Mar30

Science activities in early childhood prepare for a lifetime of learning

Like learning to count or to read, learning how to do science is a process. Children of all ages benefit from exposure to “science” situations where they are encouraged to fully experience our world, describe what they see, count and record data, ask questions about the experience, repeat the experience, and think and talk about the why of it. If we want children to become life-long questioners and perform well on standardized tests when they are in high school, we need to include science in their early childhood curriculum where direct experience with different materials and an encouraging environment develop their beginning ideas about the natural world and their exploration confidence.

Science activities can be designed to encourage children to make predictions about what they think might happen. Questions such as “What do seeds need to sprout?” “What will happen to this object in water?” and “What is attracted to a magnet?” are common topics in preschool. After seeing what does happen, children can share their thoughts, informally or formally, and record them by drawing, writing, recording on a chart, and dictating. Once is usually not enough for engaging experiences, and repeating the process is part of scientific inquiry. Later that day, the next week or even months later, children will recall what they did and talk about why they think they saw the results that they did.

Today I saw a K-1 class mixing pinches of turmeric, paprika, and dirt into small dabs of egg yolk, oil, and water. (Safety note: Remind the children to keep hands and brushes out of their mouths and be sure to wash hands afterward.) They talked as they worked, noticing differences in all six materials and how the dry powders mixed into the liquids. The objective was to determine which mixture would be most suitable as paint.

From NSTA The Early Years Blog

From NSTA The Early Years Blog

(Click on the photos to enlarge.)

This structured investigation inspired a lot of discussion and wondering. I wonder at what levels the children will use this background to support future learning about differences between oil and water, the composition of foods, and how to preserve works of art.

Peggy

Published: Mar-30-09 | 1 Comment | 0 Links to this post

Mar29

Mixing colors combines art and science in one activity

Colored acetate sheets make new colors as they overlap. Give children just the primary colors--a dark pink, a blue, and a yellow-- and they can create orange, green, purple, and deep grays and browns without any instruction. Like scientists they can share their results with others and repeat the process to see if the results are the same.

From NSTA The Early Years Blog
(The acetate is often sold at this time of year in craft and party stores as wrapping paper.)

 

Young children will spend more time than one would expect mixing colored water in a clear container using droppers (pipettes). Highly diluted liquid watercolors create jewel-like colors. The children focus their attention and carefully move small amounts of colored water from one compartment in a clear egg carton to another, creating new colors.

From NSTA The Early Years Blog
They get just as excited about the grey as they do the greens and purples. They did it and they are so proud! For those schools where snow falls, applying small amounts of colored water to snowballs is another way to mix colors.
From NSTA The Early Years Blog
Colors can be recorded by dropping onto a paper towel, although they will be much lighter when dry.
From NSTA The Early Years Blog
Color mixing results can be part of an on-going science notebook kept all year.
From NSTA The Early Years Blog

 

Young scientist-artists enjoy learning that artists used to mix their own pigments and that some recipes do not last well with time (read about Leonardo da Vinci's paint medium choices for “The Last Supper”). Ask the children to share their “recipe” and explain how you can get that color too.

Peggy

Published: Mar-29-09 | 1 Comment | 44 Links to this post

Oct26

Mixing colors more than once!

Science activities that children initiate motivate teachers to extend and expand the activity. Children learn more details about their area of interest and make connections with other concepts when they work more than once on activities about the same concept, such as mixing colors. If you see a child noticing colors mixing at the easel, offer to bring out additional materials to explore color mixing.

See the October Early Years column, Color Investigations in Science and Children (NSTA membership required) to read about additional coloring mixing activitities.

When an activity is both easy to prepare and easy to clean up, teachers are more likely to see that it happens, and to encourage the children to repeat the activity. These two circumstances can come together in activities where children are mixing and separating colors with a variety of materials. Colored acetate (sold as clear wrapping paper in party stores) is dry, easy to store, and easy for children to handle over and over again to create new colors when they overlap the squares of color.

 

Mixing paint need not be messy if tiny spoonfuls are served onto a plate, mixed with a single finger, pressed with a paper towel or sheet of paper to record the colors achieved, and then washed off the plate to begin again. The young scientists repeat the process, discuss their procedures with each other, and record their results. Don’t worry that you are stifling their work by using small amounts on occasion. Children enjoy changes in scale, going small and going big!

In collaboration with their students, teachers discover new ways to explore familiar concepts. Tell about your color explorations in a comment so we can all learn.

Peggy

Published: Oct-26-08 | 3 Comments | 567 Links to this post