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Early Childhood

Science Worksheets In Kindergarten

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Claire Hackenberg Hackenberg Claire Hackenberg Hackenberg 170 Points

Hello, my name is Claire and I am a Junior at Penn State Harrisburg majuring in Elementary Education. I feel that in my placement a lot of emphasis is put on worksheets, especially for science topics. I have thought of some different approaches with some riddles that describe animals that they have to guess, as well as doing some read alouds with questions but was wondering if anyone had any insight on possible new activities or experiments to try for that age group that you have heard of, or that have worked in your early education classroom? 
Luz Quintanilla Luz Quintanilla 925 Points

Hi Claire, some activities that you could include in your lesson could be hands on. The more senses the students use the more engaged they will be. In early educations, students will look forward to bright colored things and less worksheets like you mentioned. Your idea of read alouds and questions is really good. The riddles part depends on what age level you are going to be teaching.  One experiement that I could recommend would be creating a tacticle experiment where the students can feel the texture of different animals. It would not be exact obviously but they could diffrentiate the difference between a turtle and a dog.
Isabella Pichardo Isabella Pichardo 1475 Points

Hey Claire! I think worksheets and visuals are always good ways to make assessments for your students, especially in early education. A way you can have the students guess which animal is by making an activity like the board game 'Guess Who?'. They can do partner work and ask questions such as so they have wings? Fur? Is the animal big? etc.
Cindy Cantu Cindy Cantu 340 Points

Hello!

I completely agree with your idea since it is an activity that I have seen many teachers use. This helps students to learn while having fun and what better way to engage students, especially those at an early age. I feel like another activity that can also be used to guess what animal it is is by having visuals of the animal but cut out to where the whole image of the animal is not present but only parts of it. This will help students think and figure out what animal it is my making it a challenge. 
Hannah Salaiz Hannah Salaiz 1460 Points

Claire,

In my current placement, we just did a unit on animals. We had students pick an animal and do research to fill out a graphic organizer. We also did an activity where we posted clues about different habitats and they had to determine which one it was. I think using worksheets is sometimes okay, but you want to use hands-on/minds-on activities as much as possible. 

Hannah
Elizabeth Barrett-Zahn Elizabeth Barrett-Zahn 7243 Points

Dear Claire,


Yes, there is an emphasis on worksheets, but I'd ask why and what do they serve? Worksheets can provide feedback to teachers, but so can talking and watching children. Worksheets can allow students to practice writing or pre-writing, yet authentic writing (modeling) is so much more effective for engaging students in the task. Worksheets can seem like work, but work can consist of students making sense of things, communicating with others, collaborating, and thinking creatively and flexibly. These critical skills often can not be captured in a worksheet. My advice is to think about why and when you are using a worksheet. What is its purpose? Make the learning as authentic as possible, and then think about gathering evidence. Good luck!

Best,
Elizabeth
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