STEM in Preschool?

I found this tidbit in ExchangeEveryDay and it has proved to be inspirational and caused me to think about how to extend and build on what's already happening in a normal preschool classroom related to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) - and in this case it's done side by side with a literacy activity.  I hope this will stimulate your thinking about how to enhance and expand what you do every day!

In Brain World magazine (Fall 2014), Kenneth Wilson argues that "Parents and teachers should learn to recognize 'where STEM is' in what they already teach in class, do at home, or experience during the day." He offers as an example this STEM learning activity:

"Take a traditional storybook that presents a problem. Ask students to 'engineer' a different (preferably better) solution to the problem.  For example, you have received an urgent email message from the Three Little Pigs.  They have been traumatized long enough by the Big Bad Wolf!  Your family/class has been commissioned by the Three Little Pigs to engineer two safeguards to thwart the Big Bad Wolf.  How many design and engineering models can you propose as solutions to the Three Little Pigs problem?"

<exchangeeveryday@ccie.com>  10/29/14

I wonder what could happen if you asked the children in your class to work with the three bears on ideas to keep their house safe from intruders, or see if they would be willing to help the troll under the bridge engineer a solution to the abundance of traffic.