!  

Puzzles are a fun resource that can be used with children from a very young age. There are a wide variety of puzzles for children to access , such as chunky wooden puzzles or traditional shape sorters. When playing with puzzles, children will have to use their prior knowledge and experience of shape, space and measure whil e also experimenting with different angles and placements. They will use trial and error to find the best way to complete the puzzle and then will use this knowledge in future attempts.  

6) Ice rescue

As well as being a great problem-solving activity, ice rescue enables children to explore seasonal changes, temperatures and develop their fine and gross motor skills using tools. To play ice rescue, freeze toys inside ice overnight. This could be in cake moulds or small bowls. Use toys that will motivate your child, for instance, their favourite small figurines.   

Once frozen, place your blocks of ice in a big bowl or tray, and encourage your child to think about how they can get the items out. You could provide tools, or even get your child to find tools themselves.  

7) Obstacle courses

Obstacle courses are versatile and can be made with a wide variety of resources. When setting up an obstacle course for your child, try to include sections where your child will have to stop and think about how they will have to adapt their body to move through it , for example, something that they must climb over or under, or a section where they have to move differently. You could even include them in trying to create the obstacle course and allow them to make it the most challenging they can.  

8) Filling, emptying and investigation

Many children enjoy filling and emptying during play. Investigating this way helps children to get a sense of size, capacity and explore predicting and estimation. For instance, if your child likes playing with sand, you could ask them to guess how many scoops they will need to fill a container, or if they like water play you could challenge them to find a way to move the water between two containers as quickly as possible , or from one tray to another.  

9) Story problems

Stories are an effective way of introducing problem-solving and they can be a highly engaging way to promote creative and critical-thinking. You could use familiar or traditional stories to help scaffold play opportunities for your child. For example, you could try building a house for the three little pigs that cannot be knocked over. You could test out different methods using materials that you can find around your home.   

If you are feeling creative, you could also make up a little story using your child’s favourite toys. An example of this could be figuring out how to share food between their favourite teddies during a picnic and making sure that everyone gets enough.   

10) Playing with loose parts or open-ended resources

Natural materials such as leaves, conkers, sticks, acorns, and pinecones are all brilliant open-ended play opportunities (if supervised). You can also use household objects like bottle caps, curtain rings, tubes, tins, boxes, buttons etcetera in this sort of play. All it requires is a tray of different objects that you've collected and time to explore them. Your child will have to think creatively about how to utilise the objects and in doing so will be challenging their cognitive capacity by problem-solving to achieve the desired outcomes.   

References 

[1]  Rachel Keen. (2011). The Development of Problem Solving in Young Children: A Critical Cognitive Skill. Available: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.psych.031809.130730#_i22 .  

[2] Sheila Ebbutt. (2009). EYFS best practice - All about ... problem-solving . Available: https://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/features/article/eyfs-best-practice-all-about-problem-solving .  

[3] Piaget, J. (1983). Piaget's Theory. In P. Mussen (ed). Handbook of Child Psychology. 4th edition. Vol. 1. New York: Wiley.  

[4] Unicef. (2018). Learning Through Play. Available: https://www.unicef.org/sites/default/files/2018-12/UNICEF-Lego-Foundation-Learning-through-Play.pd .  

[5] Kathy Sylva, Edward Melhuish, Pam Sammons, Iram Siraj-Blatchford and Brenda Taggar. (2004). The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) Project: Findings from Pre-school to end of Key Stage1. Available: https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/8543/7/SSU-SF-2004-01.pdf .  

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Conflicts and problem-solving: How to help preschoolers help themselves

• AZ Early Childhood Network
• March 31, 2017

Conflicts and problems are normal in early childhood classrooms—but what’s the best way to solve them? Maybe you shouldn’t. When children disagree or grapple with difficult feelings, the teacher’s first instinct is often to suggest a solution so that order can be restored and classroom learning can continue. However, the “quick fix” might not help children in the long run. Problem-solving is an essential skill that becomes more and more important as children grow older and the challenges of life grow more complex.

Giving preschoolers the tools to think problems through (at their level) and suggest possible solutions will lead to greater social success and enhanced independent thinking. Rather than stepping in, teachers can use constructive strategies when children have problems and suggest ways the children themselves can effectively resolve those issues.

Continue reading here.

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Approaches to Learning: Problem Solving

Birth to 9 months

7 months to 18 months, 16 months to 24 months, 21 months to 36 months.

Children attempt a variety of strategies to accomplish tasks, overcome obstacles, and find solutions to tasks, questions, and challenges.

Children build the foundation for problem-solving skills through nurturing relationships, active exploration, and social interactions. In infancy, children learn that their actions and behaviors have an effect on others. For example, children cry to signal hunger to their caregivers; in turn, their caregivers feed them. Caregivers’ consistent responses to children’s communication attempts teach children the earliest forms of problem solving. Children learn that they have the ability to solve a problem by completing certain actions. Children build this knowledge and translate it into how they interact and problem-solve in future situations.

Children discover that their actions and behaviors also have an impact on objects. They learn that certain actions produce certain results. For example, children may bang a toy over and over as they notice the sound that it makes. This behavior is intentional and purposeful; children learn that they have the ability to make something happen. As they get older, children will experiment with different ways to solve problems, such as moving puzzle pieces in different ways to place them correctly. They will use trial and error to find solutions to the tasks they are working on, and use communication skills to ask or gesture for help from caregivers.

By 36 months, children are able to decrease the amount of trial and error they use when solving problems. Their cognitive skills are maturing and they are able to use logic and reasoning when working through challenges. Increased attention allows children to focus for longer periods of time when working through challenges. Children still depend on their caregivers for help, but are likely to attempt problem solving on their own before asking someone for help.

Children are building the foundation for problem solving through active exploration and social interaction.

Indicators for children include:

• Focuses on getting a caregiver’s attention through the use of sounds, cries, gestures, and facial expressions
• Enjoys repeating actions, e.g., continues to drop toy from highchair after it is picked up by a caregiver or sibling
• Communicates the need for assistance through verbal and/or nonverbal cues, e.g., pointing, reaching, vocalizing

Strategies for interaction

• Respond thoughtfully and promptly to the child’s attempts for attention
• Provide interesting and age-appropriate toys and objects for exploration
• Engage and interact with the child frequently during the day

Children begin to discover that certain actions and behaviors can be solutions to challenges and obstacles they encounter. Children also recognize how to engage their caregiver(s) to assist in managing these challenges.

• Repeats actions over and over again to figure out how an object works
• Begins to recognize that certain actions will draw out certain responses, e.g., laughing and smiling will often result in an adult responding in the same manner
• Attempts a variety of physical strategies to reach simple goals, e.g., pulls the string of a toy train to move it closer or crawls to get a ball that has rolled away
• Demonstrate how to try things in different ways and encourage the child to do the same, e.g., using a plastic bucket as a drum
• Gently guide the child in discovering and exploring, while allowing him or her enough independence to try new things
• Respond thoughtfully and promptly to the child’s communication attempts

Children have an enhanced capacity to solve challenges they encounter through the use of objects and imitation. Children may take on a more autonomous role during this stage, yet, reach out to caregiver(s) in most instances.

• Imitates a caregiver’s behavior to accomplish a task, e.g., attempts to turn a doorknob
• Increases ability to recognize and solve problems through active exploration, play, and trial and error, e.g., tries inserting a shape at different angles to make it fit in a sorter
• Uses objects in the environment to solve problems, e.g., uses a pail to move numerous books to the other side of the room
• Uses communication to solve problems, e.g., runs out of glue during an art project and gestures to a caregiver for more
• Validate and praise the child’s attempts to find solutions to challenges
• Narrate while assisting the child in figuring out a solution, e.g., “Let’s try to turn the puzzle piece this way”
• Provide the child with opportunities to solve problems with and without your help; minimize the possibility for the child to become frustrated
• Respond to the child’s communication efforts

Children begin to discriminate which solutions work, with fewer trials. Children increasingly become more autonomous and will attempt to first overcome obstacles on their own or with limited support from caregiver(s).

• Asks for help from a caregiver when needed
• Begins to solve problems with less trial and error
• Refuses assistance, e.g., calls for help but then pushes a hand away
• Shows pride when accomplishing a task
• Uses increasingly refined skills while solving problems, e.g., uses own napkin to clean up a spill without asking an adult for help
• Follow the child’s lead and pay attention to his or her cues when assisting in a task
• Share in the child’s joy and accomplishments
• Model and narrate problem-solving skills through play
• Provide the child with blocks of uninterrupted time to work on activities
• Be available for the child and recognize when he or she needs guidance

Real World Story

Sebastian, who is 25 months old, is engaged in a fine-motor activity provided by his caregiver. He is holding large, plastic tweezers and is attempting to use them to pick up big, fuzzy balls off a plastic plate and move them into a plastic cup. He is holding the plastic tweezers in one hand, and holds the plate steady on the table. He repeatedly tries to use one hand, but cannot pinch the tweezers tightly enough to pick up one of the balls. Sebastian pauses, looks around, and picks up the balls with his thumb and forefinger.

Holding the plastic tweezers in one hand and the ball in the other, Sebastian places the ball in the tweezers and then pinches it closed. He moves it over to the plastic cup and drops it inside. He then grabs another fuzzy ball and places it in the tweezers. Again, he pinches it tightly and transfers it to the cup. Sebastian engages in the same method until all the fuzzy balls on his plate are now inside his cup. Once he is done, he empties out the cup onto the plate and starts all over. After successfully completing the process again, he holds out his full cup toward his caregiver, Maria. She sees him, smiles, and gives two thumbs up. Sebastian grabs his cup and walks over to her. He hands Maria the cup and walks away from the table.

Discover how this Real World Story is related to:

• Self-Regulation: Foundation of Development Attention Regulation
• Developmental Domain 1: Social & Emotional Development Self-Concept
• Developmental Domain 2: Physical Development & Health Fine Motor
• Developmental Domain 2: Physical Development & Health Perceptual
• Developmental Domain 4: Cognitive Development Logic & Reasoning

THIS EXAMPLE HIGHLIGHTS how children use physical trial and error to solve problems. Sebastian is not successful in his initial attempts to pick up the small objects with his tweezers. However, he pauses to think about possible ways to work on this problem, and then changes his process. Instead of pinching the tweezers to grab the ball, he places the ball in between the tweezers and then pinches it closed. This is easier for him, as he is still developing the fine motor skills necessary to be able to complete this task. Once he realizes he is successful in accomplishing his goal, he engages in this task until he has finished placing every ball on his plate into the cup. He then repeats the activity all over again. Sebastian’s ability to successfully problem solve builds his self-confidence. Maria’s positive acknowledgment of his accomplishment further supports his social and emotional development. A positive self-concept and increasing self-confidence is very important for Sebastian’s future learning and overall healthy development.

