Preschool Presentation - I am an Engineer

It is women's history month and what better way to celebrate women than by sharing your story with your kids...as well as their friends.  My son is only in preschool, but I wanted to start making an impression on him and his friends early so I volunteered to talk about my job at his preschool.  Luckily, it was not the same day as the firefighter, but hopefully they took away something from the activity.

Using the Tech Bridge kids presentation model (Tech Bridge organizes science and engineering activities for girls.  Check out their website http://www.techbridgegirls.org), I organized my presentation into 4 parts:

1.  Ice Breaker

2.  Introduce yourself

3.  Activity

4.  Wrap up

Tech Bridge focuses on school age girls, but this model can be used for all ages (including college), with appropriate activities.

I started the kids in a circle.

1.  For the Ice Breaker we went around the circle and shared our name and favorite thing to make.  I went first to give them an idea.  "I like to make cookies."

2.  I brought a couple printed slides with pictures of different things engineers build and work on.  I also printed some key words in big letters.  Most of the kids can not read, but they do recognize letters.  Here is a sample of the introduction:

"I am an ENGINEER.

Engineers design and build things.  

Some engineers design Buildings.

Some engineers design Machines.

Some engineers design computer programs.

Engineers solve problems. 

I work on machines that make things, like soap, bottles and food, that you can buy at the store.

I help solve problems to make the machinery run faster and better. 

When things like food are made in a FACTORY, that is called MANUFACTURING.

In a food factory, we use materials & ingredients to make something that is then sent to a store for you to buy. "

3.  For the activity, we set up an assembly line to make snack mix.  I assigned each student to a job along the assembly line.  After explaining the roles, we spread the kids out along a table and the "packers" donned hair nets and gloves.  When I said "go," the Delivery team brought the box of supplies to the table, the Unpackers took the materials out and spread them along the table.  The Bag leaders opened zipper snack bags and passed them to the first station.  The Cheerios leaders put a scoop of Cheerios in the bag and passed it along.  The Goldfish leaders put a scoop of Goldfish in the bag and passed it.  The Pretzels leader put a handful of pretzels in and passed the bag.  The Bag Sealer sealed the bag and put it in a box.  When the box had a few bags, the Store Delivery team put one bag in each cubby.

I have to admit, it was a little hectic and some kids sampled the snacks before the bag was closed (including my son), but in the end we successfully made enough snack bags for each child to take home.

4.  Finally we wrapped up back in a circle and talked about how things are made or MANUFACTURED in a FACTORY.

Materials come in the FACTORY - >

they are Processed ->

They are Packaged ->

And then they are shipped to the grocery store.

Do not be afraid to share what you do with your kids early and often.  I want my kids to declare proudly "My Mom's an Engineer."