Teaching Science to Young Children By: Aisha Brockington

What Teachers Think Many early childhood teachers report lacking confidence to teach science. Many teachers report that they feel less prepared to teach science than any other subject matter area

What Teachers Should Know !  Children are constructive learners, constantly creating and constructing their knowledge about the world based on their own questions. From this perspective, children are natural scientists.

“Sciencing"  The term "sciencing" refers to the child's active participation in learning about science and points out the emphasis on process. "Sciencing" is "hands-on. The three goals for “sciencing” with Young Children are: 1. To develop each child's curiosity about the world around him 2. To broaden each child's thinking skills for investigating the world, solving problems, and making decisions. 3. To increase each child's knowledge of the surrounding natural world

Bringing Children and Content Together  To bring children and science concepts together, teachers first need to find out all they can about the science content they are planning to teach young children. To do so, they can:  Read books for adults and children on the subject they want to teach  Determine the underlying concepts that children can learn.  Visit museums, watch videos or television, and search the Internet.

Expanding Children's Firsthand Experiences You can extend children's knowledge of science by: Providing children with all kinds of books--poetry, literature, single- concept books, and reference books--that pertain to concepts children are exploring. Giving children the opportunity to observe and listen to authorities talk about their field: a park ranger can reveal some of the mysteries of nature on a nature walk. Questioning children. Questions and comments are key to promoting scientific thinking.

Science and Technology

References 'Sciencing' and Young Children. (2003). Early Childhood Today, 17(6), 8.