It Starts With a Seed: Connecting Read Alouds and STEAM-Based Learning Through Play
- Diane Schnoor
- 3 hours ago
- 9 min read
Read alouds can act as a powerful bridge between playful inquiry and rigorous STEM thinking, especially when caregivers and educators treat stories as launchpads for exploration rather than “extras” that are tacked on as an afterthought. When those stories flow directly into hands-on, playful STEAM invitations, children experience learning as joyful, meaningful, and deeply connected to their own curiosity.
Throughout my career, I've loved connecting multicultural picture books and engaged STEAM learning. Sometimes the seed that launches the connection is a question from a child (ahh, Andrew and his "how many bones are in a giraffe's neck -- but that's a story for another time). Sometimes the seed is my own teaching intention (We all have them, what standards do I need to "cover" and what's the best way to connect multiple disciples to make sure we get there joyfully? In that case, I might start with sound, then start thinking about ways to pair picture books and STEAM together for playful invitations.) And sometimes the seed is discovering a beautiful multicultural picture book -- and figuring out how to wrap it into STEAM experiences and learning invitations.
Let's take Alicia D. Williams' brand new folk tale, Nani and the Lion (illustrated by Anna Cunha) as our example for purposefully blending the intentional read aloud with engaged STEAM experiences. In this story, young Nani uses her drums and the rhythm of her playing to outwit the lion and win back the ability to make noise and dance with joy for her community. How could we connect this book to STEAM-based invitations to spark wonder, curiosity, empathy, and joyful play?
From Picture Books to STEAM Engagement: A Practical Example Using Nani and the Lion
I've outlined the basic steps below, followed by specific ideas for using this framework to create playful learning invitations. If you're interested in the research behind this approach, I've included a list of sources and podcast episodes at the end of the post. Specific suggestions for doing this work with Nani and the Lion follow each step.
Interactive read aloud
Choose a picture book that naturally raises STEAM questions (e.g., building, force and motion, balance, habitats, light and shadow, the senses). If you need examples of wonderful books you might use, check out my 365 Day Picture Book Read Aloud Calendar and PDF. In the case of Nani and the Lion, we can explore sound, rhythm, pitch, engineering, and even mapping.
As you read, use prompts (Why did this happen? What might the character try next? How would you solve the problem?) to encourage prediction, explanation, and perspective taking. For Nani and the Lion, you might draw attention to the changes in font color and size to point out emotion and to ask children to play the rhythm with you. You might also use prompts such as What would you do in Nani's situation? How would that help solve the problem? What kind of rhythm would you play for the Lion and why?
Create a Story to STEAM Connection or Challenge
Explicitly surface the “problem” or wonder from the story. There will be times that this naturally occurs, times that you explicitly have a challenge in mind, and times that the challenge will emerge from the questions or ideas of the children. For Nani and the Lion, the challenge might be how could you build a drum that can play a song for the Lion?
Co-construct criteria and constraints with the children. With Nani and the Lion, those constraints might be you can only use these materials to build your drum. The drum has to be able to be played loudly and quietly, etc.
Guided playful exploration
Offer time and space for children to design, tinker, and role-play with open-ended materials while adults observe and pose just-right questions. As you observe, you may have opportunities to offer additional exploration of sound. And you can explore sound in greater depth depending on your audience. Steve Spangler has a number of wonderful sound experiences to try. When I was Director of Education at the Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum, I created a series of videos including Sound Science, Sense of Sound, and Discover Sound. Bonus: there's a full webpage of playful experiences and ideas you might want to include as you dive deeper into sound exploration.
Encourage children to iterate—try, fail, reflect, and redesign—positioning “mistakes” as part of the learning process. With Nani and the Lion, give children time and space to create and play their drums. Have them take turns creating and repeating rhythms with their drums. Based on all of the opportunities to explore sound deeper, you might also use this as an opportunity to encourage the children to try thinking of and engineering additional instruments Nani might try to create her rhythms.
