Forums

I am currently a teacher at a preschool, and I would love some ideas for safe experiments that I can easily do in my classroom! I work with two and three year olds, and they love getting messy!

Doing doing experiments with young children can be so fun.  I work at a daycare and we do activities that I would consider experiments often.  Yesterday we put tubs of water in the middle of a table and gave each kid a cup of water color paint.  In the 1st tub we mixed blue and green, 2nd tub red and orange and 3rd tube all colors.  This was showing what colors mixed make.  We have also made play dough and other cool stuff founded on Pinterest.  These include; gal, gloop, slime, rainbow soap foam, and kinetic sand.  The last great idea I'll mention is magnetic slime.  Not only did the kids enjoy making it we then got to play and experiment with magnets.  Hope these helped and make sure you check out Pinterest for great ideas!!!!!

Hi Jody-- You used the phrase "activities that I would consider experiments." Right on! One of my pet peeves is when people use the word "experiment" for any and all activities or demonstrations in science class. Not everything students do in science is a true experiment, and other types of investigations or observations are just as important. Thanks for helping students understand this! Mary B

I love that you are interested in doing experiments with your two and three year olds!  A fun activity to do with younger children is making play dough of some sort.  One example would be making play dough out of corn starch and shaving creme.  (http://www.instructables.com/id/Fluffy-Stuff-two-ingredient-play-dough/)  Then , if you break the dough up into smaller pieces you can add colors and the students will have a lot of fun!  Also, with the play dough, you can have molds and then make a lot of different shapes. Another fun activity children love, that I always do with children I babysit, is to make chocolate candy lollipops.  The students have to melt the chocolate, (you would do that), then they have to try and put it in the molds (it does get messy).  They learn about heat and cooling.  When the chocolate cools again (can put in the freezer) and then they have solid chocolate they can eat.  A lot of children are normally more intrigued with food is involved. I hope these ideas help, Michelle 

Hi Danielle,  I found this fun and engaging activity that you could use with your preschoolers. I hope this helps!  Here is the link: http://www.funathomewithkids.com/2013/08/fun-science-experiment-for-kids.html Ana 

One of my favorite lessons is "Dancing Milk!" You likely already have all the materials at your site. Essentially the students will have a plate of milk with a few drops of food coloring, and use a toothpick to swirl the milk around. However, the colors will stay separated instead of mixing together. It is a great activity for young children to practice making predictions and observations. Here is a link with more details. http://www.messforless.net/colored-dancing-milk Preschoolers love science experiments! How exciting, best of luck to you!

Hello,  I work in a classroom with three and four year olds and we have done some very engaging science experiments. One that I find is very engaging is the celery and food coloring experiment. It shows the little ones how plants absorb the  water by using colored water and watching the leaves on the celery change to that color. Another experiment we recently did in our classroom is the chromatography experiment with paper towels dipped in color water. I also find that children at this age find planting seeds to be very interesting. We just planted some seeds, one cup is in the light and one we put in a box and the children were able to become "scientists" and make a prediction to what they believe will happen to the seeds. There are many ways you can incorporate science experiments with preschool students. I find that maybe modifying some parts or providing things that might be too difficult is good way of making accommodations to fit their needs.  Hope you find some great ideas for your students.  Alexandra Munoz   

I am currently a student teacher and a few weeks ago my cooperating teacher did this activity as an activity for her pre-k class. It is called a skittles experiment, where students can see the different colors, observe what happens to them when they mix together as well. Using a good recording sheet also helps for the students to write down their observations.  http://www.prekinders.com/exploring-with-colors-experiment/