The Question:

 I LOVE doing Science experiments & labs with my kindergarten kids–I would love some ideas for labs/experiments that are Kindergarten friendly & appropriate….any suggestions?

The Answers:

Stacey Massey McCartney

I do color mixing with paint, as well as food coloring, in water with white daisies. For living things we plant beans seeds in soil, sand, & water to see which grows. We ‘plant’ lima beans in wet paper towel inside a sealed baggie. I send away for caterpillars to see their life cycle and set the butterflies free. Lots of fun stuff with predicting, journaling, and graphing!

Amber Monson Schaefer

We’ve mixed glue with shaving cream to make a puffy paint. You can use tempera to color it. Then, paint it on some stiff paper. This is a great fine motor skill (Stirring the gooey goo) and also provides some tactile input for their picture because the paint is puffy.

Bec Smith

Steve Spangler is my hero!!

Kristy Brightman Harrell

Check out Steve Spangler. He has a ton of fun, awesome experiments.

Renae Witthuhn Willey

Apples, Bubbles, Crystals: Science ABC’s by Bennett has an experiment to go with each letter. Hands-on and lots of fun.

Katherine Gegner

Science experiments were my thing. My favorites were ones having to do with matter. I did not buy anything commercially made as there as tons of ideas out there.

Becki Tengstrand Dizon

 We do sinking/floating, simple machines, and weather

Missy Brant

www.insectlore.com for the caterpillars

Cindy Rosenbluth Huss

 you can order caterpillars from butterflyworld.com They come pretty quickly too!!!

Kim Deibert

Popcorn elevator: put popcorn in 7-up or Sprite and watch it go up and down…… also, oil on water then drop food coloring in, teaches density. Milk with food coloring drops, then add drops of dish detergent…..

Denise Dillman

 In addition to doing some of the mentioned science activities, I have Professor Dillman (me, wearing a lab coat with a name tag, safety goggles, a multi colored wig since I am absent-minded and accidentally spilled paint in my head, and no shoes – again absent-minded). On the day that Prof. Dillman is scheduled to arrive, we wait and she is not there so I go to look for her. After putting on my ‘disguise’ I return to the room as Prof. Dillman and do whatever experiment or demonstration that I have planned.

After doing that a couple of times, I tell the kids that they could be a professor too and do an experiment. I also let my parents know via our newsletters. If they are a professor, they get to wear the lab coat and goggles, and get to keep their nametag. Sometimes a parent will come and help with the experiment, but they do not have to. When I started doing this, the kids played along. Now they all want to convince me that they know it is me. Hence, the wig and no shoes!

Adrienne Choma Sodemann

I do a scientist of the week, send home an idea book and then one child takes a “scientist” bag home to practice all week and weekend. Then on Friday, the parents come up to assist their scientist, but the child actually teaches the class. I tell the parents, only a 5 or 10 min. experiment. It is awesome, but I don’t start it until later in the year, maybe December.

Tricia Hess Adams

fter recycling paper, we used the recycled paper to make bookmarks for Mother’s Day Bookmarks (kind of thick but they could have used them as CHRISTmas tree ornaments.

I like to do oobleck when discussing matter.

When discussing what plants need to grow, we wrap bean seeds in paper towels and place them in 4 individual ziploc bags… one with water and near sun, one with sun but no water, one with water and no sun, and one with no water or sun. They get to predict which one they think will grow. After a week or so, the get to write their results in their journals.

A colleague of mine did this and it was very cute… she had her class pretend to be trees with their roots (feet) planted securely in the ground. Then she sprinkled red (sun), white (air), and blue (water) poker chips around them. The children were then asked to retrieve their poker chips with out lifting or moving their feet. Only trees who picked up all 3 colored chips were able to live. She did it with 4th graders but I’m going to try it this year with my kindergarteners… a few at a time.

How ’bout dyeing carnations by having them drink dyed water.

