Teacher’s Brain

Tag: teaching science

Science Lessons For Kids: What Is A Scientist?

Science, Teaching Tips

Science is such an important part of elementary curriculum. We set the foundation for our students to understand important science concepts later on. Creating meaningful science lesson plans that students can really learn from is essential. 

A great way for students to begin to really grasp science and have a FUN, positive learning experience is to teach them how to see themselves as scientists. Putting themselves in a scientist’s shoes can really get their minds working and understanding the subject. 

What is a scientist?

I like to start the school year off with the first lessons focusing on what a scientist really is. A scientist is someone who observes, thinks and discovers how things work. A scientist has expert knowledge on a particular subject.

The next step is to move into what tools does a scientist use? Teach about safety equipment including goggles, gloves, and masks. Other tools you can teach include rulers, thermometers, measuring cups, beakers, hand lens, globe, etc. 

Next you’ll want to teach the scientific method. The scientific method is a way for a scientist to study and learn new things. 

Teach your students the steps: 

  1. Ask a question
  2. Gather information and observe
  3. Guess the answer or make a hypothesis
  4. Test your hypothesis
  5. Analyze your test results
  6. Make a conclusion

After covering this with your students, dive into some fun experiments! Plan to do lots of STEM activities to engage your students and make learning about science fun. Interactive notebooks are great for helping students collect data and easily integrate writing into your lessons.

To help make this lesson easy to plan, I created this What Is A Scientist 3 Week Unit! 

It includes 3 full weeks of detailed science lesson plans with interactive notebook pages, posts, and hands on activities that are fun and engaging for your students. Examples include gummy bear science, rainbow milk magic, and mixing primary colors to make observations. This unit is perfect for preK, kindergarten, 1st grade, or homeschool students. 

Science Lessons For Kids

science lessons for kids

Interested in a full year of science lesson plans? Check out my Science Curriculum Yearlong Bundle. For more tips, check out my post here.

What are your best tips for teaching science to younger students? Let me know in the comments!

 

Science lesson

Strategies for Teaching Science in Elementary School

Science, Teaching Tips

If you struggle with figuring out how to teach science to young students when you have little time in the classroom, I have some strategies to help you achieve a positive learning experience for your students.  I know for me, finding time to squeeze in science and social studies in my jam-packed plans was a struggle.  The first thing I do to alleviate the stress is to integrate my reading, writing, or math into a science lesson.  By utilizing the other subjects during science lessons, it is a real time-saver.

Integrate Subjects

If student engagement is a problem, integrating science into a boring math lesson can help to produce 100% engagement with the students.  For example, if you are teaching addition in math and matter in science.  Why not have students collect types of matter, write about the properties of matter and then create additional problems with the matter they collected.  This brings me to the most important way to teach science.  Kids need to have their hands actually on physical items in order to help retain information, especially after a long morning of learning.  Encourage students to set up experiments or participate in science discussions to help boost their confidence and critical thinking skills.Science, Technology, Education, Research, Digital

Science Notebooks

Providing a Science Data Notebook helps students develop writing skills while exploring science concepts.  Encourage them to collect information and drawings about their observations.  Have students record steps they need to take to create a science experiment.  Have them think of a  burning question they want to be answered.  Then, develop a safe plan to test something in order to answer the question.  You can pick one out of all of them to actually do with the whole group.  This will help them understand the scientific method.

Investigation Stations

I like to always refer to my students as scientists during science class.  I want them to know that everyone can be a scientist.  On Fridays, I would have Science Investigation Stations.  Students could wear their father’s white button-up shirt, and goggles to feel more like a scientist.  Then, they get to explore at different stations.  I incorporate reading and writing in the lessons to ensure I’m hitting all my academic targets.  Each station has posters with vocabulary words that go with the unit we are focusing on that week.  Learning science vocabulary is essential for helping students to think and communicate in future science lessons.

Make It FUN!

Most importantly, be excited about science.  Students feed off of your energy.  Making learning fun is simple when you use science lessons!

Here is a FREE Energy Sample for Kindergarten and 1st Grade, if you are looking for some ideas.

K-1 SCIENCE Made EASY Year-long Lessons