Preschool Science Activity Can be a Vehicle to Participatory Learning
The question of what children should learn and when has always held the attention of both parents and teachers. In this context, teaching preschoolers has been a challenge which is still worked upon today, without an exact answer as to what the best way is to do it. One thing everyone accepts though: children love learning through activities. This is applicable to children of all ages, not only preschoolers.
Introducing Children to a Preschool Science Activity
Young children are in awe of nature and the world surrounding them. They are always full of questions regarding the wondrous things happening indoors and outdoors. The best age to open the doors to the magic of science is about 3-5 years old. This is the age when kids are most receptive to the “whys” and “hows” in their environment.
Everybody agrees that learning can be fun. There are so many experiments that have shown increased participation and learning capacity when lessons, particularly of science and math, have been taught with the help of activities. Similarly, preschool science activities have the capacity to kick-start the interest of the preschoolers in science.
The introduction of a preschool science activity need not be an overly emphasized project. It can simply reflect through the day-to-day house chores and happenings. The way food is cooked, block building, animals and their young, observation of plants, animals, nature, forecasting how things would turn out – such as freezing of ice cubes, can be an excellent start.
Children are, by nature, curious. They want to understand everything that happens around them. A preschool science activity is exactly the right tool for them to use in this regard. It is possible to make a preschooler understand the concept of measurement, the state of matter and their physical changes, the identification of shapes, the numbers and their application in their world, and so on.
You can find the best possible preschool science activity in the most mundane day-to-day activities. If you are tuned in correctly, you will be able to use and apply most of the home activities into mini- preschool science activities. Teach the child to use his or her observation powers to classify, measure, communicate, infer, predict, define and even make hypotheses through these preschool science activities.
Once their curiosity has been harnessed informally, it will be easy for them to progress and adapt to a classroom environment. Many studies have shown that children who have been encouraged to seek explanations and understand their environment become more receptive students in classrooms.