Now, I am not your stereotypical scientist; male, white hair and a beard, slightly crazy, glasses and old! Well, slightly crazy maybe, but I like to call myself geek chic! A geeky Mum with a love of science and lip gloss!
Most people are under the misconception that science is hard or boring. It isn’t, it is everywhere and amazing, and underpins almost everything we do. When you have a young family science does not seem to be on the list of priorities over feeding, potty training and the reminding of please and thank you, but I truly feel it is important to start ensuring your little one, however little, becomes aware of science, without them even realising it by learning through play.
You do not need any qualifications; you just need to think about developing a child with an enquiring mind. Under five, children are at their most curious and inquisitive, wanting to explore and experiment. They are prepared to take risks as they have limited fear, so it is the perfect time to focus these qualities towards science. Our country is currently so short of scientists, so how can we encourage and engage children in the concepts of how things work and why – well that’s easy, through play!
1. At
This is an excellent place to introduce lots of new concepts.
• We all remember the days of pretending to make potions! Mixing and combining bath products (obviously under supervision and not cleaning products). Getting your toddler to mix bubbles with water, stir and pretend with get them thinking like Harry Potter, but you are already encouraging the idea of chemistry!
• It is also a perfect place to demonstrate floating and sinking – you don’t have to get density just get them to think about why something might float or sink? Is it bigger or heavier?
• You can also demonstrate flow, pouring, measuring and the turning of water wheels (which later at GCSE then can lead onto generating electricity). These are all good tools to introduce at bath time, developing science skills as well as concepts.
2. In the kitchen!
• Making bread – if you make bread, you add yeast (a living organism) to make it rise. This occurs because the yeast respires and makes carbon dioxide gas and that is what makes the bread rise – the filling up of gas! This is a great way to get your little ones to ask how and why? It doesn’t matter at this stage if they just think it is filling with air, or if in fact they just think it is cool!
• Putting lemon juice in a cup and adding bi-carbonate of soda – a demonstration of a very simple reaction. It will fizz and bubble over and look quite cool!
• Introducing the ideas of change of state. Anything that melts or defrosts is showing a change of state, from solid to liquid, and steam from the kettle is liquid to gas and freezing is liquid to solid! All easy to show or just even mention in the kitchen!
3. Out and about
• Nature trails – looking for tracks, seeing what is growing, animals and plants and food chains (what eats what) are all introducing the ideas of biology.
• You can collect bugs and creepy crawlies to look at in a tray – try to put some of their natural earth and leave in with them, and only look at them for a short while before putting them back, but you can count legs and body segments and name them. This also gives children a respect for living things.
• Trips to the zoo and farm parks are all ways in which you expose your little ones to science without even realising it!
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| Investigating speed! |
• The night sky – introduce the stars and the moon, to start talking about space. You can play and make rockets and talk about the idea of aliens!
• Looking at nocturnal (night) animals. You can listen for owls, and talk about badgers and foxes for example.
So you see it is happening all the time and is so easy to include in everyday play activities!
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love this post – brilliant – thanks for all your tips xx
Thanks Becky, glad you found it useful! x
This is so full of ideas! Thank you, love it! Actually, I did laugh a few days ago when Logan and I were in the bath. We had the jets on and when we both got up together, the water went down to halfway past the jets, making them spray out everywhere! When I said 'do you know why that happened Logan?' he said, 'I already know Mummy, you told me before. It's called dis-postman!' I'm assuming he very nearly remembered the word 'displacement!' xx
That is so funny! Impressed by displacement, some of my year 11's struggled with that!
Fantastic! I really didn't appreciate science until A-Level, and I really wish I had appreciated it earlier…
This is so full of ideas! Thank you, love it! Actually, I did laugh a few days ago when Logan and I were in the bath. We had the jets on and when we both got up together, the water went down to halfway past the jets, making them spray out everywhere! When I said 'do you know why that happened Logan?' he said, 'I already know Mummy, you told me before. It's called dis-postman!' I'm assuming he very nearly remembered the word 'displacement!' xx