Discover how Problem Solving is related to:

• Self-Regulation: Foundation of Development Emotional Regulation
• Developmental Domain 1: Social & Emotional Development Relationship with Adults
• Developmental Domain 4: Cognitive Development Memory

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Problem Solving for Preschoolers: 9 Ways to Strengthen Their Skills

By Carrie Mesrobian on 12/20/2021

As an adult, you likely run into dozens of small issues every day that require problem-solving skills. While you might not give much thought to the process of figuring out the best way to put groceries away or how to run errands without backtracking all over town anymore, these basic problem-solving abilities weren’t always so simple. You refined these skills as a child with practice and guidance from adults.

Building problem-solving skills in preschool-age children is a foundational duty of all parents and early childhood educators. But it can be easy to lose sight of how to incorporate these skills, especially when family life gets hectic or classrooms become busy.

For some fresh perspective on how to look at problem solving from a preschooler lens, we asked several experts in the early childhood education (ECE) field how they teach skills in their own classrooms. Read on for some insight on helping the young ones in your life figure out creative and workable solutions.

9 Tried-and-true ways to develop problem-solving skills in preschoolers

1. use everyday moments.

The handy thing about teaching problem-solving skills at this age is that there are no textbooks, worksheets or special equipment involved. Every day, normal situations provide all the materials you’ll need to practice.

“Parents can help their children develop problem-solving skills through ongoing interactions with their children throughout their day,” explains Paula Polito, owner of Beary Cherry Tree Child Development Center. “At home, in the grocery store and in everyday routines, such as mealtime or bath time.”

Rebecah Freeling, parent coach and child behavior expert at Wits’ End Parenting ®, believes household chores are an excellent way to teach problem solving.

“Housework is a matter of solving one problem after another. All these things go wrong when you’re doing housework,” Freeling explains. “Kids get this idea that problems are no big deal. Problems happen all the time and we just solve them.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean making a chore chart, though Freeling says some kids respond well to them. Instead, she encourages parents to try to integrate kids into the everyday maintenance of the home, and when possible, work alongside them.

“Say, ‘What would you like to be in charge of today?’” Freeling advises. “It’s the difference between getting to do something versus having to do it.”

While a grocery store trip can sometimes be a stressful rush, there are infinite opportunities to practice problem solving, says Dr. Elizabeth DeWitt, senior curriculum and implementation specialist at Learning Without Tears . DeWitt suggests using a list or a recipe of ingredients and asking your child to help you find certain items.

“Say, ‘I have this recipe that says we need chicken, rice and soup. I see chicken and soup in our cart. What are we missing? What could we or should we add?’” DeWitt says.

Taking the time to simply talk children through the thought process—no matter how simple it seems—helps reinforce and show them how you came to that conclusion.

2. Ask open-ended questions

As in the grocery store situation, just asking questions is a powerful way to foster both problem solving and creativity in young children.

“When your child comes across a difficult task, like zipping their coat, it can often be faster and easier to stop what you're doing and zip it for them,” says Becky Loftfield, an ECE teacher at Community of Saints Preschool .

If a child says, “I can't do this,” Loftfield advises asking “how come?” This lets them answer in their own words. “Asking ‘how come’ usually works better than ‘why’ for young children,” Loftfield adds.

Pausing to listen to the child’s explanation of the problem in their own words guides what happens next.

“Perhaps they don't know how zippers line up at the bottom for the mechanism to slide,” says Loftfield. “Maybe the zipper itself is too small for them to grip. Encourage your child to explore what the problem actually is beyond ‘I can't zip my coat.’”

Polito also believes in the power of conversational questions to build problem-solving skills.

“For example, parents can ask a child to explain why they did something a certain way,” Polito explains. “Providing hints to children as opposed to giving them the answer is also another way for children to think deeper about a concept.”

“We promote more learning when we allow them to think through the question,” Polito says.

3. Center emotions

All problem solving involves emotions. In the zipping-up-the-coat situation, a child might act frustrated, get angry or start crying. Handling the emotion is often the key to the child sorting out the situation, as well as learning that they are capable of finding solutions.

“We are not born knowing how to solve problems or having the vocabulary to express our feelings,” says Torri Parker, a pre-K instructor at Aspen Academy . “Often I hear a student telling another child ‘You’re not my friend,’ when what the child is meaning is that they are hurt by something their friend did, or they would like some space.”

Parker suggests picture books that focus on emotions and offer multiple ways to express them can be a powerful way to help kids not only problem solve but also identify emotions in their peers and develop greater empathy.

“By providing the words needed to convey those feelings, a child learns what that feeling feels like and can then have the vocabulary in the future to solve a conflict like that,” Parker says.

4. Read books and tell stories

Sometimes, not having to tackle a problem that’s happening in the moment is a good way to practice these skills. This is where reading books and telling stories come into play.

“Books have the opportunity to build incredible social-emotional skills,” DeWitt says. Not only are kids looking for solutions to the characters’ problems, they’re also building vocabulary, narrative skills and critical thinking as well.

Nicole Evert, a pre-K teacher and ECE trainer at Creating Butterflies, recommends the use of “ social stories ” for preschool problem solving.

“A social story introduces a problem, then shows successful ways to solve the problem,” Evert explains. “Sometimes a social story will include silly pages that show how to not solve the problem.”

Social stories can be especially helpful for children with anxiety about certain activities or routines, as well as kids with disabilities.

“Parents and educators can even make their own social stories using pictures of the specific child and their environment, which can be so powerful,” adds Evert.

5. Take advantage of natural curiosities and interests

One approach to helping young children practice problem-solving skills is in the discovery of something they are authentically interested in learning about. Adam Cole, music director at The Willow School , explains his school’s Reggio Emilia -inspired philosophy where a teacher gives students “provocations.”

“Provocations are opportunities for them to encounter something for which they may then express further interest,” Cole explains. “For instance, a teacher may set up a drawing provocation, and the children may draw buildings. The teacher may pick up on this and talk with the children about buildings, asking how they are built and where they can find more. This may lead to research or trips to see buildings and will continue on until the thread plays itself out.”

Because the focus is centered on topics or activities that already capture the child’s interest, the problem-solving aspect is more meaningful and compelling for many children. Because the teacher works alongside the child to problem solve, it offers space for the teacher to ask questions and encourage further creativity.

“This is an organic way to learn to solve problems, bolstered by the intrinsic desire of the child to learn more,” Cole adds.

6. Model problem solving

Preschoolers are always observing our behavior as parents and teachers.

“Given that 90% of brain development occurs between birth and four years of age, we have an opportunity during these preschool years to set our children up for success,” says Polito.

It may seem obvious, but our strategies and methods provide kids with in-the-moment examples of how to handle life with things go wrong.

“From a teaching perspective, you can think, ‘I’m teaching this child how to be who they are, how to live life,’” says Freeling. “A spill derails you a bit. So, stop and ask the child, ‘How should I clean this up?’”

Loftfield agrees. “Parents and educators can act as guides for a child’s experience, demonstrating how they problem solve and modeling what they want to see.”

This doesn’t mean that the adult must do everything perfectly or without emotions, however. Managing feelings is all part of learning to problem solve. “Allow time for mistakes, time for meltdowns and time for celebration,” Loftfield advises.

7. Look to the child for the solution

This last one might seem counter to number six above, but Freeling believes that parents and teachers can help children learn to problem solve by removing themselves from the process.

“Moving past your instincts to fix or smooth over problems helps a lot,” Freeling says. “Project the kid’s age in your mind. Think of a 25-year-old graduating from college. I want them to be able to ask for a higher salary, to vocalize what they want. You’re not just getting kids to be obedient—you’re teaching them how to negotiate the world.”

This is why Freeling advises adults to try coming into a problem-solving situation with children without a ready-made solution. She offers an example: there’s only one red truck, and two children both want to play with it.

“You’re really looking to the child and trusting their thinking and intelligence for solutions you hadn’t thought of,” Freeling says. She recommends repeating questions until the kids come to a decision and as long as no one’s at risk of injury, standing by the children’s solution.

“They might say, ‘We have to paint all the trucks red, since everyone wants a red truck,’” Freeling says. This might seem odd to an adult. But the point is to make the children a vital part of the creative process instead of just getting them to comply with the adult’s idea.

Developing empathy also factors into this scenario, especially in situations where problems stem from hurt feelings or other emotional conflicts. Freeling believes that finding ways to make restitution to others they’ve hurt is a better practice than forcing kids to apologize. She suggests having a child draw a picture of something the upset child likes as a way to make amends and help them recognize the other’s individuality.

“We don’t want kids to feel guilt for hurting someone; we want them to feel compassion,” Freeling says. “And solving problems in a relationship requires empathy.”

Is an early childhood education career right for you?

Enjoying the process of seeing life through a little one’s eyes? Early childhood education is an exciting, dynamic field full of creativity and potential to positively impact the lives of children and their families. If helping kids learn and grow sounds like something you’d be good at, check out our article “9 Signs You Should Be Teaching Preschool.”

Wits’ End Parenting is a registered trademark of Wits’ End Parenting, Inc. This program does not prepare students for licensed teaching positions in elementary or secondary schools . A Bachelor’s degree and a state teaching license are typically required to work as a teacher in most school settings; however, states, municipalities, districts or individual schools may have more stringent licensing requirements. Childcare facilities and states establish qualifications for staff who work with children, and often implement guidelines regarding age, education, experience and professional development. Students must determine the licensure requirements for the state and facilities in which they intend to work.

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Maths problem-solving – Activities for Early Years settings

• Written By: Judith Dancer
• Subject: Maths

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Critical thinking doesn’t have to be a daunting prospect. There are simple, effective and exciting ways to encourage children’s maths problem-solving skills, says Judith Dancer…

Maths is a subject many adults lack confidence in. Having struggled with it at school they often avoid it, wherever possible, when grown up.

But if maths seems scary for some people, then maths problem-solving can cause even more anxiety. There is no ‘safety net’ of knowing the ‘correct answer’ beforehand. This is because maths problem-solving lends itself to investigation and exploration with lots of possible tangents.

