[Created by Myra Erexson for LEARN NC]
For students to be successful in the the SCIENCE streams, they must study science through “hands-on” experiences. I use their past experiences as well as present experiences that I help to create to teach the curriculum. Many children today have never climbed a tree, walked in the woods, or played in a ponds or rivers, and I think that is sad. When they have the opportunity to see and touch the natural world, they become excited about it, and I use that excitement to teach all areas of the kindergarten curriculum, not just science.
How I teach SCIENCE to KG Students ?
By using the THE SCIENCE TABLE, Our “Science Discovery Table” is the center of our classroom. What can you find on it? You can find skulls (horse, deer, dog, opossum), teeth, gourds, leaves, seed pods, bird nests, eggs (song birds, emu), egg cases (skate, praying mantis, spider, conch), feathers (turkey, chicken, peacock, song birds), rocks, shells (crab, scallop, conch, clam, pin), snake skins, living plants (in water, in dirt), dried plants, sealed Petri dishes (bat, butterflies, moths, beetles, spiders, various insects), plastic protective glasses, magnifying glasses, and microscopes.
Can we classify all the different specimens on the science table? No, but we try. Students look in various field guides to try to identify the rocks, leaves, birds, and insects. They get books from the library. They ask other people to help them. They compare the pictures to the specimens. They work together to explain why this specimen is a moth and not a butterfly. They talk about how many body parts it has, what they think each part is/was used for, how the specimen moved, where it lived, what it ate, and whether it was helpful to humans or destructive. It is by listening to the students talk and asking questions that I plan appropriate activities and choose the books I will read to them about a specific plant or animal.
Does the science table stay the same day after day? No! Students continually bring in new items for the table. It is wonderful to hear them explain what they brought in. Some can remember what their parents have told them, others cannot. Sometimes the parent may not have known, and we look it up together. At the beginning of the school year, I inform my parents that each child has a specific day each week to share something with the class. Students may tell about something they did or they may bring in an object from nature to share with the class. During the fourth nine weeks of school, the share is brought to school in a bag with three clues. The student shares one clue and three students get to guess. This process is repeated until all clues are given or someone guesses correctly. Many students bring in objects that go along with the unit/theme that we are studying.
We also use live specimens in the classroom. At present, we have a fourteen-year-old pond slider, anoles, and Madagascar Hissing Roaches. Live specimens are brought in by the students and the teachers. If possible, we create a habitat so we can observe the specimen. If it is not possible to create a habitat, we keep the specimen only a day or two, then return it to its original habitat. We have had box turtles, eastern fence lizards, a hedgehog, caterpillars, katydids, black-and-yellow argiopes, crickets, frogs, toads, grasshoppers, and a hellbender. Off-campus field trips are also an important part of my science curriculum.
I measure the success of my science curriculum by the students’ day-to-day interest in their Science Discovery Table, by their interest in the things they bring in for the table, and by the interest that my former students still have for the Science Discovery Table. Former students come by to see what we have on the table, to bring specimens for the table, and to tell me about what they are studying in their classroom. The most important thing they tell me is that in kindergarten, science was fun!
Throughout the year, our class uses the playground and school grounds as a science laboratory. We gain a better understanding of how and why habitats are alike and different. We go on spider and spider web walks. We look for ants, grasshoppers, ladybugs, crickets, and worms. We observe bees in our four-by-eight-foot garden plot. We talk about which insects and critters help our garden to be healthy and which ones can make it sick. We look for bird nests in trees, under eaves, and in our bluebird boxes. Our school has a nature trail. We go on the trail looking for the same things we do on the playground. We talk about the different kinds of things we find in the woods versus the grass. We check the rotting logs to see what we can find. We look at the growths on the trees and on the ground where it is shady. We compare the woods habitat to the playground habitat. The school’s butterfly garden is a wonderful laboratory of colors, smells, and all types of insects.
In all of our activities, we discuss how plants and animals need the same things to survive — food, shelter, and air. We learn why we need to protect our environment and how we can do that. We share our knowledge with our families. We learn to recycle and not pollute our environment.