Kim Deibert

For papermaking, go to denisefleming.com

Karen Kerns

In the autumn make applesauce! I have kids bring in apples, we explore the apples (cut sideways to see the star inside), then I peel them, use an apple corer and let the kids cut them into small pieces with plastic knives. Toss into a crockpot with a little water, lemon juice (keeps the apples from getting too brown) and sugar to taste. Observe all day. You can toss in some redhots and watch what happens.

Patricia Mcnichol

If anyone lives in Virginia… Regent University has a great class on science for kindergarten it was worth every minute. I was sad when it was over. I learnned so many new ideas!

Brenda Smith Browning

This week is apple week… taste testing, graphing, Kindergarten Cafe’ (making apple grins), applesauce making. Lots of hands on as well as great apple literature.

Heidi Nelson Stromback

My class LOVES ‘Edible Science’. Use a rectangular  graham cracker for each child. Put one dollop of canned white frosting on each half. Put 2-3 drops of red, yellow, or blue food color on each dollop (a different color on each side). Using pretzel sticks, have the children stir the food coloring into their frosting. Then, they need to move some of each colored frosting to the center (still using the pretzel), and blend together. I personally don’t use the terms”primary” or “secondary” colors…the Kindergarteners just think it’s MAGIC!!!!! 🙂 The best part is, it’s all edible….except for the paper plates!!!

Marie Hanna

 Go to DrJean.org. I think its March or April that lists tons of easy fun experiments. My students have loved them!!

Kay Morgan Cessna

 Frog Street Press has a wonderful Kindergarten Science Kit named Quirkles. For each letter of the alphabet it has a story and two science experiments. I have used it for the last 3 yrs. and my students love it. We use old white adult shirts for lab coats. (donated by parents)

Leslie Bjelde

 Go to overallsuccess.com She has fun ideas too. Also Kindergarten kindergarten.com has great science ideas and how to use science notebooks. Mrs.Jumps site is also a lot of fun!

Kathy Greenwell Palmiter

Have to say my class loved the mentos in Dr. Pepper experiment. We completed a prediction chart before- students illustrated predictions on half a sheet of paper and results on other half. They were amazed at the results- I recommend you do it outside.

Marion Gorrie

One of my all time favorites is “making a rainbow” with powdered milk in a see-through baking dish. Add food coloring drops – one color to each corner, and then add a drop of liquid dish detergent in the middle and Kazaaam! watch the rainbows begin.

Stephanie Gubbini

I like to mix borax, glue, water and food coloring to make slime with the kids! They LOVE it!

Barbara Draeger

We do apples but for B week we have balancing bears. I don’t remember anymore where I got the pattern for the bear, but you tape a penny on each leg and balance it on different things in the room. They get to take the bear home when done. The bear is standing and his front legs are stretched out over his head. It is in the shape of an X. I run them on construction paper and laminate.

Deborah Dean 

You have got to check out this website. Her ideas are detailed and the kiddos feel like a real scientist. I also love to teach science, but it seems to be going wayside with all the other requirements these days for Kindergarten, like having to know what a proper noun and common noun, verb and adverb are. Anyway, check out this site:

http://hastings.lexingtonma.org/staff/SLee/science/

And this website gives the reason WHY which is very important for a child to learn.

http://www.sciencebob.com/experiments/index.php

Dana Pawlak 

We do an egg experiment during our Health unit (Dental Health) using two shelled eggs, one with toothpaste and the other without. You soak both in Vinegar or a Coke.  Find the egg experiment here and follow the directions. Lots of fun and we do a daily check on the eggs and draw pictures of what we see, as well as description words of what we smell and touch.

Another one we do every January during Arctic animals is the “blubber glove”. We discuss how arctic animals have a layer of blubber to keep them warm. As our experiment we get two buckets of snow (plentiful in WI that time of year). We put our hands in one bucket to feel the snow. The other bucket we use a baggie filled with Crisco over our hands (to act like the blubber layer). We discuss how the temperature feels on each hand.