Homeschooling Preschool/K - Early Science Activities and Frugal Resources

Summary:  Simple and easy-to-do early homeschool science activities, focusing on basic early learning and fun. And there is nothing like simple nature study and hands-on science activities to teach the love of science to your little ones. I am a former preschool teacher and veteran homeschooler.

Our early homeschooling years were all about exploring new things, playing with manipulatives, lots of read alouds and and lots of play outside.  

But, by far, my daughter's favorite thing during that time, was to do very simple science experiments in the kitchen, and go on nature walks to collect things.

And that became our focus for our early science studies...You know, science does not have to be complicated to be a wonderful learning experience for our kids.

Let's talk about:

• nature study
• birdwatching
• baking, then....
• simple resources for early science

Nature Study

Our early nature study was all about collecting things.

Starting with the backyard, we went on nature walks, to explore whenever we could.  My little one was quite the collector, and was always picking up leaves, on the way to the library, in the parking lot of the grocery store,etc. 

We would bring her collections home, and use the leaves in our art, and, when she was a little older, we began to identify them by name.  Taking this time to stop and collect leaves, as we walked, set the stage for her learning to love nature, as she grew up.

Bird Watching

Then there was bird watching, feeding the birds with:
simple peanut butter feeders, studying ant hills, 
watching the moon, 
learning its cycle, and learning about and taking care of our cats.  

That kind of stuff.

Baking

Baking simple recipes were our first science experiments.  Baking bread, and watching it rise, mixing together liquids,..... it was all an amazing miracle to my little scientist.  

As we continued with our science learning fun, we just built on all these things that we started in preschool.  

We did nature walks, and more explorations outside, of insects, plants, and trees.  And we planted a garden together each spring.  My daughter loved using a magnifying glass to check things out more closely.  

We would come home, and look up what we had seen, and that started classification of leaves, trees, and everything.  And looking things up together, taught my daughter beginning researching skills.

Then, later, our collecting things became nature tables, and baking morphed into simple science experiments in the kitchen. 

My daughter was learning that science was fun, and that she could do it herself.

Simple Science Resources

When we wanted more ideas we turned to the Evan-Moor's book on simple science experiments here.  My little one wanted to try some simple experiments and this book had a lot of them.

We used a number of  them, picking the books based on the topics that my daughter  liked best. We started with, their book on Plants.

Photo Credit - Evan Moor

The Plants book is for PreK and K.

These workbooks were full of ideas, with lots of hands-on learning activities. Note that they call the books, teacher reproductions, but they are just the same inside as the workbooks that I used with my daughter.

We used a number of  them, picking the books based on the topics that my daughter  liked best. 

It was a great resource, and added a lot to our backyard gardening explorations. 

Then, later we enjoyed one of their books on Animals, as it was all about animals at our house.  The best part was that my daughter felt like a young scientist, as she learned how to classify animals.

Both of these workbooks are a part of Evan-Moor's new series:

EvanMoor's Early Childhood Thematic Series offer PreK and K Science in a variety of science topics:

Energy
Space
Simple Machines

Habitat
How Your Body Works
Geology

The Earth

and more.

Another option for early science is their early science workbook, called Everyday Literacy - Science - PreK.

Evan-Moor is a well known and respected educational publisher and this series is activity based, which is so great for our little ones.  Hands-on learning does not have to take a lot of prep with these workbooks!  

10 Sensational Sound Activities for Preschool

Sound games are a great way for your little one to explore science.  Maryanne shares 10 easy-to-do sound activities for preschoolers.  
Below is an example of one of her preschool sound activities and all of them are fun for preschoolers!

Join in the fun of exploring preschool sound activities.

Another way to go is to focus on library books in the areas of science that your little one wants to learn about.

I hope these ideas will help the budding scientists in your home, and learn that science is fun.

What would you add to the list?  I would love to hear about those in the comments, if you like.

This article is connected to the iHomeschool Network, who is doing a blog hop here.

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her now college grad whom she homeschooled from preK through high school.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, high school & college and wrote - Homeschooling High School with College in Mind.   She offers free homeschool help through messages at BJ's Consulting. 

Want to stay in touch?

Subscribe, Pinterest, G+, Facebook 

This post was shared on my favorite linkups here.


Copyright, 2014 
Revised 2019

All Rights Reserved