Understandably this is often the area of maths where many practitioners feel least confident. However, young children, who are not restrained by right answers, feel the most enthused and animated.

The non-statutory  Development Matters Guidance , as part of ‘creating and thinking critically’ in the Characteristics of Effective Learning, identifies that practitioners need to observe how a child is learning, noting how a child is:

• thinking of ideas;
• finding ways to solve problems;
• finding new ways to do things;
• making links and noticing patterns in their experience;
• making predictions;
• testing their ideas;
• developing ideas of grouping, sequences, cause and effect;
• planning, making decisions about how to approach a task, solve a problem and reach a goal;
• checking how well their activities are going;
• changing strategy as needed;
• reviewing how well the approach worked.

All of these elements are, at one time or another, part of the problem-identifying and solving process – although not at the same time and in the same problem.

Role of the adult

Maths problem-solving for young children involves them understanding and using two kinds of maths:

• Maths knowledge – learning and applying an aspect of maths such as counting, calculating or measuring.
• Maths thinking skills – reasoning, predicting, talking the problem through, making connections, generalising, identifying patterns and finding solutions.

The best maths problems for children are the ones that they identify themselves. They will be enthused, fascinated and more engaged in these ‘real’, meaningful problems.

Children need opportunities to problem-solve together. As they play, they will often find their own mathematical problems.

One of the key roles of practitioners is to provide time, space and support for children. We need to develop situations and provide opportunities in which children can refine their maths problem-solving skills and apply their mathematical knowledge.

Supporting maths problem-solving

You can effectively support children’s developing maths problem-solving strategies through:

• Modelling maths talk and discussion – language is part of maths learning because talking problems through is vital. Children need to hear specific mathematical vocabulary in context. You can promote discussion through the use of comments, enabling statements and open-ended questions.
• Providing hands-on maths problem-solving activities across all areas of the setting. Children learn maths through all their experiences and need frequent opportunities to take part in creative and engaging experiences. Maths doesn’t just happen in the maths learning zone!
• Identifying potential maths learning indoors and outdoors. Provide rich and diverse open-ended resources that children can use in a number of different ways to support their own learning. It is important to include natural and everyday objects and items that have captured children’s imaginations, including popular culture.

Maths problem-solving possibilities

Spell it out.

This experience gives children lots of opportunities to explore calculating, mark making, categorising and decisions about how to approach a task.

What you need to provide:

• Assorted containers filled with natural materials. This includes leaves, pebbles, gravel, conkers, twigs, shells, fir cones, mud and sand. Include some ‘treasure’ – sequins, gold nuggets, jewels and glitter.
• Bottles and jugs of water, large mixing bowls, cups, a ‘cauldron’, small bottles, spoons and ladles.
• Cloaks and wizard hats.
• Laminated ‘spells’ – e.g. “To make a disappearing spell, mix 2 smooth pebbles, 2 gold nuggets, 4 fir cones, a pinch of sparkle dust, 3 cups of water”.
• Writing frameworks for children’s own spell recipes and a shiny ‘Spell Book’ to stick these in.
• Temporary mark-making opportunities such as chalk on slate.

The important thing with open-ended maths problem-solving experiences like this is to observe, wait and listen. Then, if appropriate, join in as a co-player with children, following their play themes.

So if children are mixing potions, note how children sort or categorise the objects. What strategies do they use to solve problems? What happens if they want eight pebbles and they run out? Observe what they do next.

When supporting children’s maths problem-solving, you need to develop a wide range of strategies and ‘dip into’ these appropriately. Rather than asking questions, it is often more effective to make comments about what you can see. For example, say, “Wow, it looks as though there is too much potion for that bottle”.

Acting as a co-player offers lots of opportunities to model mathematical behaviours. This might include reading recipes for potions and spells out loud, focusing on the numbers – one feather, three shells…

Going, going, gone

We all know that children will engage more fully when involved in experiences that fascinate them. If a particular group has a real passion for cars and trucks , consider introducing maths problem-solving opportunities that extend this interest.

This activity offers opportunities for classifying, sorting, counting, adding and subtracting, among many other things.

• Some unfamiliar trucks and cars and some old favourites. Ensure these include metal, plastic and wooden vehicles that can be sorted in different ways.
• Masking tape and scissors.
• Sticky labels and markers.

Mark out some parking lots on a smooth floor, or huge piece of paper using masking tape. Lining paper is great for this. Line the vehicles up around the edge of the floor area.

Encourage one child to select two vehicles that have something the same about them. Ask the child, “What is the same about them?”.

When the children have agreed on what is the same – e.g. size, materials, colour, lorries or racing cars – the child selects a ‘parking lot’ to put the vehicles in. So this first parking lot could be for ‘red vehicles’.

Another child chooses two more vehicles that have something the same. Do they belong in the same ‘parking lot’, or a different parking lot? E.g. these vehicles could both be racing cars.

What happens when a specific vehicle could belong in both lots? E.g. it could belong in the set of red vehicles and also belongs in the set of racing cars.

Support the children as they discuss the vehicle. Make new ‘parking lots’ with masking tape and create labels for the groups, if you choose.

Observe children’s strategies

It’s really important to observe the strategies the children use. Where appropriate, ask the children to explain what they are doing and why.

If necessary, introduce and model the use of the vocabulary ‘the same as’ and ‘different from’. Follow children’s discussions and interests. If they start talking about registration plates, consider making car number plates for all the wheeled toys outdoors.

Do the children know the format of registration plates? Can you take photos of cars you can see in the local environment?

Camping out

Constructing camps and dens outdoors is a good way to give children the opportunity to be involved in lots of maths problem-solving experiences and construction skills learning. This experience offers opportunities for using the language of position, shape and space, and finding solutions to practical problems.

• Materials to construct a tent or den such as sheets, curtains, poles, clips and string.
• Rucksacks, water bottles, compasses and maps.
• Oven shelf and bricks to build a campfire or barbecue.
• Buckets and bowls and water for washing up.

Encourage the children to explore the resources and decide which materials they need to build the camp. Suggest they source extra resources as they are needed.

Talk with the children about the best place to make a den or erect a tent and barbecue. During the discussion, model the use of positional words and phrases.

Follow children’s play themes. This could include going on a scavenger hunt collecting stones, twigs and leaves and going back to the campsite to sort them out.

Encourage children to try different solutions to the practical problems they identify. Use a running commentary on what is happening without providing the solution to the problem.

Look for opportunities to develop children’s mathematical reasoning skills by making comments such as, “I wonder why Rafit chose that box to go on the top of his den.”

If the children are familiar with traditional tales, you could extend this activity by laying a crumb trail round the outdoor area for children to follow. Make sure that there is something exciting at the end of the trail. It could be a large dinosaur sitting in a puddle, or a bear in a ‘cave’.

Children rarely have opportunities to investigate objects that are really heavy. Sometimes they have two objects and are asked the question, “Which one is heavy?” when both objects are actually light.

This experience gives children the chance to explore really heavy things and measures (weight). They also need to cooperate and find new ways to do things.

• A ‘building site’ in the outdoor area. Include hard hats, builders’ buckets, small buckets, shovels, spades, water, sand, pebbles, gravel, guttering, building blocks, huge cardboard boxes and fabric (this could be on a tarpaulin).
• Some distance away, builders’ buckets filled with damp sand and large gravel.
• Bucket balances and bathroom scales.

With an open-ended activity such as this, it is even more important to observe, wait and listen as the children explore the building site and the buckets full of sand and gravel.

Listen to the discussions the children have about moving the sand and the gravel to the building site. What language do they use?

Note the strategies they use when they can’t lift the large buckets. Who empties some of the sand into smaller buckets? Who works together collaboratively to move the full bucket? Does anyone introduce another strategy, for example, finding a wheelbarrow or pull-along truck?

Where and when appropriate, join in the children’s play as a co-player. You could act in role as a customer or new builder. Ask, “How can I get all this sand into my car?”. “How much sand and gravel do we need to make the cement for the foundations?”.

Extend children’s learning by modelling the language of weight:

• heavy/heavier than/heaviest
• light/lighter than/lightest
• about the same weight as/as heavy as
• balance/weigh

Judith Dancer is an author, consultant and trainer specialising in communication and language and mathematics. She is co-author, with Carole Skinner, of  Foundations of Mathematics – An active approach to number, shape and measures in the Early Years .

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Early Years Careers

How to promote problem solving in the early years

5th November 2015 by Kelly Leave a Comment

Ways to incorporate problem solving in the Early Years

Developing problem solving skills is an area of development early years ’ practitioners are familiar with, and the importance of developing these problem solving skills is well known, but what exactly are problem solving skills? And how do we encourage children to develop these?

Within the Early Years Foundation Stage, problem solving comes under the category Mathematical Development, however this does not limit problem solving to just mathematical circumstances! There are opportunities for children in early years to explore problem solving every day, within all aspects of their development. Children are natural problem solvers from birth, all the way from learning to communicate problems through crying, through learning to talk and learning to walk. They develop a natural problem solving process through trial and error, for example, an infant will fall down many times before taking their first steps, but it’s the process of getting back up and trying again which helps them to achieve their goal.

Although problem solving can occur naturally, practitioners should still encourage children to recognise the process of problem solving and become familiar with it.

Shape sorters are a great activity for younger children to explore problem solving through trial and error. The children can get a feel of the shapes and see the holes, but will not yet have the knowledge of shapes to place the correct shape in the correct hole, they will attempt to fit shapes into holes, and when they realise it will not fit, they move onto the next hole. As the children get older, they can apply their knowledge and learning to this activity, understanding that the square shape will fit with the square hole, thus overcoming a problem. Jigsaws are another effective way of children developing problem solving skills in the early years. With younger children larger puzzle pieces can be used made out of tactile materials and they can attempt to solve the jigsaw through trial and error again. Slightly older children can expand onto smaller puzzle pieces, once they have mastered more simple jigsaws. Practitioners should take note of the different strategies children use in order to fit different puzzle pieces together and offer directional help such as matching the colours of pieces together should a child become frustrated.

Early Years practitioners can help children apply problem solving skills to real life situations as well as various activities. For example, practitioners can encourage children to help set up at meal times, but pose them with a problem of not having enough cutlery for each child. Children could be able to recognise this problem, or be guided by the practitioners to realise that not enough cutlery could pose a problem. Practitioners can then encourage and support the children to think of a solution to this problem. Allow children to use their imagination to solve problems, the sky is the limit! If they suggest sharing cutlery or even crafting their own cutlery out of different items, then this is all part of the problem solving process! They are recognising a problem and attempting a solution.

