Little Scientists: Plants, Animals & How Things Move

For the grown-up: a leaf, a spoon and two minutes

Pick up one leaf on the way in from the car and put it on the kitchen table. That leaf is the whole lesson. Most four-year-olds look at it for about a second and say green, and stretching that second is what this course is for. Looking closely is not a talent a child has or lacks. It is a habit, built by being asked, again and again, to say one more thing.

Safety. Agree before you go out that nothing goes in the mouth, and that mushrooms and berries are looked at but never picked. Wash hands on the way back in. Do not leave a magnifying glass lying in sunlight: a lens pointed at dry leaves or paper can set them alight.

What your child is really learning

Two things, and neither of them is a fact about leaves.

The first is observing: using more than one sense and producing more than one word. A child who says green has answered a question. A child who says green, and pointy at this end, and it has little lines going along it, and it crackles when I bend it has observed. Every later lesson, from the bean in the jar to the ice cube on the plate, rests on that difference.

The second is that a description can be checked. If your child says the leaf is smooth, the two of you can run a finger along it and find out. That is the smallest version of the four steps this course repeats fourteen times: look closely, guess, check, say what happened.

Key idea: The goal today is not the right word for the leaf. It is one more word than your child would have offered on their own.

What to say, and what to ask

Three sentences do most of the work. Say them warmly, then wait. Four seconds of quiet gets more out of a four-year-old than a second question does.

• Tell me one more thing about it. Ask it two or three times in a row on the same object.
• How does it feel? How does it smell? What does it sound like if you bend it? Naming the sense sends the child to that sense.
• I can see something you have not said yet. Can you find it? That makes you a partner, not a quizmaster.

Avoid What colour is it. One answer, and the conversation stops. Avoid instant corrections too: if a dry leaf gets called soft, hand over a sock and ask which is softer. The comparison corrects it for you.

The point: A question with many true answers keeps a child talking. A question with one right answer ends the lesson.

Common misconceptions

• Looking closely needs a tool. It does not. The magnifying glass is a treat, not the method. A child who holds an object still, turns it over, and is asked for one more thing is doing the real work with bare eyes.
• The magnifying glass makes the leaf bigger. Children mean this literally, and a few worry the leaf will stay big. The curved glass bends light on its way to the eye, so the leaf only looks bigger. Take the glass away and let your child watch it go back to its ordinary size. That is the whole explanation, and it is enough at this age.
• Describing is the same as naming. Naming finishes in one word. Describing is what you can still do once the name is used up, and it is the harder and more useful skill.

Now read this part out loud to your child

Today you are a scientist.

A scientist is someone who looks very hard at things.

You do not need anything special. You have eyes, fingers, a nose and two ears.

Look closely at the leaf

Pick up the leaf. Hold it still.

Do not talk yet. Just look. I will count to ten.

Now tell me one thing you see.

Good. Tell me one more thing.

One more.

Now rub the leaf with one finger. Is it smooth or bumpy?

Turn it over. Is the back the same as the front?

Hold it near your nose. Does it smell of anything?

Bend it near your ear. Does it make a sound?

Remember: A scientist uses eyes, fingers, a nose and ears. Not just eyes.

Guess what the spoon will show

Here is a spoon. Look at the round back of it.

I am going to hold the leaf next to the spoon.

Guess first. Will the leaf look bigger, or smaller, or upside down?

Say your guess out loud before we look.

Check, and see if your guess was right

Now look at the spoon. Tell me what you see.

Was your guess right?

It is fine if it was not. Guessing wrong is how scientists find things out.

Now look at your own face in the round back of the spoon. Turn the spoon over and look at the inside. Tell me which side turns you upside down.

A walk, and three things to bring home

Put on your shoes. We are going outside.

Your job is to find three things to bring home.

Here are the rules. Pick up only things lying on the ground already. Nothing goes in your mouth. We do not pick mushrooms or berries. We can look at them.

Find one thing that is rough.

Find one thing in a colour you like.

Find one thing smaller than your thumb.

Put all three in the bag.

Say what happened

We are home. Tip the three things onto the table.

Hold up the first one. Tell me three things about it.

Now the second one. Three things.

Now the third one.

Which one is your favourite? Tell me why you chose it.

Now draw your favourite thing on the paper. Draw it big. Keep looking at the real thing while you draw.

In short: You looked, you guessed, you checked, and you said what happened. That is what scientists do.

For the grown-up: when it does not go to plan

If your child gives you one word and then nothing, take a turn yourself. Say something odd and specific out loud: the edge of this one is wobbly, not straight. Children copy the level they are shown. A grown-up who only asks gets one-word answers; a grown-up who also notices things gets a partner.

If the walk turns into a collection of forty stones, let it. Sort them on the doorstep and choose three. Sorting is next lesson arriving early.

For a picture book beside this, ask a library for Ruth Krauss, The Carrot Seed, or Ezra Jack Keats, The Snowy Day. Both are short, both follow a child watching something closely, and neither needs a screen.

