How to support exploration: Bend a pipe cleaner into a square-shaped bubble wand and ask your child to predict what shape the bubbles will take. How long will the bubble last, and where will it float? Where to purchase: Buy just a few at a pharmacy or dollar store or order many from a scientific education supply company.Ĭoncept: Bubbles teach children about geometry (shapes) and give them an awareness of air movement. All of these activities have the added benefit of helping your child develop small motor control. Turn the dropper upside down to create a fountain. Use the dropper to suck up small amounts of rain from a puddle or to mix colored water from one dish with water of a different color in another. Your child can feel the air as it leaves the dropper by holding the dropper up to her cheek (away from her eyes) as she squeezes the bulb. How to support exploration: Show your child how to squeeze the dropper to force the air out of the bulb and how to release it to allow it to pop back into shape, drawing in air or liquid as it reforms. Children this age can also observe that water forms drops. For example, they learn that when they squeeze the bulb the dropper pushes air out, and when they release the bulb it pulls water in.
Where to purchase: Drug stores and discount stores sell inexpensive plastic magnifiers, or you can order them from a scientific supply company.Ĭoncept: As children use eyedroppers and pipettes to move liquids, they learn a lot about how liquids behave. Have your children pinch the lens of a magnifying glass between two fingers and gently run their fingers across it to notice that the magnifier is not flat but has a curved surface, just like the jar! Ask them, “Did your hand look bigger?” Then let them examine it and ask, “Did my hand really get bigger, or did it just look bigger?” Take another look so children can be certain of their answer.
Children often notice the change in apparent size. Variation: Fill a round, clear plastic jar with water and have your children look at their hands or a picture through the jar. Examine skin, coins, flower structures, and insects-all objects with small parts that make up the whole. How to support exploration: This tool is fun to use to make the world look blurry and our eyes look huge, and to look closely at everything! Magnifiers reveal aspects of nature that are too small to see with just our eyes. Magnifiers extend our sight by making objects look bigger. Where to purchase: Look for tops in party stores or in catalogues that sell small plastic party favors.Ĭoncept: Tools can extend our senses, allowing us to obtain more information than we would be able to on our own. How hard do you have to push each type of top before it begins to spin? Are light or heavy tops easier to spin? Are tall or short tops easier to spin? Can a top with a penny taped to it maintain a spin? How to support exploration: Ask your child open-ended questions (questions with more than a yes or no answer).
Resist the temptation to “fix it” or “make it go faster” or “use it the right way,” and you will build your child’s self-confidence and problem-solving ability.Ĭoncept: Use these toys as tools to explore motion. Adults who allow children to play and work through small difficulties by themselves support children as they build an understanding of how the world works. Simple toys and tools can engage children as they explore natural phenomena in ways that will support their later science learning. They do need, as Rachel Carson mused in The Sense of Wonder, “the companionship of at least one adult who can share it.” Young children don't need highly specialized or expensive equipment to learn how to explore the natural world scientifically.