Overall, there are many activities and real life scenarios practitioners can implement in order to help children explore problem solving skills and guide them to create a solution. Using numbers and mathematics are not the only methods of developing problem solving skills as seen from above, but they can be an effective way to develop learning numeracy skills which can help in later life.

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Pave the Way for Self-regulation and Problem-solving With Social-emotional Learning

Posted: April 3, 2024

Problem-solving is a social-emotional learning (SEL) skill children need for lifelong success. Effective problem-solving skills support children's ability to self-regulate, focus on tasks, think flexibly and creatively, work with others, and generate multiple ways to solve problems. When young children develop and build these skills, it positively impacts their interactions with others, grows their capacity to manage challenges, and boosts a sense of competence.

A group of school-age children are stacking plastic blocks with an educator.

The foundation for effective social problem-solving is grounded in self-regulation, or the ability to regulate emotions when interacting with others. It is easier to focus on one's feelings and the feelings and perspectives of others and to work cooperatively toward solutions when a child can self-regulate and calm down. Children develop self-regulation skills over time, with practice and with adult guidance. Equally important is how an adult models emotion regulation and co-regulation. 

"Caregivers play a key role in cultivating the development of emotion regulation through co-regulation, or the processes by which they provide external support or scaffolding as children navigate their emotional experiences" (Paley & Hajal, 2022, p. 1).

When adults model calm and self-regulated approaches to problem-solving, it shows children how to approach problems constructively. For example, an educator says, "I'm going to take a breath and calm down so I can think better." This model helps children see and hear a strategy to support self-regulation.

Problem-solving skills help children resolve conflicts and interact with others as partners and collaborators. Developing problem-solving skills helps children learn and grow empathy for others, stand up for themselves, and build resilience and competence to work through challenges in their world. 

Eight strategies to support problem-solving 

• Teach about emotions and use feeling words throughout the day. When children have more words to express themselves and their feelings, it is easier to address and talk about challenges when they arise. 
• Recognize and acknowledge children's feelings throughout the day. For example, when children enter the classroom during circle time, mealtime, and outside time, ask them how they feel. Always acknowledge children's feelings, both comfortable and uncomfortable, to support an understanding that all feelings are OK to experience.  
• Differentiate between feelings and behaviors. By differentiating feelings from behaviors, educators contribute to children’s understanding that all feelings are OK, but not all behaviors are OK. For example, an educator says, "It looks like you may be feeling mad because you want the red blocks, and Nila is playing with them. It's OK to feel mad but not OK to knock over your friend’s blocks."
• Support children's efforts to calm down. When children are self-regulated, they can think more clearly. For example, practice taking a breath with children as a self-regulation technique during calm moments. Then, when challenges arise, children have a strategy they have practiced many times and can use to calm down before problem-solving begins.  
• Encourage children's efforts to voice the problem and their feelings after they are calm. For example, when a challenge arises, encourage children to use the phrase, "The problem is_______, and I feel______." This process sets the stage to begin problem-solving.
• Acknowledge children's efforts to think about varied ways to solve problems. For example, an educator says, "It looks like you and Nila are trying to work out how to share the blocks. What do you think might work so you can both play with them? Do you have some other ideas about how you could share?"
• Champion children's efforts as they problem-solve. For example, "You and Nila thought about two ways you could share. One way is to divide the red blocks so you can each build, and the other is to build a tower together. Great thinking, friends!"
• Create opportunities for activities and play that offer problem-solving practice. For example, when children play together in the block area, it provides opportunities to negotiate plans for play and role-play, build perspective, talk about feelings, and share. The skills children learn during play, along with adult support, enhance children’s ability to solve more complex and challenging social problems and conflicts when they occur in and out of the early learning setting.

References: 

Paley, B., & Hajal, N. J. (2022). Conceptualizing emotion regulation and coregulation as family-level phenomena. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review ,  25 (1), 19-43.

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National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations

Practical Strategies

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The Pyramid Model is comprised of practices that are implemented by teachers and families.  Below are ideas, resources, and illustrations of strategies that might be used to implement Pyramid Model practices and promote young children’s social and emotional competence in a classroom setting.

Teaching Social-Emotional Skills

S ocial-emotional skills can be categorized into four types: behavior regulation, friendship skills, emotional literacy, and problem-solving skills.

Behavior Regulation

Link to this accordion

Try these strategies with your child! The more you use a calming strategy and practice the strategy with your child, the more likely they are to use the strategy when experiencing anger, stress, sadness, or frustration.

Practical strategies article

Letter addressed to families announcing the use of the the Turtle Technique at the program.

Child is coloring a picture of a turtle and the teacher takes the opportunity to teach an impromptu lesson on Tucker the Turtle.

Use these strategies and visual to teach children self-regulation through controlled breathing and belly breathing.

Use this visual and strategies to teach children how to calm down.

Use this visual and strategies to teach children how to calm down. This version allows for the user to customize with their own photos and choice of feelings.

Turtle technique cards for teaching

(Técnica de la tortuga) Turtle technique cards for teaching in Spanish

Caregivers can use the strategies in the infographic to provide infants with predictability in their day, and safety in relationships- all to support healthy attachment. Infants rely on the adults in their lives to read their cues, and help them to regulate as they adapt to their world. Responsive and positive interactions between infants and their caregivers help to build a strong attachment relationship. Positive attachment relationships support healthy brain development, and set babies up for success to learn about their emotions and build relationships as they grow into toddlers and preschoolers.

Toddlers experience big emotions as they learn to make meaning of their world and communicate their needs. Toddlers look to their primary caregivers to let them what they are experiencing is okay. Caregivers can use the strategies included in this infographic to provide toddlers with predictability in their day, safety in relationships, meaning to their experiences and emotions, and begin to build their problem-solving skills.

The translation of this document was performed by a third party. NCPMI makes no guarantees as to the accuracy of the translation.

Song and finger play to reinforce teaching the Turtle Technique to children.

Tucker the Turtle provides a scripted story to teach young children how to calm down when they have strong feelings by tucking into their shell and taking deep breaths. The story also includes visuals to help children learn how to use the strategy.?

(La tortuga Tucker toma tiempo para detenerse y pensar) Tucker the Turtle provides a scripted story to teach young children how to calm down when they have strong feelings by tucking into their shell and taking deep breaths. The story also includes visuals to help children learn how to use the strategy.

Pattern to use for Turtle craft project

Friendship Skills

Use this schedule template to assist with planning opportunities for children to engage in social interaction.

Use this visual choice board to help young children select and use a classroom greeting. Options include contact and contactless greetings. Includes a blank space for teachers to insert their language translations as needed.

Use this visual choice board to help young children select and use a classroom greeting. Options include contact and contactless greetings.

Use this visual choice board to help young children select and use a classroom greeting while maintaining social distancing. Includes a blank space for teachers to insert their language translations as needed.

Use this visual choice board to help young children select and use a classroom greeting while maintaining social distancing.

Scripted Stories for Social Situations help children understand social interactions, situations, expectations, social cues, the script of unfamiliar activities, and/or social rules.

This resource helps adults teach peer buddies the steps in Stay-Play-Talk, a peer-mediated intervention for increasing social interactions.

Social Skills posters to 1) display when giving descriptions of the skill and 2) serve as a reminders to children when they are involved in a play activity. By referencing the posters and giving verbal reminders, you can prompt children to use the skills they have learned.

Teacher asks children to share how they were a super friend today.

Use this certificate to acknowledge children’s friendship skills and communicate with families regarding friendship skills in the classroom.

Teaching friendship skill article

Emotional Literacy

Teacher reads a story and talks about emotions with the children.

The Feeling Faces assist children with understanding their feelings and the feelings of others. It is important to teach children words to use to express feelings in replace of the use of challenging behavior. The feeling faces that follow can be used in a variety of ways to help children learn social emotional skills around use of emotional literacy and vocabulary.

Print and laminate these placemats for a fun way to embed emotional literacy practice at home or at school. Each mat provides a blank face paired with a feeling word and emoticon that children can use to model the feeling faces. Use the mats to make feeling faces out of play dough or other sand/clay material. Laminated mats can also be used with dry erase markers for easy wipe off when play is done.

The Feeling Faces assist children with understanding their feelings and the feelings of others. It is important to teach children words to use to express feelings in replace of the use of challenging behavior. The feeling faces that follow can be used in a variety of ways to help children learn social emotional skills around use of emotional literacy and vocabulary. Includes introduction in Spanish and visual in English and Spanish.

Here are tips and ideas for helping children identify emotions when your face, your most expressive feature, is covered by a mask. Use these strategies to let children know that behind the mask, a kind and warm expression is still there!

Handout with ideas for teaching emotional literacy at home.

Teacher asks open ended questions about how the characters in the book are feeling. Children think, pair, share to brainstorm responses.

Problem-Solving Skills

This resource provides common challenges children experience when learning the problem solving process along with implementation strategies for improving the problem solving process and supporting children through the problem solving challenges.

Teacher notices children needed support to problem solve and the solution they choose is a calm down strategy. Includes modeling, guided practice, and visuals.

Letter addressed to families announcing the use of the solution kit at the program.

This handout walks preschool practitioners through the steps to teaching problem solving, along with clearly defining the teacher’s role and example language.

Teacher guides children having a disagreement through the problem-solving steps and celebrates when they select and use a solution.

Positive notes home to acknowledge children’s problem solving skills and keep families informed of problem solving skills at school.

Problem solving steps strategies and poster. Includes boy and girl versions.

Make these wrist cards with the Problem-Solving Steps and keep within reach to review with children as needed.

Use the solution kit cards as prompts to assist in problem-solving.

Large solution kit cards for teaching

Use this scripted story to help children find a solution to her problem.

Use this scripted story to help children find a solution to her problem.

Scripted story to help children understand the steps to problem solving. Includes problem scenario cards to help children practice finding a solution to common social problems.

Social-Emotional Skills – General

In this article we look at the secondary level of the teaching pyramid, which emphasizes planned instruction on specific social and emotional skills for children at risk for developing more challenging behavior, such as severe aggression, property destruction, noncompliance, or withdrawal. Children who may be considered at risk for challenging behavior are persistently noncompliant, have difficulty regulating their emotions, do not easily form relationships with adults and other children, have difficulty engaging in learning activities, and are perceived by teachers as being likely to develop more intractable behavior problems. (Published in Young Children, November 2006)

These colorful posters serve as a great visual reminder to teach social and emotional skills All Day, Every Day.

