Set a bowl of water and a basket of odd little objects in front of four-year-olds and you will not need a lesson plan. A rock, a cork, a plastic spoon, a leaf. The predictions start immediately, loud and certain and usually wrong, and every child wants a turn to find out. Young children arrive curious. That part takes care of itself. The real work of early childhood is what comes next. Turning that everyday wonder into science your students can see, touch, and do, day after day, in a room full of little hands.
STEM for Little Sprouts is Steve Spangler’s two-day early childhood STEM conference for teachers of Pre-K through grade two. You will not sit and watch. You do the same investigations your students will do, with your own hands, so you leave knowing exactly how they land and where a five-year-old gets stuck.
The method is simple enough to start Monday. A picture book becomes a question, the question becomes an experiment, and the children work out the science themselves. We’ll show you exactly how.
These two days are hands-on, practical, and immediately useful in your classroom. Over two days, you will:
Each experience is modeled exactly the way you can use it with your own students. You learn not just the activity, but the teaching strategies that make the learning meaningful.
By the end of the two days, you will have a clear understanding of how to create early childhood STEM experiences that invite students to explore ideas, test their thinking, and develop confidence as young scientists.
Registration for STEM for Little Sprouts is $995 per teacher.
Your registration includes:
Those morning conversations are where you share ideas, reflect on your practice, and build relationships that outlast the two days.
Every teacher goes home with about $400 in real early childhood STEM materials, the same tools you use across the two days. You’ll take home the actual materials, so you can run every activity exactly the way your students will, and start the first week you’re back.
We put together a short funding toolkit that walks you through how to build a simple budget, which funders to ask, including the one most teachers forget, and how to write the request so it actually gets a yes. It comes with a fill-in-the-blank letter and a link to a free grant-writing course built for teachers.
Day one is where the theme comes alive: learning through play. Coming out of the opening session, you are up and out of your seat, taking Steve’s engagement strategies and putting them straight to work. This is where communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity stop being words on a poster and start showing up in your hands. You are not watching a demo. You are doing the science, exactly the way your students will.
One of the highlights of the first day is your hands-on session with Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor. She introduces the principles and strategies behind using children’s literature to connect young learners to simple scientific ideas, getting children to wonder, discover, and explore through the characters and the story. You will learn how multicultural picture books become a powerful entry point into STEM, sparking connected learning that builds critical thinking and helps every child see themselves reflected in science.
The afternoon is an explosion of color. You dig into the science of color mixing across several different mediums, then turn that science into hands-on experiences that change the way children see color in their world. It is playful, it is beautiful, and it is exactly the kind of moment a five-year-old carries home.
By the end of the day, you have lived the strategies you will use, not just heard about them, and you walk out with more ready-to-run ideas than fit in a week.
Breakfast Included: 7:45 – 8:30 AM
Morning Session: 8:30 AM – 12:00 PM
Lunch: 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM (on your own)
Afternoon Session: 1:30 – 4:30 PM
You know the feeling. A magician does something impossible, and for a second you’re a kid again, sure the world is stranger and better than you thought. Day two is about where that feeling comes from, and how to hand it to a four-year-old on purpose. You’re out of your chair from the start, into science you can feel, balancing objects that have no business balancing and building science toys around push, pull, gravity, and friction. One warning: watch out for the flying cups of water.
This is where Steve pulls back the curtain, and the secret turns out to be the telling. You’ll open your own bag of science magic and learn how the way you present a moment is what turns an ordinary lesson into one a child never forgets.
Dr. Diane returns with more STEM challenges taken from the pages of award-winning children’s literature. You’ll look at familiar stories from a unique perspective as you work in groups to design creative solutions to the challenges the characters face.
Get ready for bubble science with a twist, square bubbles, bouncing bubbles, even bubbles that burst in a puff of smoke. What’s that you hear? The sounds of science will fill the room as you learn how to turn vibrations into music, if you call it that, guaranteed to make you smile.
It wouldn’t be a Spangler experience without a special way to wrap up the day, but that’s a surprise.
