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Early Childhood and Science.

3-8 years old are curious, they love to touch and explore. My science activites are always hands on to keep them engage in the activities. It's always fun with science, we all get messy in the process. What is your idea to keep science interesting for P-3 students?

You can use science POEMS to introduce science concepts and vocabulary all throughout the day, one minute at a time. Look at back issues of 'The Poetry of Science,' the monthly column that Sylvia Vardell and I do for SCIENCE & CHILDREN and you'll find lots of poems that you can use (complete with mini-lessons)!

I love integrating other subjects into lesson plans (ELA in Science and Science in Math, etc.), and I think the best way to keep students engaged and get them engaged is to make learning fun! I think that it is so important to start the lesson strong to gain initial engagement and to really get the students involved. Once you have them drawn in and interested, you want to keep them engaged by giving them some control and really letting them learn in a hands-on manner. With science, there are so many easy and fun ways to integrate hands-on learning so students have fun and learn through their own experiences. In my last placement, we were working on measuring mass, and the students LOVED bringing out the scales. It was a simple way to make the experience hands-on and to let the students have a little fun while learning! We also worked on identifying kinetic and potential energy by doing a relay race game outside. The students were able to better understand and retain the information learned in these lessons because they were memorable experiences that impacted their learning!