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Hi! I recently designed an adaptation of the Flower Hunt activity from Bria Marty, Kristy Daniel, and Michelle Forsythe's Bee Time article. This activity is designed to take place at an outside garden or 'wild space' near a school, but I was unable to do so because of the lack of vegatation surrounding this inner-city school. I modified the activty by choosing pictures of flowers that bees typically pollinate and some that they do/can not pollinate and printing them out. Next, I laminated the pictures and hot glued them to popsicle sticks to be stuck into the ground. I repeated this with pictures of bees as well. This provides an opportunity for students to conduct the hunt and model the pollination process to meet NGSS's 2-LS2-2 standard, even with no access to real flowers!

Unfortunately, I was not able to take my group of students outside because of weather; however, I placed the 'flowers' around the classroom, gave students their bee manipulatives (on popsicle sticks), and allowed them to 'fly' around the room to the different flowers. My students had a graphic organizer that they used to record which flowers the 'bees' would pollinate using the pollinator cards included in the article. By modeling the process of pollination with the manipulatives, my students were able to draw their own model of the process following the lesson which I used as a formative assessment.

If you have access to a real garden, this would be ideal for the activity so students can really see the real-world connection!

Different hands-on activities that can be used for Elementary Science include a variety of STEM buildings with food. For example, marshmallows and toothpicks can create different science figures. You can also have the students create different planets when studying space by having them create a planet our of paper mache and chicken wire or even foam balls.

Make terrariums! Students will learn about life science by making a mini ecosystem and observing plants interact with each other and their environment. The water cycle is represented as moisture gets absorbed, condensed, and recycled within the terrarium. Because their models will require sunlight, the basic concepts of photosynthesis can be introduced. Depending on grade level, this activity can be as in-depth as you want and brings the outdoors into the classroom.

I think a good hands-on activity that can be used for elementary science is any STEM project where students have to construct or build something with different provided materials. A go to I have seen within the classroom is marshmallow and toothpick towers, which can be adapted and changed to fit with a lot of different topics or themes within science as a whole. A more specific hands-on activity I really like is creating moon phases using Oreo cookies, which is something I remember my own teachers doing with me growing up. 

another hands on activity for elementary science is plant life. you can let each students plant a seed or two and let them observe how their seed grows. 

Goodmorning Tzipporah! My name is Jayla and I am a pre-service teacher studying at the University of Delaware. Hands-on activties are definintely an important part of getting elementary science students engaged in the concepts that might be more complex for them. I came across a resource on this website, the NSTA Learning Center, which has a collection of interactive lessons and acitviites that could be incorporate into the elementary science classroom. One that I really liked was an activity that combines property of matter with engineering. In this activity, students design their own boats using aluminum foil and see how many pennies their boat can hold before sinking in water. I think this is a great example of a hands-on activity that will get elementary students excited and engaged in science!

Thank you for the ideas for Koryn! I think these ideas can be modified for many different grades. 

I love the idea of low-prep/materials activites because it means the students have a high chance of having the materials at home. This allows them the opportunity to go home and show, or teach, their family what they learned at school. 

I love the idea of low-prep, or minimal material, actitives because it means there's a high chance that the students have the materials at home. With the appropriate materials at their disposal, they cann redo the activity and teach their family. This can help grow their interest in the subject.