Reflection and Retelling or Extending the Story
Invite children to document or retell what they built and discovered, using drawings, oral narratives, or new “chapters” of the original story. With our youngest learners, you might have them draw a new page showing them playing their instrument alongside Nani. They can write or dictate a sentence to go with it and you can create a class book for the literacy center. With our older learners, you might ask them to write what happens next. Does the Lion keep his promise? Why or why not? You could also use this as an opportunity to write specifications for creating the perfect musical instrument -- and have them connect it to what they have learned about the science of sound.
This kind of narrative reflection strengthens language, consolidates STEAM learning, and nurtures empathy as children explain their thinking to peers.
Examples of real world learning through play from preschool to second grade. In each instance, a picture book connection led to storytelling and literacy opportunities as well as hands-on STEAM problem solving explorations. Examples here include Honeybee, variations on The Three Billy Goats, and The Last Zookeeper.
Why Read Alouds are Perfect STEAM Engagement Launch Pads
Well-chosen picture books give children access to complex ideas, rich language, and decontextualized talk that they might not reach independently. When we intentionally incorporate multicultural picture books that provide windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors, showing our children possibilities and introducing them to other cultures and perspectives, we give them a safe space to stretch their imaginations and build their empathy muscles.
Interactive read alouds, where teachers pause to question, predict, and wonder with children, reliably strengthen comprehension, vocabulary, and oral language, key foundations for building literacy skills. They also model passion, curiosity, and a desire to read. It's not enough to just learn how to read. We also need to spark wonder and the desire to read. By intentionally incorporating read alouds throughout our day and paired with our curriculum, we are giving students multiple opportunities to engage, to think deeply, and to connect, with each other, with the reader, and with the book.
When stories are intentionally selected for STEAM content (engineering challenges, scientific phenomena, patterns, cause and effect, etc), they present problems, constraints, and characters’ decisions in a narrative form that is naturally engaging. This narrative context helps young learners make sense of abstract ideas, see multiple perspectives, and emotionally connect with the “why” behind STEAM tasks.
Story-Driven Problem Solving + Engaged STEAM = Connections
Engaged STEAM isn't another worksheet about science concepts. There's a time and a place for those, but this isn't it. Engaged STEAM is about children living and doing science in context. It's the magic that happens when children have the opportunity to collaborate, to connect, to imagine, to problem-solve, to find creative solutions to story-based problems. And the research backs it up. Hands-on, design-oriented tasks that invite students to experiment, build, and problem-solve increase attention, persistence, and collaboration, especially when linked to real or story-based problems.
As seen in the Nani and the Lion example, pairing interactive read alouds and STEAM experiences offer us a joyful way to build those 21st century skills our children need. In this approach, the adult reader strategically pauses a read aloud so students can identify the characters’ problems, define criteria and constraints, brainstorm solutions, and prototype designs. In these moments, listening comprehension, inference, and narrative understanding sit alongside engineering practices such as planning, testing, and revising.
Learning Through Play Is The Glue That Connects Literacy and STEAM
Play-based STEAM experiences, whether child-initiated or guided, create a natural context for exploring engineering, design, measurement, pattern, structure, and cause and effect. Guided play in particular blends children’s choices with subtle adult scaffolds, and has been linked to gains in STEAM understanding, early literacy, socioemotional development, and executive function.
Throughout my career, whether running a preschool or creating enriched education opportunities for thousands of students and families each year, playful learning and engagement have always been intertwined. Stories spark imagination and exploration, whether it is using preschoolers as the nonstandard unit of measurement for an apatosaurus, using the block center as a staging ground for learning about architects and designing a better abode for the three pigs, or transforming a camp into a wizarding school where students experiment with chemistry, physics, and fun while pretending to be their favorite characters.
In these playful environments, children test hypotheses with blocks and water, negotiate roles, and replan when structures fall or first ideas don't work out the way they imagined. These actions help children practic critical thinking and creative problem-solving, develop cognitive flexibility and resilience, and allow opportunities for empathy and collaboration that support STEAM learning, literacy, and long-term academic success. When we follow a STEAM-oriented read aloud with open-ended materials, such as cardboard, blocks, and loose parts, children can “live inside” the story’s ideas, transforming narrative themes into self-directed play scenarios.