What to carry forward

• Observing means more than one sense and more than one word.
• Tell me one more thing is the most useful sentence in this course.
• A guess said out loud is what turns looking into an investigation.
• A wrong guess is useful, and saying so out loud matters more than the leaf does.

Sources

1. National Research Council. (2012). A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
2. Worth, K., and Grollman, S. (2003). Worms, Shadows, and Whirlpools: Science in the Early Childhood Classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
3. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Sense. en.wikipedia.org
4. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Magnifying glass. en.wikipedia.org

For the grown-up: a tray, two sheets of paper and a pencil that used to be a tree

Put eight things on a tray: a stone, a metal spoon, a leaf picked this morning, a toy car, an apple, a sock, a houseplant in its pot, and a wooden pencil. Then ask which ones are alive. Most four-year-olds put the toy car with the apple, and the houseplant with the stone. That is not carelessness. The car moves and the plant does not, and moving is the rule a young child is working from.

Safety. Nothing on the tray goes in the mouth except the apple, and that waits until the sorting is over and hands are washed. Some houseplants are poisonous if chewed, so keep the pot on the table rather than on the floor. If you have a pet, include it by pointing at it from where it is sitting rather than by carrying it to the tray.

What your child is really learning

One idea, and it replaces a rule your child already has.

The old rule is that moving things are alive. It is a sensible rule for a three-year-old, because almost everything they meet that moves on its own really is alive. Then they meet a car, a river, a cloud and a flame, and the rule breaks. Children who keep it will tell you the wind is alive and the oak tree in the garden is not.

The new rule is about needs. Living things need food, water, air and a place to live. They grow. They came from a parent. A toy car needs none of those, and it will be exactly the same size next year. The houseplant on the windowsill needs water every week, it is taller than it was in spring, and it grew from a seed. The kindergarten science standards put the same idea in one line: children use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals, including humans, need to survive.

What matters here: The question that does the work is not is it alive. It is what does it need.

What to say, and what to ask

Ask about needs, one thing at a time, and let the answers do the sorting.

• Does it need food? Does it need a drink? Does it need air? Three small questions beat one big one.
• Was it ever a baby? Will it get bigger? Growth is the part children find easiest to picture.
• Who is its mother? Odd, and it works. A child who laughs at the idea of a spoon having a mother has just sorted the spoon.

When your child says the car is alive, do not say no. Say: does the car eat, and wait. Then ask what happens when nobody pushes it. Your child's own answers beat yours.

Why this matters: A child who is told the answer has learned one object. A child who tested the object against three questions can sort the next one alone.

Common misconceptions

• If it moves, it is alive. This is the big one at four, and cars, rivers, clouds and fire all get caught by it. The repair is not a definition. It is the question does it eat, asked calmly about the car, the river and the fire until the rule your child is using stops paying.
• Plants are not alive. Plants stay put, make no noise and are never seen eating, so children file them with furniture. Watering the houseplant together, and looking at the tall new leaf that was not there in spring, does more than any explanation.
• Not living and dead are the same thing. A stone was never alive. A wooden pencil and a fallen leaf were once part of something that was. Say it plainly: the pencil is not alive now, and it used to be a tree. Expect to say it again in a month.

Now read this part out loud to your child

Today we are going to sort.

Sorting means putting things into groups.

Our two groups are living and not living.

Living means alive, like you and me and the cat.

Look closely at the tray

Here is the tray. Look at everything on it.

Point to something you know is alive.

Point to something you know is not alive.

Now pick up the stone and then the leaf. Tell me one thing about each.

Guess first, then make two piles

This paper is for living things. This paper is for not living things.

Take one thing at a time. Say your guess out loud. Then put it on a paper.

Start with the spoon. Living, or not living?

Now the toy car. Say your guess.

Now the plant. Say your guess.

Keep going until the tray is empty.

Check every thing with three questions

Now we check. Pick up one thing from the living pile.

Does it need food? Say yes or no.

Does it need water? Say yes or no.

Does it need air? Say yes or no.

If you said yes three times, leave it where it is.

If you said no three times, move it to the other paper.

Now do the same with everything in the not living pile.

The upshot: Living things need food, water and air. Not living things need nothing at all.

The tricky pile

I have two things left. Here is an apple. Here is a wooden pencil.

The apple grew on a tree. The pencil is made of wood, and wood comes from a tree.

Are they alive now? Tell me what you think.

They are not alive now. But they both came from something that was.

Put them between the two papers. That is their own little pile.

Say what happened

Look at your two papers.

Count the living things. Say the number out loud.

Count the not living things.

Did you move anything from one paper to the other? Tell me which one.

Tell me the three questions we asked.

Now find one more living thing in this room. Go and point at it.

For the grown-up: when it does not go to plan

If your child insists the car is alive, leave it on the living paper and write the word car on a scrap of paper. Come back to it after the bean lesson, when they have watched something grow for a week. Growth is the argument that wins, and it needs seven days to arrive.

If the sorting takes four minutes, extend it rather than stopping. Walk around the house and sort ten more things: the fridge, the fern, a shoe, a spider in the corner, a photograph of grandma. A photograph of a living person is a good argument and children enjoy it.

