What is this lesson about?
Learn about hands-on active science learning and discover how you can support children's natural curiosity and build scientific thinking skills.Young children are natural scientists
Children explore the world with curiosity. They are eager to explore things, and like to try things to see what will happen. They ask questions and take things apart. Wondering and exploring help children learn. Wondering, curiosity, and an eagerness to explore are examples of learning dispositions.
One of your jobs as an early educator is to strengthen these natural learning dispositions. Welcome children's curiosity and their ability to explore, and give them things to wonder about. Children use their senses to explore the world: putting things into their mouths, tasting, touching, listening, and looking.
Good science starts with hands-on exploring
Head out to the backyard. Walk around with the children and look for rocks, leaves, seedpods, nests, pinecones, feathers, and fossils. Put these things on display in your childcare room. Encourage children to use their senses to explore them, to look closely with magnifying glasses, to feel the objects. Encourage the children to use their senses and to find similarities and differences among objects. 
You don't need to spend money to find things for the children to explore. Many families are happy to share interesting and safe things from home. One child had broken his arm and the doctor gave him an x-ray of his broken bone. He brought this to childcare and it led to an interesting discussion about bones. Reading books about bones was the next natural step. The children even made a pretend x-ray machine out of a box, and they had a great time putting arms and legs inside and acting out the problem of broken legs and arms.
Help children become explorers
Ask children to make comparisons. For example, when they are looking at two rocks, ask how they could figure out which rock is heavier. Ask them to guess what might be inside a milkweed pod. Encourage them to use their senses to find answers: Feel the flower petal; how does it feel? Do you notice a smell from the flower? Look closely at the middle of the flower; what do you see? These questions help guide the children to use their senses to explore their world.
Ask questions about discoveries the children made: "How did you get that block to stay up there?" "Why do you think they stuck together?" These questions help them put their discoveries into words and show that you value their learning.
Ask open-ended questions
Great questions get children to think for themselves. If you say, "Which seed is bigger?" there is only one right answer. Instead, ask open-ended questions that turn on thinking. Try, "How can you tell which seed is heavier?" or "What do you think might be inside that seed?"
- Here are some good open-ended questions:
- What does it feel like?
- What does it smell like?
- What do you think is inside?
- What do you think you can do with it?
- What does it remind you of?
- How do you think it was made?
- What are the differences between these two things?
- What are the similarities between these two things?
- Why do you think...?
By asking children questions that get them to explore their world, you teach children to think scientifically. If you are a good role model for asking questions and looking for answers in books, then you can teach science to young children.
Ask children to make predictions
Scientists make guesses about what they think is likely to happen. Making predictions is something that children can do as well. What will be inside this pumpkin? Do you think it will float? When children guess something that does not happen, they have a great learning opportunity. Now they have to figure it out!
Teach children to compare and contrast
A great question for preschool science is "How are these two things alike and how are they different?" This helps children learn how to classify things. You can move on to sorting things into piles. Ask, "Can you put the pictures of living things in one pile and the pictures of things that are not alive in another?" or "Can you put the things found in the woods in one pile and the things found in the sea in another?" This is a science and math skill that they will use in elementary school and beyond.
Teach children to collect information systematically
Children can learn to collect information like scientists do. They can answer questions like: "How many days did it rain in September?" "How much did this plant grow in a month?" "How many children like red apples and how many prefer green?" Four- and five-year-olds are not too young to learn how to make charts and graphs. In fact, four-year-olds can collect, describe, and record information through discussion, charts, and drawings. They can document discoveries through drawings, stories, photos, graphs, and journals.
Start with a simple chart, like "How many children want fish crackers and how many want graham crackers?" Let each child write their name or post their picture in the appropriate place on the chart. You can also ask them to vote on other things. "What is your favorite season?"
Give young children something to investigate for themselves
Three of the most popular science topics for young children are
- Living things and their life cycles
- Characteristics of thing–their weight and size, and how they move; how liquids, solids, and gases are different
- Earth and outer space
These topics are part of the Pennsylvania Learning Standards for Early Childhood for the Key Learning Area Science for Pre-Kindergarten Children. How do you teach about these topics in a hands-on way? Try these ideas:
Living things and their life cycles:
- The children plant a seed, water it, and grow a plant, measuring its growth over time (you can use blocks or string to measure). Try a potato--they grow fast!
- The children take some food and seal it in a plastic bag, then guess what will happen when you leave it out. This is making a prediction, just as scientists do.
- The children might compare and contrast different types of apples. How do they look and taste? Make applesauce and compare the applesauce to the uncooked apples.
- Give the children ramps made out of blocks or a piece of cardboard tipped up at an angle and some little cars to experiment with. What happens when you make a steeper ramp?
- Let the children help make ice and then give them the ice to play with in a tub. Watch it transform back into water.
- Give the children a pulley to experiment with. Can they move things with it?
Earth and outer space:
- Ask the children to check the weather every day and record it. At the end of the month they can count the number of days it rained.
- Let the children find rocks when you go out on a walk. Use a hammer to see if they break apart and what they look like.
- Make a terrarium in a large clear jar, putting in dirt and plants. Observe the water recycle as it condenses on the top of the inside of the jar and drips down like rain.
All of these investigations give children a chance to use their senses: watching carefully for changes, touching, tasting, and smelling. They also give you a chance to ask open-ended questions that get children to share their ideas. Make discussions a natural part of learning for the children in your care. Give children a chance to make charts, drawings, journal entries, and take photos. This helps children become careful observers and to use writing and drawing as a part of their learning.
Summary
Hands-on activities are the best way for young children to learn. Young children learn by doing. Give children real things to investigate. Ask them questions to get them thinking, and encourage them to talk with you and the other children about their ideas. Add documentation to everything you do. This builds scientific thinking skills and supports children's healthy learning dispositions.
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