12 Hands-On Science Activities You Can Do Today!
Here are 12 Hands-On Science Activities that you can do with minimal preparation!
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!
Color Explosion in Milk – My kids also really liked this. You can print out instructions at this post.
Changes in States of Matter – Activities with Dry Ice
Hands-On Activities about Liquids (When you talk about the States of Matter)
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:
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
- Science Club Week 2 – plate tectonics; taxonomy + mealworms and flatworms (These are really neat! They are especially interesting if you have a dissection microscope)!
- Science Club Week 3 – Taxonomy and Classification, Engineering Challenge
- Science Club Week 4 – Understanding Convection Currents, Taxonomy, Engineering Challenge
- Science Club Week 5 – Earthquake Vibrations, Taxonomy (cont.)
- Science Club Week 6 – Earthquake Waves – Body Waves, Surface Waves + Annelids/Platyhelminthes
- Science Club Week 7 – Tectonic Plate Boundaries; Observation of Oysters, Clams & Crabs
- Science Club Week 8 – Taxonomy and Scientific Classification (Fish), Earth Science Wrap Up
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.
You can make magnets even more fun with iron filings like these: (affiliate link)
Rocks – The Three Types of Rocks Activity Ideas
Free downloadable 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).
Hands On Activities for the Skeletal System
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!)
Hands-On Activities about Gases
Learning about the Solar System- Fun Hands On Kit
Simple Machines: Wedge Activities
Hands-On Activities about Levers
Hands-On Activities about Pulleys (My kids really loved this day!!)
Squishy Circuits or Make Your Own 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!
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:
Well, 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.
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~Liesl
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Happy Homeschooling! ~Liesl