Fire is worth a mention. It moves, grows and goes out, and it is not alive. Say that it copies living things without needing food and water the way a dog does. Do not light a candle to show it.

The short version

• Living things need food, water, air and a place to live.
• Living things grow, and they came from a parent.
• Moving is not the test. Cars move and are not alive. Plants stay still and are.
• A few things, like a wooden pencil or an apple, are not alive now but came from something that was.

Sources

1. NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards, K-LS1 From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes. nextgenscience.org
2. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Life. en.wikipedia.org
3. Chalufour, I., and Worth, K. (2003). Discovering Nature with Young Children. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf Press.

For the grown-up: a dried bean, a jam jar and seven days

Take one dried bean out of the packet in the cupboard. It is hard, it rattles on the table, and it looks about as alive as a pebble. In eight days it will have a white root longer than your child's finger and a green shoot pushing at the lid. Nothing in this course changes a four-year-old's mind about living things faster than that.

The jar goes against the glass so nothing is hidden. In soil, all the interesting parts happen where a child cannot see them.

Safety. Dried beans are exactly the size that gets pushed up a nose or swallowed, so count them out yourself and count them back. Raw kidney beans are poisonous if eaten, even a few, so this is a no tasting activity from the first minute. Wash hands after handling soaked beans. If mould appears, tip it out and start again with a clean jar.

What your child is really learning

That a seed is not a pebble. It is a living thing with a plant folded up inside it, waiting for water.

Your child will also meet a real investigation: not one jar but two, differing in exactly one way. The windowsill jar gets light. The cupboard jar does not. Everything else is the same, on purpose, so anything that comes out different has to be about the light.

And they will meet waiting. Seven days is a long time at four, which is why the drawings matter. A row of dated drawings turns a slow change into something a child can see all at once.

Worth holding on to: The root comes first, and it goes down. The shoot comes second, and it goes up. Every bean in the jar does the same thing, whichever way up you put it.

The second jar, and why it goes in the cupboard

Ask your child what the cupboard bean will do. Almost every child says it will not grow, and almost every child is wrong. That is why the cupboard jar earns its place.

Most seeds germinate perfectly well in the dark, because the food for the first few days is packed inside the seed. Penn State Extension puts it plainly: most seeds germinate best in the dark, and it is the seedling, not the seed, that needs sunlight. So the cupboard bean sprouts. Its shoot comes up pale and stretched, reaching for a light that is not there, while the windowsill bean stands green and sturdy. Light does not wake a seed up. A seedling needs it to keep going.

What to say across the week

• Day one, before anything happens: what do you think is inside the bean? Write the answer down and read it back on day seven.
• Every day: what is different from yesterday? Not what do you see. The comparison is the whole skill.
• Day three or four, when the root appears: which way is it growing? Then turn the jar upside down and look again tomorrow.

The core of it: Two jars, one difference, and a drawing every day. That shape is what makes this an investigation and not a windowsill decoration.

Common misconceptions

• Seeds need light to start growing. They need water, air and warmth. Light comes into it later, for the seedling. The cupboard jar proves this in your own kitchen, which is worth more than being told.
• The plant eats the soil. There is no soil in this jar at all, and the bean grows anyway. The first days run on food stored inside the seed. Children find this easier if you call it the packed lunch inside the bean.
• The root grows down because it is heavy. Turn the jar a quarter turn and the root turns too, bending back downwards over a day or so. The bean is not falling. It is sensing which way is down.

Now read this part out loud to your child

Today we plant a bean.

But we are not going to hide it in a pot of soil.

We are going to put it where we can watch it every single day.

Day one: look closely at the bean

Here is a dry bean. Hold it in your hand.

Tell me three things about it.

Is it hard or soft? Squeeze it and tell me.

Now find the little mark on the side. That is where the root comes out.

A whole plant is folded up inside this bean. It is waiting for water.

Day one: make the two jars

Scrunch up the kitchen paper. Push it inside the jar.

Now pour in a little water. Not too much. The paper needs to be wet, not swimming.

Push three beans down the side, between the glass and the paper.

Now we make a second jar exactly the same.

This jar goes on the windowsill where it is light.

This one goes in the dark cupboard with the door shut.

Guess what will happen

Say your guess out loud.

Will the bean in the light grow? Say yes or no.

Will the bean in the dark cupboard grow? Say yes or no.

I am going to write your guesses down. We will read them again in seven days.

Every day this week: look, then draw

Come and look at the jar. Do not shake it.

Is the paper still wet? Touch it with one finger.

If it is drying out, pour in a tiny bit more water.

Tell me one thing that is different from yesterday.

Now draw the bean on a new piece of paper. Draw it big.

When the white root comes out, point to it. Tell me which way it is going.

When the green shoot comes out, point to that too.

Day seven: say what happened

Put all your drawings in a row, day one first.

Look along the row. Tell me what happened.

Now open the cupboard and bring out the other jar.

Hold the two jars next to each other.

Did the bean in the dark grow? Tell me yes or no.

