The Nature of Science

Last week Wendy and I went to a work shop at MSVU on Science in the classroom. It was a very fun evening and we both learned so much. I might even go so far as to say we have too many great ideas and not enough time to implement everything.

When you enter our classroom you will notice to your left that we have a small plant shelf that we have started seedlings on and they are already up! Not only have we started our garden seeds but we have also been talking with the children about roots, seeds and how they work. We have set up a few experiments in the window to show the children about taproots and that a seed or plant will grow roots and it doesn't always need soil for that to happen.

In this post, I have included a couple of new books that we have read to the children that I simply love. The illustrations are beautiful and the information very good for our age group.

What we learned from our evening of science is that science is grouped in three categories: Formal Science, Informal Science and, Incidental Science. I have never thought of science this way and so now I am asking myself do we do enough of each of these types or are we stuck.

Formal Science is when we (the teacher) set up and create the experiment with the materials and encourage the children to try it out to make discoveries. We have just done this with our white flowers and jars of colored water to see what happens to the flower. Another experiment we had set up was the sink and float table back in an earlier post.

Informal Science is when we make materials available in the classroom and the children take it upon themselves to to make something on their own or just explores the materials freely. I feel like we always have this available in a variety of ways in our classroom without even realizing we are doing it. The water table with wool, water and soap was a great spontaneous activity and so are the cove moldings with marbles and magnets on our afternoon shelf.

Incidental Science is the unexpected. When a class pets dies suddenly or the weather changes suddenly or a bird flies into our window. These are wonderful opportunities to talk with the children about science in our natural environment.
It is my hope to make a Sunflower house this summer out front in our garden so that we may enjoy the natural science unfolding in our garden. Encourage the exploration and don't be surprised if your little one says suddenly, "please don't move that, it is my potion or my experiment".