Children benefit from organized classroom environments in which the guidelines are clearly and simply stated. A set of positive expectations can help guide all interactions in the classroom. Use these strategies and sample visual to teach children behavior expectations, what to do, how to do it, and what is expected.

This handout contains materials for completing a stop and go activity to teach classroom rules and expectations.

Handout with questions helping practitioners plan for using literature to teach social and emotional skills.

Scripted Stories for Social Situations

Scripted Stories for Social Situations help children understand social interactions, situations, expectations, social cues, the script of unfamiliar activities, and/or social rules. As the title implies, they are brief descriptive stories that provide information regarding a social situation. When children are given information that helps them understand the expectations of a situation, their problem behavior within that situation is reduced or minimized.

Use this scripted story to teach a child about the expectations and rules associated with going to school.

This tipsheet contains suggestions on how to develop and use scripted stories at home.

This tipsheet contains suggestions on how to develop and use scripted stories.

Tips for developing scripted stories

Use this sample scripted story to help support children when the day at school is different, specifically when children are temporarily in a different classroom with a new teacher.

This scripted story helps to explain to children the how, why, and when of wearing face masks.

Use this sample scripted story to support children in the classroom when the teacher is away.

These easy-to-use guides were created especially for teachers/caregivers and parents to provide hands-on ways to embed social emotional skill building activities into everyday routines. Each book nook is comprised of ideas and activities designed around popular children’s books such as Big Al, Hands are Not for Hitting, On Monday When it Rained and My Many Colored Days. Examples of suggested activities include using rhymes to talk about being friends, making emotion masks to help children identify and talk about different feelings, playing games around what to do with hands instead of hitting and fun music and movement activities to express emotions.

These easy-to-use guides were created especially for teachers/caregivers and parents to provide hands-on ways to embed social emotional skill building activities into everyday routines. Each book nook is comprised of ideas and activities designed around popular children?s books

These easy-to-use guides provide teachers, caregivers, and families ways to embed social-emotional skill-building activities into everyday routines. Each Book Nook is comprised of ideas and activities designed around popular children’s books.

Building Relationships

Teacher-child relationship.

This document is designed to be used to gather information about the children in your classrooms. It will provide teachers with important information to help them build a relationship with each and every child and family.

This handout describes the importance of building relationships with young children and contains practical strategies for for building positive relationships with children in the early childhood education setting.

Guide for how to give directions

Think of all the ways you make connections with children as deposits into their “emotional piggy bank.” Playing, giving time and attention, and showing warmth and affection are just a few ways we can make deposits. Fill in the coins on the worksheet with ideas of how you will build responsive relationships with children.? Being purposeful and consistent in the way we create nurturing and responsive relationships with children is the foundation for social-emotional learning.

Para favorecer la participación, la independencia y el aprendizaje durante las actividades diarias, los maestros pueden usar una práctica llamada “dejar que el niño dirija”. Las interacciones iniciadas por los niños son la principal característica de esta práctica. Para seguir la dirección del niño es necesario planificar y adaptar a los intereses del niño las actividades del aula, facilitar las interacciones de los niños con el entorno social y no social y apoyar sus decisiones a la hora de pasar de una actividad a otra.

Teachers can support children’s participation, independence, and learning in everyday classroom activities by using a practice called “following the child’s lead.” Child-initiated interactions are a key characteristic of this practice. Following a child’s lead involves planning and adjusting classroom activities based on children’s interests, facilitating children’s interactions with the social and nonsocial environment, and supporting children’s choices to transition from one activity to another.

This handout helps practitioners examine how challenging behavior impacts adult-child relationships.

Use this data tracking sheet to assess the positive to negative ratio of attention in a classroom. For example, a teacher or a coach can use the form to write down the examples of positive and negative attention observed during a specified routine or activity.

Providing positive encouragement is a powerful practice for helping children meet behavior expectations. This fact sheet provides ideas for how caregivers can deliver positive encouragement.

Use this tip sheet to help practitioners of infants and toddlers intentionally plan and think about how to reconnect, help children transition back to the classroom, and support children’s social and emotional development after being away from the program.

Rebuilding the Pyramid: Reconnecting After a Break is a one page tip sheet to help preschool practitioners intentionally plan and think about how to support children’s use of social and emotional skills that are important to re-teach or remind children after being away from a classroom. Areas to focus on include: schedules and routines, supportive conversations, expectations and rules, positive descriptive feedback and emotional support.

Positive descriptive feedback is a powerful strategy for teaching new skills and maintaining learned skills. By providing information about the child’s behavior as part of the feedback, the teacher helps the child understand what they have done and why it is being acknowledged.

Tips for descriptive feedback

Tips for giving directions

Teacher-Family Relationships

This resource provides three steps for teachers to follow when they have a challenging encounter with a family to get things back on track in order to provide the best care for the child and the family.

Programs can use this form to gather information from families as to the impact from the pandemic and best ways to support the child and family.

This brief provides practitioners with practical strategies for building relationships and collaborating with families from racially and ethnically diverse cultural backgrounds. It identifies common challenges and offers strategies for addressing them.

This fact sheet provides guidance for supporting children and families during difficult circumstances (e.g., national protests, community violence).

As early childhood programs work on re-opening after a long closure, they can use these online communication and phone scripts to help guide your conversations with families.

Related Resources

Schedules, routines, and transitions.

This handout helps preschool teachers to develop balanced daily schedules including considerations such as Activity Level, Child/Adult Directedness, and Group Size throughout the day.

This handout helps preschool teachers to identify routines for activities occurring in the classroom. The template is designed so teachers can think through each step of the routine, how to teach the steps, and how to individualize them. Use the example for guidance.

Teachers and parents can use these strategies and visual cards to help young children transition smoothly between activities.

Videos & Webinars

Brief video (9 min) that describes the strategies that might be used by early childhood programs and educators to promote social and emotional skills and prevent challenging behavior. The video provides information on universal and targeted practices and materials that might be used.

This 28-minute video highlights strategies and approaches that early childhood personnel and families can use to systematically target social-emotional supports that build young children?s skills in a variety of areas including making friends, problem solving, asking an adult for help, talking about feelings, and managing their emotions. The strategies rely on a 3-stage approach to supporting young children’s social-emotional development by (1) introducing and practicing a skill, (2) building fluency and competency with a skill, and (3) ensuring there is maintenance of a skill. The video provides multiple examples of early childhood personnel demonstrating how to introduce a skill using a variety of tools, practice a skill through planned and unscripted activities, and maintain the skill by recognizing children for using the skill on their own.?

This 28-minute video highlights strategies and approaches that early childhood personnel and families can use to systematically target social-emotional supports that build young children’s skills in a variety of areas including making friends, problem solving, asking an adult for help, talking about feelings, and managing their emotions. The strategies rely on a 3-stage approach to supporting young children’s social-emotional development by (1) introducing and practicing a skill, (2) building fluency and competency with a skill, and (3) ensuring there is maintenance of a skill. The video provides multiple examples of early childhood personnel demonstrating how to introduce a skill using a variety of tools, practice a skill through planned and unscripted activities, and maintain the skill by recognizing children for using the skill on their own.

This video was designed to provide a foundation for understanding the Pyramid Model as a framework for promoting young children?s social and emotional development and preventing and addressing challenging behavior. This video is a perfect way to be introduced to and become familiar with the Pyramid Model framework and is available with both English and Spanish open captioning. (26 min)

Brief video (9 minutes) that describes the impact of COVID-19 and potential impact on children’s social-emotional wellness. The video provides guidance on pivotal practices that can promote social-emotional skill development and how programs can use a trauma -informed care approach.

Brief video (9 minutes) that describes the impact of COVID-19 and potential impact on children’s social-emotional wellness. The video provides guidance on pivotal practices that can promote social-emotional skill development and how programs can use a trauma-informed care approach.

General Resources

The Children’s Book List includes diverse examples of books that can be used to promote social-emotional skills such as feelings and emotions, friendships, kindness, and problem solving.

A printable version of the online children’s book list with book titles only. For complete list with descriptions, see Children’s Book List  page.

Guidance on how adults can use neutralizing routines to stay calm when guiding a child whose behavior is challenging.

This data collection form can be used to collect data on child’s progress in targeted skill development. This form can hold up to one month of data, can track more than one goal, and is scored on the level of help most often used for the child to successfully complete the skill or behavior.

When children engage in behavior that pushes your buttons, it is important to be intentional in how you respond. This resource provides strategies that you might use when a child’s behavior pushes your buttons to help you respond in a way that is supportive of the child.

Tips for how to respond to challenging behavior when it occurs in the classroom.

This website was made possible by Cooperative Agreement #H326B220002 which is funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. This website is maintained by the  University of South Florida . Contact  webmaster . © University of South Florida

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The Power of Playful Learning in the Early Childhood Setting

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Play versus learning represents a false dichotomy in education (e.g., Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff 2008). In part, the persistent belief that learning must be rigid and teacher directed—the opposite of play—is motivated by the lack of a clear definition of what constitutes playful learning (Zosh et al. 2018). And, in part, it is motivated by older perceptions of play and learning. Newer research, however, allows us to reframe the debate as learning via play—as playful learning.

This piece, which is an excerpt from Chapter 5 in  Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth Through Age 8, Fourth Edition (NAEYC 2022), suggests that defining play on a spectrum (Zosh et al. 2018, an idea first introduced by Bergen 1988) helps to resolve old divisions and provides a powerful framework that puts  playful learning —rich curriculum coupled with a playful pedagogy—front and center as a model for all early childhood educators. ( See below for a discussion of play on a spectrum.)

This excerpt also illustrates the ways in which play and learning mutually support one another and how teachers connect learning goals to children’s play. Whether solitary, dramatic, parallel, social, cooperative, onlooker, object, fantasy, physical, constructive, or games with rules, play, in all of its forms, is a teaching practice that optimally facilitates young children’s development and learning. By maximizing children’s choice, promoting wonder and enthusiasm for learning, and leveraging joy, playful learning pedagogies support development across domains and content areas and increase learning relative to more didactic methods (Alfieri et al. 2011; Bonawitz et al. 2011; Sim & Xu 2015).