Look at its shoot. Is it green like the other one, or is it pale?

Here is what we found out. A seed does not need light to start. But a little plant needs light to go green and stand up strong.

Now put the cupboard bean on the windowsill and look again tomorrow.

For the grown-up: when it does not go to plan

Beans from an old packet often fail, which is why there are three in each jar. If nothing has moved by day four, the paper has dried out or the beans are stale. Start again with a fresh packet.

If interest fades by day three, fix the looking to one moment, such as straight after breakfast, and keep it to a minute.

For a book to read beside this, ask the library for Eric Carle, The Tiny Seed.

Looking back

• A seed is a living thing with a plant folded up inside it.
• Seeds need water, air and warmth to start growing. They do not need light to start.
• The root comes first and grows down. The shoot comes next and grows up.
• A young plant kept in the dark grows pale and floppy, because a seedling does need light.
• Two jars that differ in one thing is how you find out what that one thing does.

Sources

1. Penn State Extension. (2025, January 14). Seed and Seedling Biology. extension.psu.edu
2. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Germination. en.wikipedia.org
3. Ashbrook, P. (2016). Science Learning in the Early Years: Activities for PreK-2. Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.

For the grown-up: an apple, a knife and a cut nobody makes

Cut an apple across its middle instead of down through the stalk. The core opens into a five-pointed star, one point for each little chamber, with a brown seed sitting in most of them. Children who have watched apples be cut all their lives have never seen this, because everybody cuts apples the other way.

That star is the whole lesson. The apple is not a snack that happens to have pips in it. The apple is the box the pips came in.

Safety. You hold the knife, all the way through, and your child holds nothing sharper than a plate. Cut on a board on a table, not in a lap. Wash the fruit and everybody's hands first. Nothing is eaten until the investigation is finished.

What your child is really learning

Where seeds come from, and that we eat different parts of different plants.

In lesson three a bean turned into a plant. The obvious next question is where the bean came from, and a four-year-old's honest answer is the packet, or the shop. Cutting open an apple and lining up five brown seeds on a plate replaces the shop with a plant, using something already on the table.

The second idea is harder and worth planting now: a plant is not one thing we eat. A carrot is a root. Lettuce is leaves. Celery is a stem. Broccoli is a bundle of flower buds picked before they open. Peas are seeds. A child who sorts a fridge this way is doing biology, not vocabulary.

Bottom line: A fruit is the part of a plant that holds the seeds. Sweetness has nothing to do with it.

Why a tomato is a fruit

This is the part grown-ups get wrong too. In the kitchen, fruit means sweet and vegetable means savoury, which is why a tomato ends up in a salad and gets called a vegetable. On the plant, a fruit is what develops from the flower and carries the seeds. Cut a tomato and there they are. Cut a cucumber, a pepper or a pea pod and you find the same thing.

Say both out loud, because both are true: in cooking it is a vegetable, on the plant it is a fruit. Children handle two names for one thing better than adults expect.

Where does a fruit come from? A flower. An insect or the wind moves pollen between flowers, the petals drop, and the small swelling left behind grows into the fruit. That is why an apple tree carries blossom in spring and apples in autumn.

What to say, and what to ask

• Before any cutting: how many seeds do you think are inside? Any number is a good answer. Write it down and count for real afterwards.
• What part of the plant is this? Ask it of everything on the table, including the boring ones.
• Where would this seed grow if we planted it? The link back to the bean jar is the point of the whole module.

So what?: The question that travels is what part of the plant is this. It works in the fridge, in the supermarket and on a plate of dinner, for years.

Common misconceptions

• A fruit is anything sweet. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and pea pods all hold seeds, and all are fruits on the plant. Rhubarb, which is sweetened and served as pudding, is a stem. Sweetness is a cooking idea, not a plant one.
• Seeds come from packets. Packets come from plants. Every seed in the shed started inside a fruit, a pod or a flower head somewhere.
• We eat the same part of every plant. We eat roots, stems, leaves, flower buds, fruits and seeds, sometimes several from one plant. Sorting the fridge is the fastest cure.

Now read this part out loud to your child

Yesterday we watched a bean grow.

Today we are going to find out where seeds come from.

They do not come from the shop. They come from plants.

Look closely at the outside

Here is an apple. Hold it in both hands.

Tell me three things about the outside.

Find the stalk. That is where it hung on the tree.

Now find the little dry bit at the other end. That is where the flower used to be.

Smell it. Tell me what it smells of.

Guess what is inside

I am going to cut this apple across the middle.

Guess first. How many seeds are inside? Say a number out loud.

Now guess the colour of the seeds.

I am writing your two guesses down.

Check: the star in the apple

Watch while I cut. Keep your hands on the table.

Look at the middle. Can you see the shape?

It is a star. Count the points of the star with your finger.

Now find the seeds. Take them out and put them on the plate.

Count them out loud.

Was your guess more than that, or less?

Tell me the colour. Were you right?

Every one of these seeds could grow into an apple tree.

The tomato surprise

Here is a tomato. Do you think a tomato has seeds inside?

Say your guess out loud.

