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Hello! I am currently a preservice teacher with a strong interest in the kindergarten through second grade age range. I was wondering if anyone had any advice on some interesting/interactive kindergarten lesson ideas? I want to make science exciting and hands on, but am struggling with how to make it kindergarten appropriate. I like the idea of studying animals or perhaps plants. Thanks!
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Hi Taylor. I am a transitional kindergarten teacher and my students love science time because it allows them the opportunity to explore with their hands. I’m not sure what your focus would be with plants, but I once had children go on a scavenger hunt for the parts of a plant. I created a sort with different parts of a plant. Their job was to find all the pieces and put them together to complete the plant. My students had a great time find the pieces and figuring out where those pieces fit. I hope this helps!
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A great introductory science lesson is going on a nature walk. If you aren't able to take the children outside (or even if you are) another great lesson is growing sprouts. Alfalfa sprouts are super easy to grow and taste sweet; most children like them! This could be incorporated along with reading a book about how plants grow from seeds. You could ask children what their favorite foods are and draw a quick picture using crayons on white paper to demonstrate what that food looks like during different stages of it's life cycle, for example, an apple seed, a sprout, a tree and eventually it fruits.
Good luck!
Meghan
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Hello,
I am currently a kindergarten teacher. There are a lot of interactive science lessons for kindergartners but I do recommened you have well prepared and organized lesson plans since any little thing can cause distraction. Also, making sure students are aware of the expectations you have while conducting science lessons. Now going into some ideas, density experiements such as experimenting different materials that either sink or float are easy and interactive. Expanding on that lesson, may include selecting one of the previous floating materials and discussing how can the material be caused to sink then follow by experimenting and adding weight with maybe paper clips. Making the material denser, heavier. Life cycles are also fun to teach such as the plant and butterfly cycles. For the plant cycle, I teach the plant cycle and bring weeds and we observe the distinctive parts of the plant. Also, I have taught what do plants need to live and we planted seeds in soil some with sun exposure and others without sun exposure. We then observe and record our observations by drawing weekly what we observe. We then conclude based on our observations. For the butterfly cycle, I teach the cycle and by caterpillars, students observe the two week cycle.
Hope you get to have memorable experiences with your students!
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Can you have real animals in the classroom? If so, you can have fish that they can learn how to feed and identify what each fish is by looking at the fish then go look at books to identiy them. They can also write and draw about the animals to incorporate language into the science. Someone else replied about plants and to add on that, you could have the children learn how to put soil and seeds in small pots to grow their own plants in the classroom and write/draw observations throughout the time they are growing and have the children make predictions on what they think the plant will be.
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I am also curious about this as well. I am looking to teach kindergarten as well and when doing observations I noticed a lot of teachers didn't mention science as much as other topics. Is science just not a big concern to cover as part of the kindergarten curriculum? Is it something as educators that we could start teaching with each lesson? I feel that animals are a good place to start when beginning to teach about science.
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There is SO Much to do with science at this age group! Magnets are also fun to share, land and water forms. Google 'Montessor Science lessons' for more ideas!
Meghan
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