Playful Learning: A Powerful Teaching Tool

This narrowing of the curriculum and high-stakes assessment practices (such as paper-and-pencil tests for kindergartners) increased stress on educators, children, and families but failed to deliver on the promise of narrowing—let alone closing—the gap.  All  children need well-thought-out curricula, including reading and STEM experiences and an emphasis on executive function skills such as attention, impulse control, and memory (Duncan et al. 2007). But to promote happy, successful, lifelong learners, children must be immersed in developmentally appropriate practice and rich curricular learning that is culturally relevant (NAEYC 2020). Playful learning is a vehicle for achieving this. Schools must also address the inequitable access to play afforded to children (see “Both/And: Early Childhood Education Needs Both Play and Equity,” by Ijumaa Jordan.) All children should be afforded opportunities to play, regardless of their racial group, socioeconomic class, and disability if they have been diagnosed with one. We second the call of Maria Souto-Manning (2017): “Although play has traditionally been positioned as a privilege, it must be (re)positioned as a right, as outlined by the  United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 31” (785).

What Is Playful Learning?

Playful learning describes a learning context in which children learn content while playing freely (free play or self-directed play), with teacher guidance (guided play), or in a structured game. By harnessing children’s natural curiosity and their proclivities to experiment, explore, problem solve, and stay engaged in meaningful activities—especially when doing so with others—teachers maximize learning while individualizing learning goals. Central to this concept is the idea that teachers act more as the Socratic “guide at the side” than a “sage on the stage” (e.g., King 1993, 30; Smith 1993, 35). Rather than view children as empty vessels receiving information, teachers see children as active explorers and discoverers who bring their prior knowledge into the learning experience and construct an understanding of, for example, words such as  forecast  and  low pressure  as they explore weather patterns and the science behind them. In other words, teachers support children as active learners.

Importantly, playful learning pedagogies naturally align with the characteristics that research in the science of learning suggests help humans learn. Playful learning leverages the power of active (minds-on), engaging (not distracting), meaningful, socially interactive, and iterative thinking and learning (Zosh et al. 2018) in powerful ways that lead to increased learning.

Free play lets children explore and express themselves—to be the captains of their own ship. While free play is important, if a teacher has a learning goal, guided play and games are the road to successful outcomes for children (see Weisberg, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff 2013 for a review). Playful learning in the form of guided play, in which the teacher builds in the learning as part of a fun context such as a weather report, keeps the child’s agency but adds an intentional component to the play that helps children learn more from the experience. In fact, when researchers compared children’s skill development during free play in comparison to guided play, they found that children learned more vocabulary (Toub et al. 2018) and spatial skills (Fisher et al. 2013) in guided play than in free play.

Self-Directed Play, Free Play

NAEYC’s 2020 position statement on developmentally appropriate practice uses the term  self-directed play  to refer to play that is initiated and directed by children. Such play is termed  free play  in the larger works of the authors of this excerpt; therefore, free play is the primary term used in this article, with occasional references to self-directed play, the term used in the rest of the DAP book.

Imagine an everyday block corner. The children are immersed in play with each other—some trying to build high towers and others creating a tunnel for the small toy cars on the nearby shelves. But what if there were a few model pictures on the wall of what children could strive to make as they collaborated in that block corner? Might they rotate certain pieces purposely? Might they communicate with one another that the rectangle needs to go on top of the square? Again, a simple insertion of a design that children can try to copy turns a play situation into one ripe with spatial learning. Play is a particularly effective way to engage children with specific content learning when there is a learning goal.

Why Playful Learning Is Critical

Teachers play a crucial role in creating places and spaces where they can introduce playful learning to help all children master not only content but also the skills they will need for future success. The science of learning literature (e.g., Fisher et al. 2013; Weisberg, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff 2013; Zosh et al. 2018) suggests that playful learning can change the “old equation” for learning, which posited that direct, teacher-led instruction, such as lectures and worksheets, was the way to achieve rich content learning. This “new equation” moves beyond a sole focus on content and instead views playful learning as a way to support a breadth of skills while embracing developmentally appropriate practice guidelines (see Hirsh-Pasek et al. 2020).

Using a playful learning pedagogical approach leverages the skill sets of today’s educators and enhances their ability to help children attain curricular goals. It engages what has been termed active learning that is also developmentally appropriate and offers a more equitable way of engaging children by increasing access to participation. When topics are important and culturally relevant to children, they can better identify with the subject and the learning becomes more seamless.

While educators of younger children are already well versed in creating playful and joyful experiences to support social goals (e.g., taking turns and resolving conflicts), they can use this same skill set to support more content-focused curricular goals (e.g., mathematics and literacy). Similarly, while teachers of older children have plenty of experience determining concrete content-based learning goals (e.g., attaining Common Core Standards), they can build upon this set of skills and use playful learning as a pedagogy to meet those goals.

Learning Through Play: A Play Spectrum

As noted previously, play can be thought of as lying on a spectrum that includes free play (or self-directed play), guided play, games, playful instruction, and direct instruction (Bergen 1988; Zosh et al. 2018). For the purposes of this piece, we use a spectrum that includes the first three of these aspects of playful learning, as illustrated in “Play Spectrum Showing Three Types of Playful Learning Situations” below.

The following variables determine the degree to which an activity can be considered playful learning:

• level of adult involvement
• extent to which the child is directing the learning
• presence of a learning goal

Toward the left end of the spectrum are activities with more child agency, less adult involvement, and loosely defined or no particular learning goals. Further to the right, adults are more involved, but children still direct the activity or interaction.

Developmentally appropriate practice does not mean primarily that children play without a planned learning environment or learn mostly through direct instruction (NAEYC 2020). Educators in high-quality early childhood programs offer a range of learning experiences that fall all along this spectrum. By thinking of play as a spectrum, educators can more easily assess where their learning activities and lessons fall on this spectrum by considering the components and intentions of the lesson. Using their professional knowledge of how children develop and learn, their knowledge of individual children, and their understanding of social and cultural contexts, educators can then begin to think strategically about how to target playful learning (especially guided play and games) to leverage how children naturally learn. This more nuanced view of play and playful learning can be used to both meet age-appropriate learning objectives and support engaged, meaningful learning.   

In the kindergarten classroom in the following vignette, children have ample time for play and exploration in centers, where they decide what to play with and what they want to create. These play centers are the focus of the room and the main tool for developing social and emotional as well as academic skills; they reflect and support what the children are learning through whole-group discussions, lessons, and skills-focused stations. In the vignette, the teacher embeds guided play opportunities within the children’s free play.

Studying Bears: Self-Directed Play that Extends What Kindergartners Are Learning

While studying the habits of animals in winter, the class is taking a deeper dive into the lives of American black bears, animals that make their homes in their region. In the block center, one small group of children uses short lengths and cross-sections of real tree branches as blocks along with construction paper to create a forest habitat for black bear figurines. They enlist their friends in the art center to assist in making trees and bushes. Two children are in the writing center. Hearing that their friends are looking for help to create a habitat, they look around and decide a hole punch and blue paper are the perfect tools for making blueberries—a snack black bears love to eat! Now multiple centers and groups of children are involved in making the block center become a black bear habitat.

In the dramatic play center, some of the children pretend to be bear biologists, using stethoscopes, scales, and magnifying glasses to study the health of a couple of plush black bears. When these checkups are complete, the teacher suggests the children could describe the bears’ health in a written “report,” thus embedding guided play within their free play. A few children at the easels in the art center are painting pictures of black bears.

Contributed by Amy Blessing

Free play, or self-directed play, is often heralded as the gold standard of play. It encourages children’s initiative, independence, and problem solving and has been linked to benefits in social and emotional development (e.g., Singer & Singer 1990; Pagani et al. 2010; Romano et al. 2010; Gray 2013) and language and literacy (e.g., Neuman & Roskos 1992). Through play, children explore and make sense of their world, develop imaginative and symbolic thinking, and develop physical competence. The kindergarten children in the example above were developing their fine motor and collaboration skills, displaying their understanding of science concepts (such as the needs of animals and living things), and exercising their literacy and writing skills. Such benefits are precisely why free play has an important role in developmentally appropriate practice. To maximize learning, teachers also provide guided play experiences.

Guided Play

While free play has great value for children, empirical evidence suggests that it is not always sufficient  when there is a pedagogical goal at stake  (Smith & Pellegrini 2008; Alfieri et al. 2011; Fisher et al. 2013; Lillard 2013; Weisberg, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff 2013; Toub et al. 2018). This is where guided play comes in.

Guided play allows teachers to focus children’s play around specific learning goals (e.g., standards-based goals), which can be applied to a variety of topics, from learning place value in math to identifying rhyming words in literacy activities. Note, however, that the teacher does not take over the play activity or even direct it. Instead, she asks probing questions that guide the next level of child-directed exploration. This is a perfect example of how a teacher can initiate a context for learning while still leaving the child in charge. In the previous kindergarten vignette, the teacher guided the children in developing their literacy skills as she embedded writing activities within the free play at the centers.

Facilitating Guided Play

Skilled teachers set up environments and facilitate development and learning throughout the early childhood years, such as in the following:

• Ms. Taglieri notices what 4-month-old Anthony looks at and shows interest in. Following his interest and attention, she plays Peekaboo, adjusting her actions (where she places the blanket and peeks out at him) to maintain engagement.
• Ms. Eberhard notices that 22-month-old Abe knows the color yellow. She prepares her environment based on this observation, placing a few yellow objects along with a few red ones on a small table. Abe immediately goes to the table, picking up each yellow item and verbally labeling them (“Lellow!”).
• Mr. Gorga creates intrigue and participation by inviting his preschool class to “be shape detectives” and to “discover the secret of shapes.” As the children explore the shapes, Mr. Gorga offers questions and prompts to guide children to answer the question “What makes them the same kind of shapes?”

An analogy for facilitating guided play is bumper bowling. If bumpers are in place, most children are more likely than not to knock down some pins when they throw the ball down the lane. That is different than teaching children exactly how to throw it (although some children, such as those who have disabilities or who become frustrated if they feel a challenge is too great, may require that level of support or instruction). Guided play is not a one-size-fits-all prescriptive pedagogical technique. Instead, teachers match the level of support they give in guided play to the children in front of them.

