Oak Creek preschool’s ‘Little Engineers' program helps children learn STEM skills

OAK CREEK. Wis. (CBS 58) – What may look like toys are actually tools to learn STEM skills at The Learning Experience in Oak Creek.

Through their “Little Engineers” program, students are given toolkits with engineering activities to help develop problem-solving skills, expand their creativity and encourage teamwork. The program starts when the students are just infants.

The center celebrated one year in March. Center Leader Laura Bitzer says the program exists at a time where technology seems to be developing as fast as a toddler.

“Science, math, engineers, those are what we really need.” Bitzer said. “If you introduce them to that now, they’ll be more excited as they get older to hopefully go into those fields.”

In this segment for CBS 58 Sunday Morning, our crews watched as students in a preschool classroom experimented with toy cars on ramps. Students learned the difference between inclines and declines and other basic physics concepts. 

“It does a lot with learning about the basics. The forces, the pulls, the shifts, the weights, the inclines, the declines things like that,” said Zierra Zaban, the Vice President of Compliance and Growth for the franchise. “Our goal is to really just expose them to as many opportunities and just things, learning things, situations, concepts, all of that.”

Educators say parents have the opportunity to join in a family showcase at the end of the program to support home learning.

You can learn more about The Learning Experience here.