Preschool Science Lesson Plans and
Activities at Science Center
In the past time, I struggled a lot when I am planning a preschool science lesson plans. I am afraid of science because I think it is complicated experiments. But by the time when I am thinking further, preschool science is just the real world and everyday experiences. Science is the water boiling, science is raindrop falling, and even children grow taller is a science!
Through science children learn many skills such as : explore, observe, experiment, predict outcomes and learn how to solve the problem.Children must learn from real experiences and concrete objects. In planning your preschool science lesson plans you must emphasis on these skills :asking questions, making research, communicating with others, predict outcomes, classifying and observing. These skills are very important for children’s future.
You can do your preschool science activities in the classroom, at every area of your classroom, in the art center, while mixing colors, in math center while measuring their height, and even in science center itself. You can do your science activity outside the classroom, at the playground or at the school neighborhood.
Provide some materials to attract children’s attention in the science center :
- Magnifying glass
- Magnets
- Kaleidoscope
- Feathers
- Thermometer
- Leaves
- Stone
- Rock
Preschool science activities :
Observing Apple. Discuss the size, color and shape of an apple. Cut the apple in half, observe part of an apple, skin, meat, seed, core etc. Cut the apple in section, ask children to taste it. Some apple can be sweet or sour. Smell the apple, how does it smell?
Oxidation of an Apple. Cut apple into section. Dip some section of apple into lemon juice and put it on a plate. Put remaining section of apple on another plate. Observe what happens to each plate of apple.
Teacher hint : Talk to the children the effect of lemon juice coating, which keeps oxygen from the apple that they do not change color rapidly.
Tasting Center
- Vegetable. Cut small piece of vegetables, raw and cooked. Encourage children to taste and compare different vegetables. Ask children compare them to same vegetable cooked.
- Diary Product. Provide many types of milk product : cow milk, goat milk, skimmed milk, cottage cheese, sour cream, cream, yoghurt, butter, cheese, and buttermilk. Encourage children to taste and smell. Let children compare the color and the texture.
- Eggs. Prepare poached, scrambled, hard-boiled, fried, deviled, and raw egg. Ask children to observe the eggshell, part of the egg, the white and the egg yolk. Let children taste and compare.
- Observing Corn. Provide the children with several types of corn. Bring kernel of corn, corn with the cob, unpopped and popped popcorn, cooked and raw corn, dried and fresh corn. Ask children to observe the corn, the color and the taste cooked corn.
Colored Celery Stalk. Prepare 2 plastic cups, half fill with water. Add few drops food coloring : red in one cup and blue in the others. Cut up the middle of leafy celery stalk. Put half of the celery stalk on the blue cup and the other half in red cup. Put the celery stalk in the cup at warm, light place. Look at the celery after an hour. What has happened to the stalk? Leave your experiment for a night and then look at it again. What do the leaves look like now? It will show how water travels through the stalk and into its leaves.
Teacher hint : Why the celery change color? As the celery leaves transpire, water is pulled up the stalk and into the leaves, through narrow canals called xylem vessels. Because each vessel leads to a different part of the plant, half the leaves turn blue and half the leaves turn red.
Feather Observation. Observe various types of feathers. Duck, chicken and/or turkey feather. Use magnifying glass. Discuss their purposes, such as keeping animal warm. Put the feather in the water to see if they float. Talk to the children why they float.
Teacher hint : Why feather help duck float? Ducks feathers are covered in oil which their glands produce. This oil making them waterproof and prevents the feathers from getting soaked.
Plant Pumpkin Seed. Provide small paper cups for every children. Place the soil in the paper cup. Put the pumpkin seed on the soil. Place the cups in the sun and water it everyday. Observe daily to watch the sprout grow.
Sink the Orange. Float an orange in a bowl of water and challenge a student to make it sink. Now peel the orange. Put it back in the water and watch what happen.
Teacher hint : Why the orange sinks. Orange skin is full of trapped air bubbles. This makes the orange light for its size, so it floats. Without its skin and the air bubbles inside it, the orange weighs a lot for its size. The peeled orange is denser than water, so it sinks.
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