Physical Science K

Look Closely - If you have access to a digital camera with a macro lens (lets you get the camera within six inches of the object), it's fun to take closeup pictures of things in your classroom. Can students match the picture with the object?

With Feeling - The fabric squares provide students with many different ways to classify them. This is a very important developmental skill that will help children in reading and mathematics. One large study showed that hands-on science was better at helping children attain pre-reading skills than a commercial reading readiness program. Sorting items like these squares (and keys and rocks and leaves and everything else) is one of the ways that children develop the skill to tell the difference between, for example, d and b.

What Smells? - Amazing things are being learned about our sense of smell but there are still no machines that can do what our noses can. Have fun with the sense of smell. If you are having a snack, see if children can figure out what it is just be smelling it. If you're having trouble getting the scent to stay in the plastic, put a small piece of masking tape on the inside of each egg. That will keep the smell in the egg and make matching easier.

Sorting it Out - More sorting, more classifying, and more patterns. These skills are so important! Make sure your students have lots of opportunities to make, match, and continue patterns with eggs and everything else. Consider this - patterns are to the mathematician what a microscope is to a scientist. Helping children look for patterns will help them learn to look for patterns everywhere and that will make math, spelling, reading, and science easier for the rest of their lives.

Listen Carefully - In addition to the activities in the lesson, consider having children sit quietly with their eyes closed while you make a noise in your classroom. Ask them to point to where the sound came from and to try to identify it. Was it the water being turned on? Maybe it was a wooden block being dropped or the teacher's chair being pushed along the floor. Help children develop all their senses.

What's It Made Of? - A great theme of science in our world has to do with the properties of materials and their use. Why don't we wear paper shirts? Why aren't cars made out of iron which is very strong or plastic which is very light?

Make sure you make sorting books for other subjects - matching pictures of objects to numerals or pictures to letter sounds would be great.