     |
Everyday Preschool Science Activities & ExperimentsPreschool science activities and experiments that you and your children can do everyday in your home and environment.
The activities on this page can be done as you go about your daily living at home. Most of them do not require any preparation or objects or resources that you are unlikely to have at your disposal. This is one of three pages of preschool science. If you don't find what you need here then consider these preschool science pages too:
Preschool Science Activities for EverydayWeather calendar
Buy or make a calendar with large blocks for each day. Let your children use pictures to record the weather each day. Devise symbols for sunny, cloudy, rainy, windy and combinations of those. You could even draw them yourself and make photocopies for them to paste on each day.
If you have a thermometer, you could also record the temperature each day and add that to your calendar records. The exact numbers may mean little to your children, but you could record ‘hot’, mild, cool or cold on your calendar and observe the changes with the seasons. Top of Preschool Science Activities
At some time or another your children will ask you what makes rain. Briefly explain the water cycle in language that they will understand. You can demonstrate it too: 1. In the bathroom, point out the steam that evaporates from the bath into the air and then condenses on the cold tiles or mirror. Explain the similarities with water from the sea that evaporates into the air, cools as it rises, condenses and precipitates in the form of rain, hail or snow. 2. In the kitchen, carefully so you don’t scald yourself, hold a glass over the spout of a boiling kettle. Explain how the steam evaporates and condenses on the cold glass and forms water droplets again. 3. Make a terrarium: Cut a large clear plastic bottle in half, plant some small plants or bean seeds in damp soil in the bottom of the bottle. Then put the two halves back together and seal it with thick tape. Seal the lid and observe how the moisture condenses on the sides of the bottle, trickles back into the soil and recycles. Top of Preschool Science Activities
Freeze juice to demonstrate how water turns to solid when cooled. You could make ice lollies to enjoy. Observe how they melt and become liquid again when removed from the freezer.
Make popcorn to demonstrate that heat causes expansion. The corn pops out of its skin! Top of Preschool Science Activities
Explain how white light is made up of the colors of the rainbow. Do you know that your back must be to the sun in order for you to see a rainbow? 1. Try creating one with the garden sprinkler! 2. Cut a circle of card and divide it into 7 sections. Colour each section a colour of the rainbow. Make a hole in the centre, thread it onto a piece of string and spin it until the colors become white.
Explain that each colour we see is actually a colour of light being reflected to our eyes.
Top of Preschool Science Activities
Lie outside and look at the clouds. Point out different types on different days or at different heights and how the wind blows them into different patterns. Learn about which kinds bring rain.
While bathing, allow the children to test a variety of household objects to see which will sink and which will float. Try using a metal teaspoon, a plastic spoon, a wooden clothes peg, a coin, a screw, plastic toys, a wooden block, etc. Talk about your observations. Discuss why little children need swim aids to keep afloat. Discuss the purpose of life jackets for boat crews. Top of Preschool Science Activities
Let the children blow bubbles in the bathwater and talk about the air in their lungs that passes through the water.
Talk about how soap makes particles of dirt less clingy so that they can be easily washed off into the bathwater. Don’t get too technical, but if your children ask more than you know then find out about “viscosity” together! Top of Preschool Science Activities
Place a pencil in a glass of water and let the children see how it seems to bend where it enters the water. Find out why this happens! Talk about and observe how objects look magnified when immersed in water. Talk about how light is bent by lenses of glasses. Explore with a magnifying glass, binoculars or the zoom of a camera.
Ask the children to report what happens when they rub their hands together very fast. Explain why we use lubricants like oil or grease on moving parts e.g. bicycle chains, egg beater mechanisms, sewing machines and other household appliances or car parts. Top of Preschool Science Activities
1. Experiment with sound traveling through the air by talking through used paper towels rolls. 2. Let the children lie with their ears in the bath and listen to your voice, their own voice, a sound knocking on the bath tub itself. Let them discover that sounds also travel through solid objects. 3. Create a ‘telephone’ using two paper cups linked with a long string through the centre of the base of each cup. Pull the string tight and talk through telephone.
4. Experiment with the treble and bass settings on your sound system and listen to the different effects. Let them feel the vibrations of sound on the speaker covers. 5. If you play a musical instrument, let the children explore how the sound is generated. Top of Preschool Science Activities
1. Look at the stars together at night and talk about the lights traveling through the darkness in space. If you have a book to read on this topic, talk about it too. 2. Talk about the sun and its effect on the earth. We need its light and heat to survive. 3. Look out for falling stars, satellites and planes traveling at night too.
Study the rocks and soil in your area. If you don’t know, find out what type of rock is predominant where you live. It is sedimentary rock, volcanic rock or what? Learn together. Find out about sand together. Top of Preschool Science Activities
Explain briefly how a light switch stops the flow of electrical current in circuit to make a light shine or not.
Let your children play freely with sand and water. This teaches them about concepts like quantity, texture, solids and liquids and more. Top of Preschool Science Activities
Many art activities also involve scientific concepts. Mixing colors, diluting colors, blowing paint, cleaning brushes all involve science.
Measuring, mixing, dividing, counting, heating, cooling – all this and more is science. Let your children help you bake and cook whenever it is safe to do so. Top of Preschool Science Activities
|
