Kindergarten Science: Activities for Ages 4-6 or so
Someone asked me what ED is doing for science this year. (She’s in Kindergarten.) I’ve touched on some of this, but thought I’d lay it all out in one post and also share what she did this past week.
We have always done a lot of hands-on science. In the early years, I just want the kids to think science is cool!! We’ve done a lot of science experiments and I shared some of our favorite science experiments in this free packet. These are some of the experiments we’ve done when the kids were 4-6 or so…
Here’s another post with a few more experiments appropriate for the kindergarten age (roughly 4-6).
Three Fun Science Experiments for Kids
Other years, we’ve done various science units and really delved into one topic or another. I’ll link to some of the ones we’ve done at the bottom of the post.
This year, we may repeat some of these experiments, but I’m going to rely on some other resources to continue introducing ED to some basic science topics. What I decided for this year was to use a wide selection of science books and use those to jump off for a day or so. I typed up a list of our 50+ science books... most of these are probably at your local library.
I’m using many of these read aloud books as jumping off points. For example, this week ED and I read a couple of books about the solar system (below). I brought out our pretend solar system and some oriental trading planet sticker scenes I bought a while back. We talked about the planets, their sizes and distance from the sun, how hot and cold they are, etc. as she and DD put the stickers on the page. (No surprise, LD, my oldest, wasn’t interested in this. He did, however, quickly read through the books and said, “Whoa DD, did you know it takes Pluto 248 years to orbit around the sun!)
There are lots of resources out there to go into much (much) more depth. We could have done a whole unit on the planets, the moon and all that , but since we have a lot on our plate and since we’ve covered this before, I just wanted to touch on this with ED. For example, we did a lot hands on activities about the moon, etc. some time back. I’ll put some links in down at the end of this post…
Update: We found a kit for making our own model of the solar system that the kids LOVED! They painted and assembled their own models. It’s called the 4M Solar System Planetarium (affiliate link).
The other three main resources I’ll be using for ideas for ED’s kindergarten science are from
- Cut and Paste: Science (affiliate link)
- Science Starter (I liked the questions and topics in this book. It’s probably available used at Amazon) and
- Biology, Pre-Level 1 (Real Science-4-Kids) (affiliate link)
For ED my goal is to touch on a lot of subjects that we might not get to otherwise. She’ll also participate in the units my older two are doing (Click here to find out more about our Simple Machines Unit).
We also have some “fun” science activities squirreled away. This week ED has been working on a dinosaur dig (yes, she’s in her pjs!! She wasn’t in a big rush to get dressed yesterday!)
So that’s what we’re doing with ED. She’ll be covering a lot of basic science through those books, fitting in short activities. Meanwhile, she’ll participate in the science units I have planned with the older kids.
You might also be interested in some of our previous astronomy activities:
Inner and Outer Planets — Activity — ED still has this in her science notebook. We took it out and looked at the inner rocky planets and our gas giants… and the asteroid belt.
Astronomy Unit (Moon Activities) Day 1
Phases of the Moon Activity (plus homemade Oreo recipe! Yummy!!!)
Other Units We’ve Done in the 4-6 Age Range: (see the left sidebar for links to those units)
Animal Habitats and Biomes
Earth Science Unit
Human Body Unit
Natural Disasters Unit
Ocean Unit
Penguin Unit
Rain Forests
Rocks and Minerals
Vertebrates and Invertebrates
Whale Unit
Oh–I just remembered that last year we started out with some activities on mealworms that were a real hit too!
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.
