12 Hands-On Science Activities You Can Do Today!

Here are 12 Hands-On Science Activities that you can do with minimal preparation!

12 Hands-On Science Activities

It can be daunting to know just where to start with science, but in our household it has been one of the kids’ favorite subjects. Why? Because of hands-on activities!

With so many parents now wondering what to do and how to get their kids intrigued and excited, turning to hands-on activities can be just the secret sauce you need!

I want to highlight some of the posts that highlight the hands-on activities we did for various science units.

These hands-on science activities are fun even if you don’t do an entire unit around them!

Oil and Water Activity This is a HUGE hit whenever we did this!

Oil-and-Water-FireworksColor Explosion in Milk – My kids also really liked this. You can print out instructions at this post.

P1230991-milk-fireworksColorExplosion-in-MilkChanges in States of Matter – Activities with Dry Ice

changes-in-states-of-matter

dry-ice-activities-sublimation

Hands-On Activities about Liquids (When you talk about the States of Matter)

States of Matter Activities about Liquids

Fun Chemistry Experiments

Capillary Action in Plants - Xylem Activity

Earth Science Hands-On Activities:

This was one of our favorite units through the years. When the kids younger, we focused primarily on the activities. Then as they got older (we did this unit ever few years again), we went in more depth add in interactive notebook pages and things like that. You can see more of these Earth Science activities here:

Earth Science Unit Hands-On Activitiesplate-movement-earth-science-activity

Science Club!

One of the times we did the Earth Science unit, we had a Science Club… we did some of the hands-on activities with other 9-14 year olds (the age range of my kids at the time).  I’ll link to the posts I wrote about that.  In general, we did three activities each week… one relating to Earth Science, one relating to Scientific Classification & Taxonomy & one Engineering Challenge.  The Science Club was a big hit! 🙂  It might be something you might want to consider!

  • Science Club Week 1 – Solar System Projects, Layers of the Earth, Introducing the microscope, introducing Mealworms, Engineering Challenge

Solar System Projects

Mealworm Activities

  • Science Club Week 2 – plate tectonics; taxonomy + mealworms and flatworms (These are really neat! They are especially interesting if you have a dissection microscope)!

Planaria-Playhelminthes phylum

Taxonomy and Classification Activity - Domain Kingdom Phylum

Heat Rises, Cool Sinks

Earth Science - Earthquake Vibrations

Waves Activity

  • Science Club Week 6 – Earthquake Waves – Body Waves, Surface Waves + Annelids/Platyhelminthes

Earthquake Waves Worksheets

Learning about the different types of earthquake waves

Earthworms-vs-Flatworms

Sea Monkey Activity

Observing Oysters and Clams

Fish-Dissection-Activity

And here are a few more hands-on science posts:

Magnets:  Kids of all ages really enjoy doing activities/experiments with magnets. If you have a good set, you might bring those out for the kids for the afternoon! Cut up some pipe cleaners & place them in a plastic tub, show how magnets attract & repel one another, see how many paper clips you can hold with a magnet. We did an entire unit on Magnets, Earth’s Magnetism & Animal Migration here.

Magnet ActivitiesYou can make magnets even more fun with iron filings like these: (affiliate link)

Iron Filings

Rocks – The Three Types of Rocks Activity Ideas

Sedimentary Rock Activityhttps://homeschoolden.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Metamorphic-Rock-Activity.jpg

Free downloadable 3 Types of Rocks worksheets:

3 Types of Rocks Worksheets

Note: Remember we have a Human Body BUNDLE here (and there are pictures & explanations of all the hands-on activities we did along the way in each of the packets).

Human Body Systems BUNDLE

Hands On Activities for the Skeletal System

Skeletal System Activities Bones Joints Cartilage

Circulatory System Activities

Circulatory-System-Project

Digestive System Activities

Small-Intestine-Activity

Make your own Dinosaur Fossils (Scroll down to the bottom of that post for the recipe!) Isn’t ED cute!! She was about 2 1/2!! She still loves dinosaurs (at age 12!)

Hurricane Hands-On Activities

Creating spiral bands of a hurricane

Make Your Own Crystals

Make sugar crystals instructions

Hands-On Activities about Gases

States-of-Matter-Gas-Activity-WeightWeather Experiments about Air

Clear-or-Cloudy-Day-675x289

Learning about the Solar System- Fun Hands On Kit

SolarSystemKit-675x761

Simple Machines: Wedge Activities

SimpleMachines-Wedge-SoapCarving

Hands-On Activities about Levers

Levers

Hands-On Activities about Pulleys (My kids really loved this day!!)

DSC05103pulley

Squishy Circuits or Make Your Own Art Bot!

Squishy Circuits Anglerfish

stem_-how-to-make-an-art-bot

I hope these 12 Hands-On Science Activities were helpful! (Shh, don’t tell anyone, but I snuck in more than twelve!!)

Be sure to grab this free download too: Hands on Teaching Strategies and Homeschool Teaching Strategies with ideas you can use in other parts of your homeschool… lapbooks, plays, dioramas, role plays, simulations and many more!

Hands-On Activity Ideas - Homeschool Teaching Strategies - Free Printable LIst

Free Science Unit Checklist: Want a free checklist of Science Units/Topics we hope to cover in Elementary and Middle School? You can grab that here:

Homeschool Science Checklist - elementary and middle schoolWell, that’s way more than enough for today, right?!!  I hope you and your kids have a TON of FUN exploring hands-on science! -~Liesl

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this post are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.

See you again soon here or over at our Homeschool Den Facebook Page! Don’t forget to Subscribe to our Homeschool Den Newsletter. You might also want to check out some of our resources pages above (such as our Science, Language Arts, or History Units Resource Pages) which have links to dozens of posts.  You might want to join our free Homeschool Den Chat Facebook group.  Don’t forget to check out Our Store as well. :) ~Liesl

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SubscribeHappy Homeschooling! ~Liesl

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