Watch. I am cutting it in half.

Point to the seeds.

Here is something to tell people. Anything with seeds inside is a fruit. So a tomato is a fruit.

A kitchen full of plant parts

Now we sort. Here is a carrot, a lettuce leaf, a stick of celery and some broccoli.

The carrot is a root. It was underground.

The lettuce is a leaf.

The celery is a stem.

The broccoli is a bunch of tiny flowers that never opened.

Pick up each one and say its plant part out loud.

Now go to the fridge and find one more fruit. Bring it to me and tell me how you know.

Say what happened

Tell me where seeds come from.

Tell me what a fruit is.

Tell me one thing we eat that is a root.

Now draw the star in the apple, with the seeds in it.

For the grown-up: when it does not go to plan

Cut slowly and let the halves come apart in front of your child. The star is only obvious for the first moment. If the cut goes wrong, apples are cheap.

If your child wants to plant the pips, do it. Shop apple pips often sprout in damp kitchen paper and almost never make a tree worth having, and neither fact spoils the afternoon.

What to remember

• A fruit is the part of a plant that holds the seeds, sweet or not.
• Fruit grows where the flower was, which is why the dry bit sits opposite the stalk.
• Tomatoes, cucumbers and pea pods are fruits on the plant and vegetables in the kitchen.
• We eat roots, stems, leaves, flower buds, fruits and seeds. What part of the plant is this is a question that keeps working.

Sources

1. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Fruit. en.wikipedia.org
2. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Flower. en.wikipedia.org
3. NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards, 2-LS2 Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics. nextgenscience.org
4. Trundle, K. C., and Sackes, M. (Eds.). (2015). Research in Early Childhood Science Education. Dordrecht: Springer.

For the grown-up: two photographs on the kitchen table

Find a photograph of your child at a few weeks old and put it beside one of yourself at the same age. Ask which things are the same and which are different. It does more for the idea than any picture of a puppy, because those two faces are the ones your child already knows by heart.

Then add the interesting part: neither of those babies could walk, talk or eat a sandwich, and somebody fed them both.

Safety. A raw egg is for holding and looking at, not cracking, and hands get washed afterwards, because raw egg on a shell can carry bacteria that make children ill. If you have a pet, watch from a little way off; a cat with kittens does not want visitors. Outdoors, nests and burrows are looked at from a distance and never touched.

What your child is really learning

That every animal came from a parent, and that babies are like their parents without being copies of them.

The first grade standards put it carefully: young plants and animals are like, but not exactly like, their parents. That word exactly is doing the work. A lamb is obviously a small sheep. A puppy is obviously a small dog. But the puppy has a white patch its mother does not have, and it is those small differences that children need to notice.

The second idea is that a baby animal needs looking after, and the parent does it. Milk, warmth, a nest, food carried back, danger warned about. Your child has strong feelings about being looked after and will find this easy.

Key idea: Like, but not exactly like. That is the phrase to use, and it is worth using the same words every time.

The two ways of arriving, and the two that surprise everyone

Some animals hatch out of eggs. Birds, frogs, fish, snakes, turtles, lizards and every insect in the garden. Some are born alive and drink milk: dogs, cats, sheep, cows, horses, mice, whales and us.

That split is tidy enough for a four-year-old, and it is worth knowing where it leaks. Ducks lay eggs and so do frogs, but a duckling comes out looking like a small duck and a tadpole does not look like a frog at all. Tadpoles and caterpillars change shape completely on the way to being grown up, and children find that astonishing. It is fine to leave it astonishing.

The other leak is worth a sentence only if your child asks: a very few mammals, such as the platypus, lay eggs and still feed their young on milk.

What to say, and what to ask

• What is the same about these two, and what is different? Both halves, every time, on every pair.
• What can the mother do that the baby cannot do yet? This gets at growing up, not just size.
• Who feeds this baby, and what does it eat? A good question for a chick, a puppy and a caterpillar alike.

Use the real pair of names. Not baby sheep but lamb. Not baby cow but calf. Children of four collect words like this and use them for years.

Common misconceptions

• A baby animal is just a smaller version of the grown-up. Often true and sometimes spectacularly false. A tadpole has a tail and no legs. A caterpillar has no wings. Keep a tadpole card in the pile on purpose.
• Only birds lay eggs. Frogs, fish, snakes, turtles, spiders and insects all lay eggs. Children who have only met hens assume eggs are a bird thing.
• Babies look exactly like their parents. They do not, and the differences are the point. Looking at two family photographs and naming one difference out loud is the fastest way in.

Now read this part out loud to your child

Every animal in the world had a mother.

Every single one. The cat next door. The birds outside. You.

Today we are going to match babies to their mothers.

Look closely at two photographs

Here is a photo of you when you were a tiny baby.

Here is a photo of me when I was a baby.

Tell me one thing that is the same.

Tell me one thing that is different.

Now look at me now. What can I do that a baby cannot do?

Here are the words to remember. Babies are like their parents. But they are not exactly like them.

Guess the parents

I have drawn eight cards. Four are babies. Four are grown-ups.

