This looks very interesting!  I like the fact that multimodal experiences in this case include interactions with the actual world.  

    I was intrigued by the mention, in your video, of parents who are not comfortable using media with their kids.  I'd like to hear a little more about what the reasons for this discomfort might be? 

This looks like a great program.  Involving parents in their children's education is critical and you are giving parents a nice set of tools to accomplish that.  Peep is a great choice for the cartoon component.

I noticed that all of the parents depicted in your video were mothers.  Was that a conscious choice?  It made me wonder about whether or not fathers have also participated in the program, and whether or not you noticed any differences in parent outcomes between mothers and fathers.

Thanks for sharing your work!

Hi, 

   Maybe I missed this detail:  Do parents (and kids) get to communicate about their experiences with each other?  I could see that being exciting, in different ways, for people within a commnity, and between communities. 

I agree! One of the most rewarding aspects of this kind of program would be sharing experiences with other families doing the same science activities. Whether this is possible depends on the model of the home visiting program parents belong to:

• One program we worked with has weekly group meetings with parents, and part of those meetings are set aside to give parents time to talk in person about their experiences. Parents are reportedly very enthusiastic about these sessions.
• Another home visiting program we worked with primarily serves parents in rural communities, some of which are very isolated. Educators visit these families in their homes and work one-on-one with a parent. These families don’t have the opportunity to meet with others, and electronic sharing is not a good option given how unreliable rural internet access can be. We have heard anecdotally, however, that parents enjoy sharing their science explorations with their home educator, sometimes documenting them with photos or video.

Thanks for sharing your interesting work! A few questions for you: for what ages are the activities targeted? How did you evaluate the program? (As an evaluator, I'm always curious how other evaluate their work.) Were your outcomes focused at the individual level (e.g., individual child, individual caregiver) and/or at the family level (e.g., sibling connections, parent-child interactions)?

I had the same question about the age group - are any of your participants in elementary school, or are they all preschool-aged?  (I'm wondering about this partially for personal reasons - I run a Girl Scout troop of kindergarteners and 1st graders, and wonder if you'd recommend the activities for this age group).  Thanks.

PEEP activities are designed for preschoolers, but there are definitely a number of activities that would appeal to your Kindergarten and first grade Girl Scouts. But instead of using the PEEP Family Science apps, which are meant for a parent and child, I’d suggest selecting activities from the PEEP Science Curriculum on our website, which are meant for group activities. Thanks for writing!

I have used PEEP as a science resource for years when developing curriculum.  This is a great resource I will be passing along to the parents of my classroom.  Do you need to have internet to access the content of the app? 

We're very pleased to hear you've been using PEEP in the classroom and that you'll be sharing the PEEP Family Science apps with parents!

Parents will need the Internet to download the app. But once downloaded, the app works completely offline: they won’t need to use their phone’s data plan or the Internet again.

Each app features hands-on activity instructions plus 6 or 7 videos--PEEP animations and two parent videos that model the science activities.

We designed the app to be used offline because the majority of families who belong to the home visiting organizations we worked with did not have reliable Internet.

This looks like a fun and effective way to build on the television program and teach basic science skills in an engaging way. I was struck by how much fun both moms and children seemed to be having. Have you studied whether participating in these activities makes kids better prepared once they are in school and engaged in more formal sterm learning? 

This is such a great project! And it would be terrific to study how these informal experiences with parents support children's readiness and the intersection between informal and formal STEM learning opportunities. 

Seems like the parents reflections on the experience would be a rich source of data for understanding what changes they saw in their children's interest and understanding, as well as their own. Did to elicit parents' reflections? If so, what did they reveal? 

Thank you for your excellent program. My kids and I loved playing your educational games many years ago. Today, I enjoyed your video as a professional science educator. Keep up the great work!

That's great to hear, Laura! Thanks for writing and letting us know.