Breakfast Included: 7:45 – 8:30 AM
Morning Session: 8:30 AM – 12:00 PM
Lunch: 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM (on your own)
Afternoon Session: 1:30 – 4:30 PM
You’re not booking a tour where a stranger reads facts off a clipboard. You’re traveling with a small team that has run this trip before, knows every road and hot springs pool and abandoned farm on the route, and sticks with us the whole way. Renee, my co-founder and the person you’ll work with from the day you register, put this group together: Icelandic scientists and guides who travel with us, eat with us, and answer every question you can throw at them. Here’s who you’ll be spending eight days with.
Steve Spangler is widely recognized for his work helping educators create engaging learning experiences that inspire curiosity and discovery. Known as a “teacher’s teacher,” he leads professional development workshops across the country focused on inquiry-based learning and early childhood STEM education.
Through his workshops and presentations, Steve helps educators design classroom experiences that encourage young learners to ask questions, test ideas, and explore the science behind everyday experiences. His work focuses on practical teaching strategies that help early childhood educators nurture curiosity, creativity, and confidence in young scientists.
Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor brings more than twenty years of experience in early childhood and elementary education. She earned her M.T. and Ph.D. in Elementary Education from the University of Virginia and has worked as a classroom teacher, preschool founder, and museum educator.
Her work focuses on helping educators use multicultural children’s literature to create inquiry-based learning experiences that inspire curiosity and exploration in young learners. Dr. Diane works with teachers to design classroom environments where students develop critical thinking, collaboration, and communication skills through meaningful early childhood learning experiences.
Most attendees fly into Denver International Airport (DEN), located approximately 30-45 minutes from the Sheraton Denver West Hotel.
You will find several convenient transportation options, including Uber, Lyft, rental cars, shuttle services, and Denver’s RTD light rail system.
For airport information, flight details, and amenities, visit FlyDenver.com.
Uber & Lyft
The easiest way to travel from Denver International Airport to the Sheraton Denver West Hotel. Travel time is approximately 30–45 minutes, depending on traffic.
SuperShuttle Express
A convenient transportation option for larger groups traveling together. Pricing varies based on the number of passengers.
Rental Cars
All major rental car companies serve Denver International Airport.
The Sheraton Denver West Hotel is the official conference hotel for STEM for Little Sprouts Conference. Conveniently located just minutes from the conference venue and approximately 45 minutes from Denver International Airport (DEN), the hotel offers a special Spangler group rate of $169 per night (plus taxes).
Once you complete your conference registration, you’ll receive a confirmation email with a link and instructions for booking your room within our discounted room block.
Sheraton Denver West Hotel
360 Union Blvd
Lakewood, Colorado 80228
(303) 987-2000
Discounted rooms are limited, so please be sure to make your reservations early.
Registration for STEM for Little Sprouts is $995 per teacher, and more than $400 of that comes right back to you in materials you keep.That covers two days of hands-on instruction with Steve Spangler and Dr. Diane Jackson Schnoor, 16 hours of documented professional development, take-home materials, and a full breakfast each morning.
Lead with what comes back to the building: 16 PD hours, more than $400 in materials you keep, and 75-plus investigations you can use Monday morning, all for $995. Then don’t wing the ask. Download the STEM for Little Sprouts Funding Toolkit for a ready-to-adapt request letter, a simple budget that shows administrators exactly what they’re funding, and a tip for tapping your PTO or PTA, a funder most teachers overlook. We’re glad to provide a quote or verification letter for your purchase order.
June 20 and 21, 2027. Two full days, with breakfast at 7:45 and sessions running 8:30 to 4:30 each day.
The conference takes place on the 2nd floor at the Sheraton Denver West Hotel, 360 Union Boulevard, Lakewood CO, 80228.
Day 1 – 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM
Day 2 – 8:30 AM to 3:30 PM
** Please note that we are unable to ship materials to participants who leave the conference early.
Pre-K through grade two teachers, plus administrators, early childhood program directors, and anyone building STEM for young learners. It’s designed for the youngest classrooms, from preschool through the early grades.
