Austin.com Austin's First STEM Preschool, Austin STEM Academy

Are you a parent of a young child? If so, you already know that selecting a preschool is a big deal! When it comes to nurturing young, developing minds, it’s important to find a school with a balance of social, emotional learning, and scholastic tools and curriculum to prepare your child for the next stage of their education. If you have a little one under age five, the foundation is already being laid for your child’s future engagement in math, science and engineering—and we’re learning more and more about the importance of an early start.

Austin STEM Academy, Austin’s first STEM preschool, is seeking to lay that foundation and prepare your child for a rich intellectual life and rigorous educational experience in the years ahead.

Here are some sobering statistics: “Research documents that by the time students reach fourth grade, a third of boys and girls have lost an interest in science. By eighth grade, almost 50 percent have lost interest or deemed it irrelevant to their education or future plans.” This is why introducing STEM early and maintaining that curiosity with high-quality, age-appropriate lessons and tools is critical. “For younger learners, the key to capturing and maintaining this interest is to engage them in STEM learning daily. Finding math and science connections in everyday life and using those instances to demonstrate basic principles can be an effective way of building a lifelong interest in STEM subjects, inside and outside of the classroom.“

Austin STEM Academy is addressing Austin students’ needs and helping them meet the demands of our world’s increasingly integrated, global economy. By introducing STEM in early childhood, Austin STEM Academy prepares today’s children to become tomorrow’s 21st-century thinkers, and to innovate on a global level.

The Austin STEM Academy Philosophy

NewSTEMCollage2 Educators at Austin STEM Academy believe children are natural scientists and resilient problem-solvers who are extremely aware of their environment. Children learn about their world through making observations, questioning and experimenting. The Austin STEM curriculum honors this natural curiosity and offers engaging science experiments and invitations to play that focus on critical early concepts in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math. Additionally, empathy, compassion, understanding and collaboration are actively nurtured at every point of the day.

The Austin STEM Academy Curriculum

NewSTEMCollage3 The school’s innovative STEM curriculum draws from approaches like Reggio-Emilia to ignite children’s passion for learning by capitalizing on their natural curiosity and eagerness to learn about the world around them. With the goal of building compassionate innovators, the academy offers three programs—your child can attend two days a week, three days a week, or five—to fit every child’s and family’s unique educational and scheduling needs. All programs are available in English or Spanish, with English sessions taking place in the mornings and Spanish in the afternoon.