Easy Preschool Science Activities

Preschool is all about discovery - and preschool science should be all about hands-on fun!  Here are a few simple ideas for science lessons with your preschooler.


Plant a Seed.

Learning the cycle of a plant and what it needs to grow is a great activity.  How many preschoolers don't love dirt? Even my little princess does.  Planting the seed into soil, making sure it has water and sunlight, and watching it grow make for wonderful hands-on learning.



Play with water.


Provide your preschooler with a variety of containers and water to fill them with.  Talk about how the same amount of water fits into different sizes and shapes of containers.  Test which kinds of things sink or float.  This is an especially fun activity if you aren't worried about spilling, so in the yard with a bathing suit and garden hose or in your own tub are the best places.


Bake together.

Measuring and mixing, feeling different textures and experiencing different smells - everything that happens in the kitchen can be an experiment!  Watching something change from liquid to solid while baking or seeing it change shape (like rising bread dough) are amazing to preschoolers.  The kitchen is a great place to learn about food and nutrition sciences.


Make a "ME."


Ask your child to lay on a piece of butcher paper.  Trace a life-size outline of your preschooler, and have fun adding different body parts.  As you draw, you can talk about the five senses, your lungs, heart and stomach and how your body grows.


Take a Nature Walk.


Your science lessons do not need to be complicated or even planned in advance.  A walk in the park or a field will afford opportunities galore to fill your little one's inquiring mind with insect, plant and natural world science.

What simple activities have helped your preschoolers learn and experience scientific ideas?

Connecting Reading and Art for Preschoolers

In our house, we do a lot of art projects and we love to do art projects that go along with the books that we read.  In fact, we host a weekly playgroup where I read a story and then the  children do an art project that goes with the story.  Sometimes, I am really ambitious and even make a snack to go along with the theme.  Today, I want to share with you a few ideas for simple art projects to do after popular children's stories.  This is not a comprehensive list, but hopefully these ideas will get you think about simple projects that you can do with your preschooler after reading a story.

After reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, you can make a toilet tissue tree and decorate it with letter stickers.  For a snack, I made homemade bread in the shapes of the children's initials-they loved their snacks!

When we read Sheep in a Jeep, we made handprint sheep 

and enjoyed a marshmallow sheep snack.

We read Scuffy the Tugboat and made boats. For snack, the children enjoyed "boats" made from orange slices, celery sticks, and grapes (sorry, but I can't find a photo of the snack).

We read Where the Wild Things Are and made crowns so that we could be the "Queens of the Wild Things".

We have also planted carrot seeds after reading The Carrot Seed, made coffee filter butterflies to go with The Very Hungry Caterpillar, baked cookies after reading If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, and made paper plate trees after reading The Giving Tree.

How have you connected reading and art for your children?

Today, we are linked up at It's Playtime.

Tips to involve your preschooler in your homeschooling

We were not always a homeschooling family.

Our daughter, however, has always been home schooled.

She was three when we began our adventures at home.  I quickly learned ways to involve her in our learning process, keep her happy and allow for academic growth at her own pace.  I'm sharing a few ideas with you today, they may work for your family as well!

1) Let your preschooler work with the big kids.

Not only does this help them feel a part of your family projects, but it is a great opportunity to teach your older children about inclusivity, patience and consideration for littler ones.  There doesn't need to be a goal or expectation of what your preschooler will learn - they just need to have fun!

2) Give them 'big kid' activities as well.

My preschooler loved having worksheets, handwriting assignments, or math work to complete.  Many of her color sorting and counting activities were extra fun for her because I presented them like I did for her older brothers. It really didn't matter if she did them correctly or if they were made up - it was great practice for her to trace letters, match colors, or just pretend to be as big as her siblings.

3)  Encourage them to watch.

If your preschooler is interested, allow them to learn by osmosis.  Try not to save all your schooling for nap time. My older children just love to show off for the littler ones.

4) Give them something to do with their hands.

Each day, give your preschooler an activity to work on during school.  This can include any sort of crafty or manipulative activity, just save anything involving glue for bath day.  Crafting was always something that helped my little one sit for read alouds.

5) Enjoy being all together; it's one of the greatest blessings of homeschooling.

In this picture, my preschooler asked to practice tying my shoes while her brothers worked on spelling words with sidewalk chalk.  I missed my older children while they were away at 'regular' school, and I have treasured being spared the same separation from my youngest.

Some days are tougher than others with preschoolers underfoot, but if you work with the personality of your child and try to focus on their interests, you will have a wonderful year.  What works for your family in terms of homeschooling with preschoolers?

Preschool Creativity with Less Mess

It takes a long time.
The end result isn't always nice.
It makes a HUGE mess.

To all these statements, I agree.  Yes, it does.  Allowing a preschooler time and supplies to be creative can take a long time, the end result isn't always frame worthy, and it almost always makes a huge mess.

The independence your child can have is a direct result of you willingness to take the time, accept the less than perfect results, and clean up countless messes.  However, sometimes, it can be nice not to have as many messes to clean up while they are learning.

 

Learning to work with arts and craft supplies is a lesson for life which preschoolers can learn now.

A few ideas for helping preschoolers express their creativity with less mess...

The Skill of Cutting with Scissors:

• Teach your little one how to properly hold and carry scissors, and how to cut away from themselves.
• Allow them to cut paper into small pieces.  These pieces can be used for paper mosaic crafts later.  Or, better yet, give them the papers you need shredded and let them cut, and cut, and cut.

The Ability to Use Glue:

• Glue sticks and glue dots are less messy, but don't automatically ban the liquid glue.
• Teach your little one how to open and close the tops of the liquid glue.
• Show them how to use liquid glue in moderation.
• Teach them how to clean up glue messes, and how to rub their hands together to remove excess glue.
• Let them coat an entire page of paper and use those paper mosaic squares to create a design.

Sticking Stickers:

• Does your child cover the furniture, walls, or floors with stickers?  You could teach them not to, and give them paper or a sticker book for their favorite stickers.  Or you could hang a large piece of paper on the wall or door, and allow him to display his favorite stickers for all to see.  For the ambitious, create a frame about the sticker page with markers or a mat.   

Sculpting:

• Clay, Play-doh, or homemade dough messes can be immense.  Cover your table with a plastic table cloth before, or take it outside.

Building with K'nex or Lego pieces:

• Use a tray or cookie sheet with edges to contain the small pieces.  

Painting:

• Looking for a less messy alternative?  What about purchasing bath tub paints?  Or using water to paint outside?  Fill a can with water and use the brushes to paint any surface without fear of damage.

Do you have additional ideas?  Perhaps even a whole post?  If so, then please share your ideas or links in our comment section.