What does this mean for us as leaders, educators, and caregivers?
When we intentionally choose read alouds as an integral part of our day, rather than as a "break" or "time filler," we give ourselves powerful tools for sparking wonder and curiosity and inviting engagement. The read aloud becomes a powerful bridge for building empathy, sparking wonder, and connecting literacy and inquiry. When we consistently pair stories with guided play and design-rich STEAM invitations, we create learning ecosystems where imagination, empathy, and analytical thinking grow together over time.
At the system level, integrating story-based STEAM play into the curriculum supports whole-child development (cognitive, language, and social-emotional) without sacrificing standards. For children and families, especially in communities under pressure for early acceleration, this approach protects time for joyful, relational play while still building the skills that predict later success in reading, math, and problem solving.
Adventures in Learning Podcast Episodes That Connect Literacy, STEAM Engagement, and Learning Through Play:
Episode 2: If You're Not Having Fun, You're Not Doing it Right! Jennifer Coleman
Episode 63: STEAMing into Iceland with Early Childhood Educator Katherine Mohr
Episode 85: Math+Literacy = A Winning STEAM Combo with Dr. Kateri Thunder
Episode 96: Building a Playful Future: A Conversation with Dr. Amanda Gummer
Episode 111: Bridging Storytelling and STEAM with Kristen Rodriguez
Episode 138: Learning Unboxed with Dr. Annalies Corbin: Transforming How We Learn and Teach
Episode 143: L-M-N-O-Play! Unlocking Childhood Magic Through Picture Books and Play
Episode 155: The Engagement Effect: Transforming Learning with Steve Spangler
Episode 171: Let Them Play: Rae Pica on Joyful Learning and Reclaiming Early Childhood
For future research and reading:
Bjorklund, D. F., & Brown, R. D. (2013). Evidence for a relation between executive function and pretense in young children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 114(1), 120–135.
Fisher, K. R., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R. M., & Gryfe, S. G. (2011). Conceptual split? Parents’ and experts’ perceptions of play in the 21st century. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 32(6), 314–323.
Fisher, K. R., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Newcombe, N. S., & Golinkoff, R. M. (2013). Taking shape: Supporting preschoolers’ acquisition of geometric knowledge through guided play. Child Development, 84(6), 1872–1878.
Hassinger-Das, B., Zosh, J. M., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R. M. (2018). Playing to learn: Leveraging the science of learning to inform playful pedagogy. In D. Whitebread, V. Grau, K. Kumpulainen, M. McClelland, N. E. Perry, & D. Pino-Pasternak (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of developmental psychology and early childhood education (pp. 153–169). SAGE.
McClelland, M. M., & Cameron, C. E. (2019). Developing together: The role of executive function and motor skills in children’s academic lives. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 46, 142–151.
National Association for the Education of Young Children. (2022). The power of playful learning in the early childhood setting. Young Children, 77(2), 18–27.
National Association for the Education of Young Children. (2024). Building executive function skills through games. Young Children, 79(2), 12–19.
Toub, T. S., Hassinger-Das, B., Nesbitt, K. T., Ilgaz, H., Weisberg, D. S., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R. M. (2018). Guided play: Principles and practices. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27(5), 342–347.
Verdine, B. N., Golinkoff, R. M., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Newcombe, N. S. (2014). Finding the missing piece: Blocks, puzzles, and shapes fuel school readiness. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 3(1), 7–13.
Zippert, E. L., Daubert, E. N., Scalise, N. R., Nuerk, H. C., & Levine, S. C. (2020). Encouraging math talk in adult–child interactions supports children’s math language and skills. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 50, 230–241.
You can learn more about Alicia D. Williams on Episodes 29 and 77 of the Adventures in Learning. Tune in later this month as she joins me to talk about Nani and the Lion, featured in this blog post.