Science is such an important part of elementary curriculum. We set the foundation for our students to understand important science concepts later on. Creating meaningful science lesson plans that students can really learn from is essential.
A great way for students to begin to really grasp science and have a FUN, positive learning experience is to teach them how to see themselves as scientists. Putting themselves in a scientist’s shoes can really get their minds working and understanding the subject.
What is a scientist?
I like to start the school year off with the first lessons focusing on what a scientist really is. A scientist is someone who observes, thinks and discovers how things work. A scientist has expert knowledge on a particular subject.
The next step is to move into what tools does a scientist use? Teach about safety equipment including goggles, gloves, and masks. Other tools you can teach include rulers, thermometers, measuring cups, beakers, hand lens, globe, etc.
Next you’ll want to teach the scientific method. The scientific method is a way for a scientist to study and learn new things.
Teach your students the steps:
- Ask a question
- Gather information and observe
- Guess the answer or make a hypothesis
- Test your hypothesis
- Analyze your test results
- Make a conclusion
After covering this with your students, dive into some fun experiments! Plan to do lots of STEM activities to engage your students and make learning about science fun. Interactive notebooks are great for helping students collect data and easily integrate writing into your lessons.
To help make this lesson easy to plan, I created this What Is A Scientist 3 Week Unit!
It includes 3 full weeks of detailed science lesson plans with interactive notebook pages, posts, and hands on activities that are fun and engaging for your students. Examples include gummy bear science, rainbow milk magic, and mixing primary colors to make observations. This unit is perfect for preK, kindergarten, 1st grade, or homeschool students.
Interested in a full year of science lesson plans? Check out my Science Curriculum Yearlong Bundle. For more tips, check out my post here.
What are your best tips for teaching science to younger students? Let me know in the comments!
I like how you mentioned that it’s essential to create lessons that are meaningful to help students learn as best as possible. The principal at our son’s school is thinking of looking for science assemblies specialists because he’s considering boosting the interest of the students that want to be scientists when they grow up. It seems like a good idea for our son’s principal to think about hiring reputable professionals to help showcase how interesting science can be so kids will want to learn more about it.
i like how u said, Putting themselves in a scientist’s shoes can really get their minds working and understanding the subject. because i understand this sentence. getting to do experiments and learning to be a scientist is very interesting and fun.
A scientist actually find creative ways into doing science and work with others and find evidence on projects or work they are doing together. Scientists also work on many things and make hypothesis and try to support their guess. Lot’s of people also think that being a scientist means just working hard and being serious but in reality they have lots of ideas of doing work in fun ways and working together to find answers.