Critically, many teachers already implement these kinds of playful activities. When the children are excited by the birds they have seen outside of their window for the past couple of days, the teachers may capitalize on this interest and provide children with materials for a set of playful activities about bird names, diets, habitats, and songs. Asking children to use their hands to mimic an elephant’s trunk when learning vocabulary can promote learning through playful instruction that involves movement. Similarly, embedding vocabulary in stories that are culturally relevant promotes language and early literacy development (García-Alvarado, Arreguín, & Ruiz-Escalante 2020). For example, a teacher who has several children in his class with Mexican heritage decides to read aloud  Too Many Tamales  (by Gary Soto, illus. Ed Martinez) and have the children reenact scenes from it, learning about different literary themes and concepts through play. The children learn more vocabulary, have a better comprehension of the text, and see themselves and their experiences reflected. The teacher also adds some of the ingredients and props for making tamales into the sociodramatic play center (Salinas-González, Arreguín-Anderson, & Alanís 2018) and invites families to share stories about family  tamaladas  (tamale-making parties).

Evidence Supporting Guided Play as a Powerful Pedagogical Tool

Evidence from the science of learning suggests that discovery-based guided play actually results in increased learning for all children relative to both free play and direct instruction (see Alferi et al. 2011). These effects hold across content areas including spatial learning (Fisher et al. 2013), literacy (Han et al. 2010; Nicolopoulou et al. 2015; Hassinger-Das et al. 2016; Cavanaugh et al. 2017; Toub et al. 2018; Moedt & Holmes 2020), and mathematics (Zosh et al. 2016).

There are several possible reasons for guided play’s effectiveness. First, it harnesses the joy that is critical to creativity and learning (e.g., Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki 1987; Resnick 2007). Second, during guided play, the adults help “set the stage for thought and action” by essentially limiting the number of possible outcomes for the children so that the learning goal is discoverable, but children still direct the activity (Weisberg et al. 2014, 276). Teachers work to provide high-quality materials, eliminate distractions, and prepare the space, but then, critically, they let the child play the active role of construction. Third, in guided play, the teacher points the way toward a positive outcome and hence lessens the ambiguity (the degrees of freedom) without directing children to an answer or limiting children to a single discovery (e.g., Bonawitz et al. 2011). And finally, guided play provides the opportunity for new information to be integrated with existing knowledge and updated as children explore.

Reinforcing Numeracy with a Game

The children in Mr. Cohen’s preschool class are at varying levels of understanding in early numeracy skills (e.g., cardinality, one-to-one correspondence, order irrelevance). He knows that his children need some practice with these skills but wants to make the experience joyful while also building these foundational skills. One day, he brings out a new game for them to play—The Great Race. Carla and Michael look up expectantly, and their faces light up when they realize they will be playing a game instead of completing a worksheet. The two quickly pull out the box, setting up the board and choosing their game pieces. Michael begins by flicking the spinner with his finger, landing on 2. “Nice!” Carla exclaims, as Michael moves his game piece, counting “One, two.” Carla takes a turn next, spinning a 1 and promptly counting “one” as she moves her piece one space ahead. “My turn!” Michael says, eager to win the race. As he spins a 2, he pauses. “One . . . two,” he says, hesitating, as he moves his piece to space 4 on the board. Carla corrects him, “I think you mean ‘three, four,’ right? You have to count up from where you are on the board.” Michael nods, remembering the rules Mr. Cohen taught him earlier that day. “Right,” he says, “three, four.”

Similar to guided play, games can be designed in ways that help support learning goals (Hassinger-Das et al. 2017). In this case, instead of adults playing the role of curating the activity, the games themselves provide this type of external scaffolding. The example with Michael and Carla shows how children can learn through games, which is supported by research. In one well-known study, playing a board game (i.e., The Great Race) in which children navigated through a linear, numerical-based game board (i.e., the game board had equally spaced game spaces that go from left to right) resulted in increased numerical development as compared to playing the same game where the numbers were replaced by colors (Siegler & Ramani 2008) or with numbers organized in a circular fashion (Siegler & Ramani 2009). Structuring experiences so that the learning goal is intertwined naturally with children’s play supports their learning. A critical point with both guided play and games is that children are provided with support but still lead their own learning.

Digital educational games have become enormously popular, with tens of thousands of apps marketed as “educational,” although there is no independent review of these apps. Apps and digital games may have educational value when they inspire active, engaged, meaningful, and socially interactive experiences (Hirsh-Pasek et al. 2015), but recent research suggests that many of the most downloaded educational apps do not actually align with these characteristics that lead to learning (Meyer et al. 2021). Teachers should exercise caution and evaluate any activity—digital or not—to see how well it harnesses the power of playful learning.

Next Steps for Educators

Educators are uniquely positioned to prepare today’s children for achievement today and success tomorrow. Further, the evidence is mounting that playful pedagogies appear to be an accessible, powerful tool that harnesses the pillars of learning. This approach can be used across ages and is effective in learning across domains.

By leveraging children’s own interests and mindfully creating activities that let children play their way to new understanding and skills, educators can start using this powerful approach today. By harnessing the children’s interests at different ages and engaging them in playful learning activities, educators can help children learn while having fun. And, importantly, educators will have more fun too when they see children happy and engaged.

As the tide begins to change in individual classrooms, educators need to acknowledge that vast inequalities (e.g., socioeconomic achievement gaps) continue to exist (Kearney & Levine 2016). The larger challenge remains in propelling a cultural shift so that administrators, families, and policymakers understand the way in which educators can support the success of all children through high-quality, playful learning experiences.

Consider the following reflection questions as you reflect how to support equitable playful learning experiences for each and every child:

• One of the best places to start is by thinking about your teaching strengths. Perhaps you are great at sparking joy and engagement. Or maybe you are able to frequently leverage children’s home lives in your lessons. How can you expand practices you already use as an educator or are learning about in your courses to incorporate the playful learning described in this article?
• How can you share the information in this chapter with families, administrators, and other educators? How can you help them understand how play can engage children in deep, joyful learning?

This piece is excerpted from NAEYC’s recently published book  Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth Through Age 8,  Fourth Edition. For more information about the book, visit  NAEYC.org/resources/pubs/books/dap-fourth-edition .

Teaching Play Skills

Pamela Brillante

While many young children with autism spectrum disorder enjoy playing, they can have difficulty engaging in traditional play activities. They may engage in activities that do not look like ordinary play, including playing with only a few specific toys or playing in a specific, repetitive way.

Even though most children learn play skills naturally, sometimes families and teachers have to teach children how to play. Learning how to play will help develop many other skills young children need for the future, including

• social skills:  taking turns, sharing, and working cooperatively
• cognitive skills:  problem-solving skills, early academic skills
• communication skills:  responding to others, asking questions
• physical skills:  body awareness, fine and gross motor coordination

Several evidence-based therapeutic approaches to teaching young children with autism focus on teaching play skills, including

• The Play Project:  https://playproject.org
• The Greenspan Floortime approach: https://stanleygreenspan.com
• Integrated Play Group (IPG) Model: www.wolfberg.com

While many children with autism have professionals and therapists working with them, teachers and families should work collaboratively and provide multiple opportunities for children to practice new skills and engage in play at their own level. For example, focus on simple activities that promote engagement between the adult and the child as well as the child and their peers without disabilities, including playing with things such as bubbles, cause-and-effect toys, and interactive books. You can also use the child’s preferred toy in the play, like having the Spider-Man figure be the one popping the bubbles.

Pamela Brillante , EdD, has spent 30 years working as a special education teacher, administrator, consultant, and professor. In addition to her full-time faculty position in the Department of Special Education, Professional Counseling and Disability Studies at William Paterson University of New Jersey, Dr. Brillante continues to consult with school districts and present to teachers and families on the topic of high-quality, inclusive early childhood practices.  

Photographs: © Getty Images Copyright © 2022 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. See Permissions and Reprints online at  NAEYC.org/resources/permissions .

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Toub, T.S., B. Hassinger-Das, K.T. Nesbitt, H. Ilgaz, D.S. Weisberg, K. Hirsh-Pasek, R.M. Golinkoff, A. Nicolopoulou, & D.K. Dickinson. 2018. “The Language of Play: Developing Preschool Vocabulary Through Play Following Shared Book-Reading.” Early Childhood Research Quarterly 45 (4): 1–17.  

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Zosh, J.M., B. Hassinger-Das, T.S. Toub, K. Hirsh-Pasek, & R. Golinkoff. 2016. “Playing with Mathematics: How Play Supports Learning and the Common Core State Standards.” Journal of Mathematics Education at Teachers College 7 (1): 45–49. https://doi.org/10.7916/jmetc.v7i1.787 . 

Zosh, J.M., K. Hirsh-Pasek, E.J. Hopkins, H. Jensen, C. Liu, D. Neale, S.L. Solis, & D. Whitebread. 2018. “Accessing the Inaccessible: Redefining Play as a Spectrum.” Frontiers in Psychology 9: 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01124 . 

Jennifer M. Zosh, PhD, is professor of human development and family studies at Penn State Brandywine. Most recently, her work has focused on technology and its impact on children as well as playful learning as a powerful pedagogy. She publishes journal articles, book chapters, blogs, and white papers and focuses on the dissemination of developmental research.

Caroline Gaudreau, PhD, is a research professional at the TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health at the University of Chicago. She received her PhD from the University of Delaware, where she studied how children learn to ask questions and interact with screen media. She is passionate about disseminating research and interventions to families across the country.

Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, PhD, conducts research on language development, the benefits of play, spatial learning, and the effects of media on children. A member of the National Academy of Education, she is a cofounder of Playful Learning Landscapes, Learning Science Exchange, and the Ultimate Playbook for Reimagining Education. Her last book, Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children (American Psychological Association, 2016), reached the New York Times bestseller list.

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, PhD, is the Lefkowitz Faculty Fellow in the Psychology and Neuroscience department at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  She is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Her research examines the development of early language and literacy, the role of play in learning, and learning and technology. [email protected]

Vol. 77, No. 2

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• Melanated Montessori
• Dec 14, 2020

Problem Solving Skills in Early Childhood: A Montessori Approach

Posted December 14, 2020

Article by Montessori Academy. Image by

Problem-solving and critical thinking are among the most crucial skills a child can learn. They provide children with the foundations for decision making, logical reasoning, categorizing, analytical thinking, negotiation, and creativity.

Providing children with a caring environment that is rich in appropriately challenging activities is the key to developing problem-solving and higher-order processing skills.

Name the problem

If you can see a child struggling with an activity, give them the language to express what they are finding difficult.

Once you have named the problem, follow up with a prompting question that encourages them to take the next step to solve the problem.

For example, if a child spilled water and can’t find a cloth to clean it up, you could say: “That looks like a big spill of water. What should we do next?”

Answer with a question

When a child asks a question, resist the urge to answer immediately.

Instead, think about how you could use their query to encourage them to take the next step.