Here is a lamb. Which card is its mother?

Here is a puppy. Which card is its mother?

Here is a chick. Which card is its mother?

Here is a tadpole. Guess which card is its mother.

Say the guess out loud before you move the card.

Check the tadpole

The tadpole's mother is the frog.

That is a strange one. A tadpole has a tail and no legs at all.

It grows legs later. Then its tail shrinks away.

A caterpillar does the same kind of thing. It turns into a butterfly.

Point to the two cards that do not look like their mothers.

Two piles: hatched, or born

Some baby animals come out of an egg. We say they hatch.

Some baby animals are born alive and drink milk.

Hold this egg. Be gentle. A chick could grow inside an egg like this one.

Now sort your cards into two piles. Say hatched or born for each one.

Put the frog with the hatched pile. Frogs lay eggs in ponds.

Count how many are in each pile.

Say what happened

Tell me the name of a baby sheep.

Tell me the name of a baby cow.

Tell me one animal that hatches out of an egg.

Tell me one thing a mother animal does for her baby.

Now draw your own baby animal and its mother, side by side. Make one thing different between them.

For the grown-up: when it does not go to plan

If your drawings are not recognisable, say so cheerfully and label them. A wonky cow that you both agree is a cow works perfectly.

If your child asks where babies come from, answer at the level asked and no further. Mothers grow babies inside them, or lay eggs, is usually all that was wanted.

For a book, ask the library for Eric Carle, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Putting it together

• Every animal had a parent, and babies are like their parents but not exactly like them.
• Some animals hatch out of eggs. Some are born alive and drink milk.
• A tadpole and a caterpillar change shape completely before they are grown up.
• Parents feed their young, keep them warm and keep them safe until the young can do it themselves.

In short: Lamb, calf, foal, chick, puppy, kitten. Use the real names and your child will keep them.

Sources

1. NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards, 1-LS3 Heredity: Inheritance and Variation of Traits. nextgenscience.org
2. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Metamorphosis. en.wikipedia.org
3. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Egg. en.wikipedia.org
4. Gopnik, A., Meltzoff, A. N., and Kuhl, P. K. (1999). The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind. New York: William Morrow.

For the grown-up: a hallway, a ball of string and four ways of crossing it

Lay a length of string across the hallway floor and put a shoe at the far end. Your child is going to cross that floor four times: walking, hopping like a frog, slithering like a snake on their tummy, and flapping across on tiptoe like a bird. Then you both count how many of each it took. A snake takes a lot more moves than a pair of legs, and finding that out on your own carpet is different from being told.

The other half of the lesson costs nothing: a slow walk round the house and garden looking for where things actually live.

Safety. Clear the floor properly before any slithering, and keep it off stairs and hard edges. Outdoors, lift a stone or a log with two hands, look, then put it back exactly as it was, because that was somebody's roof. Never put a hand into a hole or a nest. Wash hands when you come in, and leave bees, wasps and their nests entirely alone.

What your child is really learning

That an animal lives where it does for reasons, and that the reasons are the same three every time: food, water and somewhere safe.

The kindergarten standards ask children to represent the relationship between what animals need and the places they live. That is a grand sentence for a small idea: the woodlouse is under the log because it is damp and dark there, and a woodlouse dries out in the sun.

The second idea is that bodies and moving go together. Legs for walking, wings for flying, fins for swimming, and a snake with none of those that manages anyway.

The point: Do not ask where does a rabbit live. Ask why does a rabbit live there. The second question has an answer a child can work out.

Homes are not houses

A house is where a family lives all the time. Most animal homes are nothing like that, and it is worth being accurate about it.

• A nest is a nursery. Most birds build a nest for the eggs and the chicks, use it for a few weeks, and then leave it. Birds do not sleep in nests all year. They roost in trees, hedges and under eaves.
• A burrow is a tunnel. Rabbits, foxes, badgers, moles and mice dig. A burrow is cool in summer, warm in winter and hard to reach from outside, which is its whole point.
• A web is a trap that happens to be lived on. The spider sits on it waiting for the trap to work.
• A hive or a nest of wasps is a whole city. Thousands of animals, one home. Look at these from a long way off and never touch them.

What to say, and what to ask

• What does this animal need here? Food, water, somewhere safe. Three answers, every time.
• Show me how it moves. Then do it yourself, badly, and let yourself be corrected.
• Where would you look for a woodlouse, and why there? Prediction before lifting, always.

Common misconceptions

• Birds live in nests the way we live in houses. Nests are built for eggs and young and are abandoned afterwards. Most of the year a bird has no home at all in the way a child means it.
• Animals with no legs cannot move properly. A snake crosses rough ground faster than a child can crawl, and a snail goes everywhere on one muscular foot. No legs is a different solution, not a missing one.
• Animals choose cosy homes because they like them. The damp dark space under a log is not cosy to us. It is right for a woodlouse, which dries out and dies in sunshine. Homes fit needs, not tastes.

Now read this part out loud to your child

Animals do not all move the same way.

