Home / Educators / Professional Development (3 - 5 YEARS) / Leading Children in Hands-On Exploration
- Introduction
- Prepare Ahead
- Guide Children’s Explorations
- Help Children Make Connections
- Try It
- Wrap Up
- Standards
- concept: an idea or understanding about something
- data: what has been observed or experienced
- evidence: data that support an explanation or conclusion
- model: to explicitly demonstrate a process, behavior, or task
- open-ended questions: questions that require critical thinking, invite opinion or explanation, and result in more than a one-word answer
- phenomenon(a): an object, material, living thing or event that can be directly observed
- represent: to make a drawing or model of something that has been observed
- scaffold: a temporary support that helps children learn; it may include prompts, hints, reminders, or models
- science talk: words that are commonly used by scientists such as compare, predict, measure, sort
Try It
It’s time to practice what you’ve learned. In this activity, you’ll apply the strategies and techniques you’ve learned to your program’s learning environment.
Planning with Intentionality
Prepare to lead a hands-on science exploration with children. Download and print Planning with Intentionality (PDF).
Try the activity “Dropping Objects” from PEEP and the Big Wide World. Then, prepare to use it with children.
- Gather a variety of items of different shapes, weights, and materials, like a feather, a piece of paper, a small rock, an eraser, a ball, or anything else that isn’t too heavy or won’t be damaged by being dropped.
- Feel and hold each item. Then, drop the items one at a time from a table onto a relatively flat surface.
- How does each item move? Why do different items fall in different ways?
- List the key learning outcomes or big ideas you want children to learn.
- What supplies and materials are needed?
- How will you scaffold instruction to support individual children?
- Create a list of 5-7 open-ended questions that would help children think more deeply about the topic.
- How will you build on children’s own experiences and connect the key science concepts to everyday life?