If you have any questions, please contact Carly at (855) 228-8780 or email [email protected]
This event is setup for 200 teachers from around the country and the world.
Not at all. Every activity is designed to be run by an early childhood teacher, not a scientist. If you’ve ever been nervous about doing science with little ones, this is the room where that changes.
All of it. You leave with more than 75 classroom-ready investigations, the materials to run them, and the picture-book pairings that connect each one to a story, ready for your first week back.
Absolutely! We’ve negotiated a special discounted room pricing for our conference attendees at the Sheraton Denver West.
Plan on booking your room early as once the room block sells out we will have to use an overflow hotel.
Yes! If you are sending a large group, please contact Carly at 855-228-8780 to discuss pricing options.
Yes. If you’re registering a team from your school, center or district, we can reserve your seats now and update the individual attendee names later. This makes it easy to secure “early bird” pricing while your district finalizes participant details.
Please contact Carly at 855-228-8780 or [email protected]
Participants may earn graduate-level professional development semester credit, also known as professional development units, through our partnership with University of Massachusetts Global. These credits are not part of a degree program, but instead are primarily used for professional advancement (such as salary increment steps and recertification). A registration form for the credits will be provided at the conference. Please plan on completing the form within one month from the event. Payment is due ($210) with your application and is sent directly to University of Massachusetts Global.
This is one of the things that makes STEM for Little Sprouts different: you go home with a lot of materials, ready to use right away. How much? Enough that experienced attendees have a trick for it. Travel with a smaller suitcase, packed with your clothes, tucked inside a larger empty one. Your clothes ride in the small bag on the way out, the big bag comes home stuffed with classroom materials, and you check both for the trip back.
It’s best not to try to carry your conference materials onto the plane. Nothing you’re carrying is dangerous, but don’t be surprised if the science supplies earn you a few curious looks from the TSA agent watching the screen.
We don’t offer shipping. If you’re staying in Denver a day or two after the conference, you’re welcome to take your materials to a nearby FedEx or UPS to send them home.
What sets STEM for Little Sprouts apart is that it’s built entirely for early childhood, and the teachers who have lived it say so in their own words. After a single day in Alabama, 354 early childhood educators from 112 communities wrote about the experience. Two out of three connected a science experiment to a storybook, 64 percent named that science-and-storybook link as their biggest takeaway, and critical feedback was close to none. Most left calling it their best day ever, already planning the wonder moments they wanted to create for their own students.
We didn’t hand out a rating form. We asked three open questions and let teachers write whatever they wanted. Three hundred fifty-four early childhood educators, from 112 communities across Alabama and beyond, did exactly that after two days inside this experience. Here is what came back.
Reading all 354, the same things kept surfacing. Science-and-storybook connections showed up in 64 percent of the reflections. The color lab, the mixing and color-changing gel and tie-dye, in 53 percent. Wonder and engagement in 19 percent, hands-on building and engineering in 18 percent. Two out of three teachers tied a science experiment to a storybook. Critical feedback was close to none.
The Three Little Pigs became an engineering challenge, with children building houses and sleds to keep the pigs safe. The Rainbow Fish became a color lab. The Magic Coloring Book turned reading time into a science experiment. And teachers went home with a stack of new titles from Dr. Schnoor, from Beautiful Blackbird to Swashby and the Sea.
But the numbers aren’t the part that sticks. The words are.
“I’m leaving with a full heart and a brain that’s ready to plan.”
“Slinging the water was the greatest moment for me. I would never have done this myself or with my class. I was the one afraid and reluctant. But I did it. And I know my students would learn to try something despite their fears. That is huge for me, and for them.” — Early Childhood Educator, Enterprise, AL
“Most of our kids in Alabama have never seen real snow. I cannot wait to make that experience with them.” — Pre-K Teacher, Tuscaloosa, AL
“The magic of it all made so many aha moments I can’t wait to create with my students.”
That’s the experience we’re bringing to Denver.