Some walk. Some hop. Some fly. Some swim. Some have no legs at all.

Today you are going to move like four different animals.

Look closely at your own body

Stand up. Look down at your legs.

How many legs have you got? Say the number.

A dog has four. A bird has two and a pair of wings. A snake has none.

Wiggle your fingers. A bird has feathers there instead.

Guess before you cross the floor

Here is the string. You are going to cross the floor from here to the shoe.

You will do it four times. Walking, hopping, slithering on your tummy, and tiptoeing with your arms out like wings.

Guess first. Which way do you think will take the most goes? Say it out loud.

Which way will be fastest? Say that too.

Check: cross the floor four ways

Walk it first. I will count your steps out loud.

Now hop it like a frog. I am counting your hops.

Now lie down and slither like a snake. No hands. I am counting your wriggles.

Now tiptoe with your arms out like a bird.

Look at the numbers I wrote down. Which one was the biggest?

Which way made you most out of breath? Tell me.

Remember: Every animal moves the way its body lets it move.

A hunt for homes

Put your shoes on. We are going to look for places animals live.

First, guess. Where do you think we will find something living? Say one place.

Look in the corner of the ceiling for a spider web.

Look up in a tree or a hedge for a nest.

Now find a stone or an old log. I will lift it with both hands. Look underneath.

Can you see anything moving? Tell me what it looks like.

It is dark and damp under there. That is exactly what a woodlouse needs.

Now watch while I put the stone back the way it was. That was somebody's roof.

Say what happened

Tell me three places an animal can live.

Tell me one animal that has no legs and moves anyway.

Why does a woodlouse live under a stone? Say the two words: dark and damp.

Now draw an animal in its home, with the animal inside it.

For the grown-up: when it does not go to plan

If you lift three stones and find nothing, that is a real result and worth saying so. Try a damper spot: the edge of a plant pot, under a plank, behind a bin. Dryness is usually the reason, which is itself the lesson.

If the crossing turns into pure racing, keep the counting and drop the timing. The number of hops is the finding.

The takeaway

• Animals live where they can find food, water and somewhere safe.
• A nest is for eggs and chicks, not a house for all year.
• Burrows are tunnels, webs are traps, and a hive holds thousands of animals at once.
• Walking, hopping, slithering, swimming and flying are all ways of getting somewhere, and the body decides which.

Sources

1. NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards, K-ESS3 Earth and Human Activity. nextgenscience.org
2. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Animal locomotion. en.wikipedia.org
3. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Bird nest. en.wikipedia.org
4. Worth, K., and Grollman, S. (2003). Worms, Shadows, and Whirlpools: Science in the Early Childhood Classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

For the grown-up: a toy car, a bare floor and a carpet

Flick a toy car across the kitchen floor with one finger. It runs into the hall. Now put it on the living room carpet and flick it exactly as hard, and it travels about half as far. Your child will want to say the second flick was weaker. It was not, and that argument is the best thing in this lesson.

Before any of that, spend two minutes on the door. Opening it is a pull, closing it is a push, and your child has done both twice already today without a name for either.

Safety. Kneel to flick rather than kicking, and keep the runs away from stairs, glass doors and the cat. If you use a heavier toy, roll it rather than throwing it. Fingers stay clear of the drawer when it closes.

What your child is really learning

Two words, and the fact that they explain nearly everything that moves.

A push moves something away from you. A pull brings it towards you. That is the whole definition and a four-year-old can hold it. The kindergarten standards ask children to compare the effects of different strengths and different directions of pushes and pulls on the motion of an object, and the core idea underneath is exactly as plain: pushing or pulling on an object can change the speed or direction of its motion, and can start it or stop it.

The part worth slowing down on is that nothing moves by itself. If the car moved, something pushed or pulled it. If it stopped, something stopped it. Children who ask what stopped the car are asking a real question, and carpet is the answer.

Why this matters: Push and pull are not vocabulary. They are the first causes a child can name, and naming causes is most of what science is.

Why the carpet wins

The carpet is rough and full of fibres that catch at the wheels. Bare boards are smooth. The rubbing between the car and the floor is called friction, and it is always there, quietly taking speed away. On the carpet there is more of it, so the same push buys less distance.

You do not need the word friction with a four-year-old, although some children love it. Rough and smooth will do. What matters is that your child stops thinking the car ran out of push and starts thinking the floor took it away.

Keep the flick honest, which is harder than it sounds. Use the same finger, the same start line and the same car. If your child insists on doing the flicking, let them, and run each surface three times so a wild flick does not decide the result.

What to say, and what to ask

• Is that a push or a pull? Ask it about everything for one whole day: zips, taps, seat belts, the fridge, a sock.
• What do you think will happen if you push harder? Then let them find out rather than telling them.
• What stopped it? This is the question that opens the second half of the lesson.

Common misconceptions

• Things stop because the push runs out. Children picture the push sitting inside the car and draining away. Nothing runs out. Something slows it down, and on a smooth floor it takes much longer to do so.
• A pull is the opposite of a push, so they are different kinds of thing. They are the same kind of thing in different directions. A magnet on the fridge and a hand on a door do the same job.
• Only strong people can push. Strength changes how far, not whether. A four-year-old's finger moves a car perfectly well, which is worth demonstrating on the day a child says they are not strong enough.

