Science Curriculum

The Arlitt Child Development Center's science curriculum is designed to encourage children to construct physical knowledge and follow the scientific process. Science materials are always hands-on so that children can experiment with the materials and observe the results. Scientific knowledge emerges in many early childhood curricular areas, including art, music, cooking, gross motor, and the sensory table. In addition, each preschool classroom has a special science area. Teachers facilitate children's construction of scientific knowledge through carefully planned activities and comments and questions that encourage thinking.

• This activity connects science and music as children explore the relationship between the size of an object and the pitch (how high or low it sounds when shaken or tapped). Various sizes of brass bells from India are suspended from a tree in the outside area. As children shake the bells, they notice that each bell has a slightly different sound. Eventually, children realize that the difference in sound is related to the size of the bell. This is an important concept in both science and music.
• In this activity, children use tweezers to pluck kernels of dried corn from corn cobs. The tweezers are a double lever, a simple machine. Children discover that they can easily lift the kernels with the tweezers. After plucking the corn from the cobs, children can grind it using a mortar and pestle. As they pound on the corn, it changes from a solid kernel to a powder. Children are fascinated with this change in form.
• This science center display encourages children to closely examine the materials birds use to build nests. The materials include several types of bird nests, pictures of bird nests, word cards with components of nests (mud, grass, string, etc.), and several reference books. An added touch might be a tape of bird songs.
• The physical properties of objects affect how they move down a ramp, or incline. In this activity, children experiment with rolling a variety of objects down a wide ramp and observe the results. The ramp pictured is a hollow wooden wedge block, but ramps can be easily made from heavy cardboard as well. The materials to place on the ramp include a variety of balls, a one-inch cube, a film canister, spools, a curtain ring, and a cardboard tube. Children soon discover that rounded objects roll better than objects with edges.

From More Than Magnets (Redleaf Press)
© 1997 by Sally Moomaw and Brenda Hieronymus