For example, if a child asks: “Where are my shoes?” ask them: “What were you doing when you were wearing them last?”

Prompting questions will encourage them to track back, problem-solve, and find the solution on their own.

Use prompting questions such as:

What do you think about that?

What do you think comes next?

Which part are you finding difficult?

Is there another way you could try that?

Have you looked at it this way?

Where could we find the answer?

Set the right level of challenge

Develop problem-solving and critical thinking skills by providing children with activities that are challenging but not impossible.

Activities should be a little out of reach and account for the child’s stage of development, skill level, and interests.

For example, you would introduce a child who is interested in name writing to the developmentally appropriate language materials, as opposed to presenting a counting activity.

A task that is interesting and appropriately challenging will encourage persistence, which ultimately leads to problem-solving and critical thinking skills, as opposed to frustration and discouragement.

Slow down and stand back

Children are often more capable than we think. Sometimes, all it takes is to slow down, stand back, and observe.

Take your cues from the child. Are they asking for help? Are they getting visibly upset? If not, allow them the time and space to persist. They will discover the learning outcome on their own.

If a child asks for help, offer the minimal level of assistance to get them to the next step, without solving the problem for them.

For example, if a child can’t figure out how to put on their jumper the right way, show them that the tag goes to the back and encourage them to try again.

Focus on effort

To encourage the development of problem-solving skills, focus on effort, as opposed to the result.

Using phrases such as “Good job!” and “You got everything right!” praise the outcome as opposed to the meaningful learning that occurred.

It also encourages children to continue to seek external validation as opposed to enjoying the process and seeing learning as its own reward.

Instead, use phrases of encouragement such as “I can see you have been working hard, or “That looks tricky! You worked hard on that. Maybe we can try again tomorrow.”

Focusing on the child’s effort, as opposed to the result, encourages them to try challenging things.

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Early Science Learning for Infants and Toddlers

Infants and toddlers are natural scientists. They are curious and they love to explore and learn. Adults can help infants and toddlers find answers to their questions and discover more about things that interest them. In this News You Can Use, we discuss ways teachers, home visitors, family child care providers, and families can be more intentional in how they support young children’s early science learning—and school readiness.

Have you ever heard people say, “Science for infants and toddlers? That can’t be right!” Or, “I don’t know how to do that?” Or even “Science is for older children?” Science learning may seem to be the stuff of high school and college students, but it all begins with infants and toddlers!

What Is Science?

Science is not just a body of knowledge—it’s “a way of thinking and acting ... a way of trying to discover the nature of things.” Science learning at any age involves curiosity, exploration, and discovery. These come naturally to most infants and toddlers. Adults can help young children find answers to their questions and discover more about things that interest them. Do you do some of that already? If so, you’re helping them learn science!

The Scientific Process

Fifteen-month-old Jasper is exploring a basket of different kinds of balls that his home visitor brought with her. Jasper finds a large, rubber bouncy ball. He hands it to his mother, Adria, and says “Ball.” Adria says, “Yes, it’s a rubber ball. Drop it and see what happens.” Jasper drops the ball, and it bounces back up to his waist. He laughs in delight. Adria laughs too and says, “It bounced. You like that!” Then he finds a plastic ball and says, “Ball!” When he drops this ball, it just lands on the floor and rolls. He looks at his mom with wide open eyes. Adria smiles and says, “Uh, it didn’t bounce. You look surprised! Here, try this one,” and hands him a larger bouncy ball. He drops it and it bounces back up to his knees. Jasper spends some time going through the basket of balls, dropping each one (and sometimes throwing one to the ground) to see if it bounces.

Science has two parts: process and knowledge. The scientific process (also known as the scientific method) is a series of steps. These steps do not have to happen in a certain order or just once. Sometimes they can happen at the same time. In this vignette, Jasper uses the same process that adult scientists use! As you read the steps, think about how Jasper and his mom explored the balls and the way he naturally followed the process:

An important part of the scientific process is modifying and repeating. This can mean changing the hypotheses and doing the same experiment. It can also mean keeping the same hypotheses and doing a different experiment! Modifying and repeating can happen at any time while a child explores. In the vignette, Jasper tries dropping (or throwing) each ball to find the ones that bounce after he “communicates” the results of dropping the plastic ball. Over time, and with lots of experiences like this, Jasper will learn more about balls, including why some bounce and why some don’t! So, knowing about the scientific process helps adults recognize when young children naturally follow these steps.

Science Knowledge

Heath (infant teacher) sits on a blanket with Clara (26 months old) under a tree on the center’s outdoor play space. Clara lies quietly on her back, looking up toward the tree branches where a shiny silver chime is hanging. Heath says, “Clara, I see you looking up at the chimes. Do you think we’ll hear them make a sound today?” Just then, a gentle wind blows and the chimes tinkle. Clara says excitedly, “I hear them just now!” Heath laughs and says, “I guess the answer is ‘yes’! Did you feel the wind? It blew and moved the chime, and the chime made a tinkling sound!”

Where can science learning happen? Everywhere and anywhere; it doesn’t have to stay at the science table! In this everyday experience of being outside and noticing chimes, Heath helps Clara wonder about (hypothesize) whether the chimes will make a noise or not and connect blowing wind (something that cannot be seen) with the effect it can have on a solid object (causing the chimes to make a tinkling noise). As Clara has more experiences seeing and hearing the wind’s effects on objects such as chimes, trees, streamers, and hair, she will begin to learn more about wind, such as what it is and what happens when it blows. She will also learn to connect the wind blowing with the sounds that some objects make and to predict what sounds she might hear before the wind blows.

If the scientific process is the “how” of science exploration, science knowledge is the “what.” There are many ways to organize science knowledge. Here is one.

• Physical science: exploring the properties of objects and materials, such as shape, color, texture, weight, temperature (e.g., hot, cold), solid, or liquid; how objects move, work, and change; what objects and materials are made of; sound and light
• Natural science: exploring the natural world of living things, including plants and animals; and exploring things related to the earth (e.g., dirt, rocks, sand, wind, weather, sun)
• Social science: exploring people—who they are (e.g., relationships between people), what they do, and where they live

How Might Staff and Families Support Early Science Learning for Infants and Toddlers?

Cristina, a family child care provider, has noticed the way that infants and toddlers naturally explore and behave like scientists. She watches 5-month-old Liam explore large plastic snap beads with his mouth. He is learning about their properties! She notices that 13-month-old Hanna has discovered—through trial and error—that the couch is an excellent structure for pulling herself up, while large cardboard boxes are not as stable. Twenty-one-month-old Xander seems driven to discover what he can and cannot fit his finger into. Cristina believes that the children she cares for are curious and capable. They will discover more about the world around them than she could ever hope to “teach.” She knows that her nurturing relationship and safe home together create an inviting environment for learning.

Infants and toddlers learn best within strong, trusting relationships with caring adults. When infants and toddlers feel safe and comfortable, they are more likely to want to explore and learn about their world. And what do they use to explore and learn? Their senses—they watch, touch/feel, taste, smell, and listen! Infants and toddlers also learn through play. As Cristina realizes, offering sensory play opportunities and interacting in meaningful ways with very young children are part of supporting early science learning. Here are a few more ideas to consider:

• Provide an environment of “yes” and long chunks of time for children to observe and explore their environment (indoors and outdoors)—at their pace.
• Use language! Help children make sense of their experiences by describing what they see and do. Ask open-ended questions such as, “I wonder why…?” “What do you think will happen if…?” “What else can you try?” You can even ask young infants open-ended questions! They may not answer, but you are helping to develop their scientific thinking. Commenting, describing, making comparisons between objects/materials, and asking questions are all ways to help young children learn new words and connect new information to what they already know.
• Provide mobile infants and toddlers with discovery tools such as small pails and buckets with handles; small digging tools; and safe, sturdy magnifying glasses.
• Read books with children about nature, people, and familiar objects.

Science and School Readiness for Infants and Toddlers

Science in the early years can lead to a lifelong love of discovery. Science learning is also related to developmental domains and school readiness. For example, the scientific process steps are closely related to attention, curiosity, information gathering, memory, persistence, and problem solving. These are characteristics that are found in the Approaches Toward Learning domain.

The following cognitive concepts also connect to early science learning:

• Object permanence (people and objects exist even when you can’t see them)
• Cause and effect (actions make things happen)
• Spatial awareness (where bodies and objects are in space; recognizing the environment has three dimensions–that things have tops, bottoms, and sides)
• Symbolic thinking (using objects, actions, and ideas to represent other objects, actions, and ideas)

Infants and toddlers are natural scientists! They explore physical, natural, and social science anywhere and everywhere. They observe, are curious, and investigate to find out more about their world. They gather information as they solve problems. They communicate the results of their explorations through babbling, laughing, crying, physical gestures, facial expressions, and words. However, even though “science” exploration might come naturally to most infants and toddlers, they benefit from adult support. Adults build and expand on young children’s scientific interest when they interact with infants and toddlers as they engage in the scientific process. Adults also provide opportunities, materials, time, and space for exploring and discovery. This support from staff and families in the early years can lead to positive outcomes later as young children carry their interest and excitement about science and learning into preschool and beyond!

Study Guide

This News You Can Use talks about the scientific process and building science knowledge for infants and toddlers. It also provides strategies that adults can use to support early science learning.

Key Messages

• Infants and toddlers are natural scientists! They are curious and investigate to find out more about their world.
• The scientific process (also known as the scientific method) is a series of steps for exploring questions and discovering answers. It is the “how” of science exploration.
• Science knowledge is the “what” of science exploration. It includes learning about physical science, natural science, and social science.
• Early science learning is related to developmental domains and school readiness.
• There are many ways adults can help young children find answers to questions and discover more about things that interest them.
• This News You Can Use provides some examples of how early science learning relates to two developmental domains: (1) approaches toward learning and (2) cognition and general knowledge. What are some examples of how early science learning relates to social and emotional development, language and literacy, and physical development and health?
• How do engaging in the scientific process and learning about physical, natural, and social science help infants and toddlers become ready for preschool and beyond?
• Reflect on your own experiences with science learning in school. Were they positive or negative? Can you say why?
• How might your personal feelings about science affect how you support early science learning for infants and toddlers?
• How might early science learning look the same or differently for young infants, older infants, and toddlers?
• In what ways do you already support early science learning for infants and toddlers?

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National Centers: Early Childhood Development, Teaching and Learning

Series: News You Can Use

Last Updated: April 4, 2024

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