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Young children express interest and understanding about science topics through everyday conversations with parents. Little is known about how much interest preschool-aged children show in astronomy. Using a diary report methodology, we asked parents in three communities in coastal California to keep track of conversations with their three to five-year-old children about nature. The communities varied in demographics, including one community with predominantly European-American families, one community with predominantly Latinx families, and one community with families from a variety of backgrounds. Overall, young children showed interest in astronomy through initiation and engagement in conversations about a variety of astronomical objects and events; this was consistent across gender, age, and community. Across all three communities, conversations about astronomy accounted for approximately 15% of the conversations about nature, ranking in the top three most frequent topics for each group. Children initiated the vast majority of conversations with their parents, including those about astronomy. Within astronomy, children were most interested in the sun, moon, stars, and day or night sky. Thus, while science educators may see astronomy as too complex for young children, children observe and comment on astronomical phenomena as part of their everyday life. Finding ways to support educators and parents in talking with children about these observations may productively build on this early astronomy interest and position children for greater understanding and engagement in this domain.

Family conversations about science-related topics, including those involving storybook reading, may set the stage for children's interest in science. We investigated how parents from two cultural backgrounds engaged in science talk while reading a science-related storybook with their preschool-aged daughters and sons. Consistent with our commitment to avoid deficit thinking, our questions focus on variability within a group of European-American parents and a group of Latine parents, rather than comparing groups. Our sample included 38 European-American families (20 girls), and 27 Latine families (12 girls) from three coastal regions of California, varying in educational background. Our results indicate that parents from both groups read most of the text, had conversations beyond the text, and specifically engaged in science talk when elaborating beyond the book with their children. European-American parents with 12-16 years of schooling engaged in science talk more with boys than with girls, whereas the science talk of European-American parents with more than 16 years of schooling did not differ by children's gender. Latine parents did not differ significantly in their science talk by years of parents' schooling or by children's gender. Results are discussed as they relate to current conversations about early socialization of science interest and engagement for boys and girls in diverse families.