How to Set Up Science Centers at Home or in the Classroom

One of my favorite things in the little kid classrooms my daughter was in when she was younger (besides pretend play) was the science center. This space pretty much always had magnifying glasses (and probably binoculars because it was in front of a window), tweezers and other basic tools, but the content of the things they were studying would change every so often.

It might be the table was covered with rocks. Or flowers the kids picked when they were outside. Or fall leaves. Once they had tadpoles harvested from a puddle outside.

Because there’s so much to explore when you’re little, the ideas for science tables are almost endless. It could be about any kind of animal you’re learning about in class, the weather, parts of a plant, space, holiday related activities like weighing and measuring pumpkins, it goes on and on. If you’re doing this at home (or even in a classroom) you can let the interests of the child/children drive what’s on the table and how often it changes.

If you need help with what to put on your science table, or if you’re wondering why having one is a great idea, at home or in the classroom, check out this post from Little Bins for Little Hands.

They happen to have a whole series of printables for science centers that you can buy, but there’s also a free printable of basic science tools in this post, and it’s full of good information on the hows and whys of science tables, even if you don’t buy anything.

The article notes there are all sorts of great things kids learn at science tables in preschool, including a basic understanding of science tools and the scientific method, ways of measuring and classifying things, observation, problem solving, teamwork and more. Lots of these skills have applications outside of science, as they can also help improve vocabulary, critical thinking skills and more.

Check out the post for more great information on science tables and why you might want to set one up today. Have you ever had a science table in the classroom or at home? I’d love to hear about it!

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Leaf Activities for Kids

With summer coming soon in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s a fun time to incorporate activities and crafts with a sunny theme. Take some time to learn about the sun (this post from National Geographic Kids is a good one) and then do some sun activities.

Sun prints are a classic summer activity, and there are lots of ways to do them, from placing objects on construction paper (like in this craft from MomBrite) or by using sun print paper (aka cyanotype paper).

Practice threading, counting, color sorting and other skills with this easy sun threading activity from Taming Little Monsters.

Lessons 4 Little Ones has a great blog post full of ideas for science experiments using the sun, such as melting crayons, looking at shadows, making a sun dial and trying a solar oven. Printables to go with the lessons are available for purchase or you can just talk through the students’ hypotheses about what will happen and draw or otherwise record the results.

This updraft tower from Almost Unschoolers is a cool way to illustrate that the heat of the sun causes an updraft, which makes the pinwheel spin. This is a good one to do inside near a sunny window so you don’t have wind spinning the pinwheel instead.

You’ll want to get out in the sun to try this experiment form Life with Moore Babies to see what kinds of things the sun can melt. Using different kinds of sweets you can see how the sun melts things by itself and how you can concentrate the power of the sun with a magnifying glass.

Playing with shadows is fun for kids of all ages, and you can track a shadow through the day with this experiment from Science Sparks. If you’re working with multiple kids they can each choose an object to shadow (ha!) and at the end of the day you can see how different their shadows looked.

And of course you’ll want to make a sun themed suncatcher craft, right? This one from Fox Farm Home uses all the pretty flowers you collect on your nature walk and puts them in a sun-shaped frame.

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