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Early Childhood

Science Instruction

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Caroline Anthony Caroline Anthony 210 Points

I am a student in an elementary education program, currently discussing science in the classroom. I was wondering what tips you guys have for effective science teaching in grades K-2, where children often have a hard time focusing and paying attention for more than 10-15 minutes? 

I am a transitional kindergarten teacher and I just finished a unit on winter animals and my students loved it. What I have come to realize is that students at this age want to gain knowledge through experiences, not by having the teacher talk the whole time. My students learned about winter animals through informational videos, dramatic play, and our winter zoo. Students were given the task of creating a habitat for a specific winter animal and present their information to the class. My students had so much fun. I hope this helps!

Allison Hadley Allison Hadley 75 Points

Hands on learning is so helpful at this age.  Maybe you can pair them into small groups to worok together on different things for the topic and then come back together for each group to share what they learned.  Or keep it at the 10-15 minutes that they have for their attention span and break up the learning into smaller pieces of time over a longer period of time.  

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