Now read this part out loud to your child

There are two words today. Push and pull.

A push sends something away from you.

A pull brings something towards you.

Hold my hands. Now push me. Now pull me.

That is all there is to it.

Push and pull around the house

Go to the door. Open it. Was that a push or a pull? Say it out loud.

Now close it. Push or pull?

Open the drawer. Push or pull?

Pull your sock off. What was that one?

Find three more things in this room. Tell me push or pull for each one.

Guess before you flick

Here is a car and here is a line of tape on the floor.

The car starts on the line every time. That is the rule.

First, flick it gently with one finger. Watch where it stops.

Now guess. If you push harder, will it go further or not so far?

Say your guess out loud. Then flick it hard.

Was your guess right? A big push sends it a long way. A little push sends it a short way.

Check: the same push on two floors

Now we do something trickier. We are going to keep the push exactly the same.

Flick the car on this hard floor. Put a shoe where it stops.

Now put the car on the carpet, on the line, and flick it the same way.

Put another shoe where it stops.

Look at the two shoes. Which floor let the car go further?

Feel the carpet with your hand. Now feel the hard floor. Which one is rough?

The rough carpet grabs at the wheels and slows the car down.

The upshot: The car did not run out of push. The floor took the push away.

Say what happened

Tell me which floor the car liked best.

Tell me what happens when you push harder.

Tell me one push and one pull you did today.

Now put your hand flat on the table and push it along. Do it on the table, then on your jumper. Tell me which one was harder.

For the grown-up: when it does not go to plan

If the car goes further on the carpet once, you have found the reason for repeats. Do three flicks per surface and use the middle result. This is not fussiness: it is the first time your child meets the idea that one go is not enough to know something.

A car with sticky wheels ruins the whole comparison. Test it on the hard floor first, and if it swerves or stalls, swap it for a ball. A ball on carpet against a ball on boards shows the same thing.

Where this leaves us

• A push sends something away. A pull brings it closer.
• A harder push moves something further and faster.
• Nothing moves or stops by itself. Something always does it.
• A rough floor slows a car down more than a smooth one, which is why the same push goes further on boards.

Sources

1. NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards, K-PS2 Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions. nextgenscience.org
2. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Friction. en.wikipedia.org
3. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Force. en.wikipedia.org
4. Hewitt, P. G. (2015). Conceptual Physics (12th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

For the grown-up: a hardback book and a pile of paperbacks

Lean a hardback book against one paperback and let a toy car go from the top. It rolls out about the length of your arm. Now build the pile up to three paperbacks and let the same car go from the same spot. It shoots past the first mark and keeps going. Nobody pushed it any harder. All that changed was the slope.

This lesson is a procedure, done twice with one thing altered, and then a small sorting game at the end. It is the same shape as the bean jars: change one thing, keep the rest identical, and see what the change did.

Safety. Build the ramp on the floor, never on a table edge where a car can fly off. Marbles are a choking hazard for anyone under three, so if there is a toddler in the house, use a ball instead and put the marbles away. Keep the run clear of the dog and of anybody's toes.

What your child is really learning

That a slope is a way of making something move without pushing it, and that the steeper the slope, the more movement you get.

Nothing is pushing the car. The Earth pulls everything downwards, all the time, and a ramp lets that pull turn into rolling instead of falling. At four, the sentence the Earth pulls everything down is plenty. Children who ask why it does not fall straight down have asked a good question, and the honest answer is that the ramp is in the way.

Underneath the game is the same investigation habit the course has been building: one start line, one car, one change at a time, and a mark on the floor where it stopped so that two goes can be compared afterwards.

What matters here: Steeper means faster at the bottom, and faster at the bottom means further across the floor. Your child can find both halves of that out with a book and a car.

What rolls, what slides, and the surprise

Put six things at the top of the ramp and let them go one at a time. A ball, a marble and a pencil roll, because they are round somewhere. A block, a rubber and a coin lying flat do not roll. Given a steep enough ramp they slide, and a coin balanced on its edge rolls beautifully, which children find very funny.

Shape decides, not weight. That is worth testing head on, because children are sure that the heavy car will win. Hold two cars of clearly different weight at the top of the ramp and let them go together. They usually reach the bottom at about the same moment. This one surprises adults too.

Bottom line: Round rolls. Flat slides. Heavy does not automatically win.

What to say, and what to ask

• What did we change, and what did we keep the same? Ask it after every pair of runs.
• Will it roll or slide? Predict before letting each object go, out loud, every time.
• What could we do to make it go even further? Then try the thing they say, even if you know it will not work.

Common misconceptions

• The heavy one always wins. Two cars of different weight, released together, usually arrive together. Do it twice, because nobody believes it the first time.
• Something pushes the car down the ramp. Nothing does. The Earth pulls everything down all the time, and the ramp lets that pull show itself as rolling.
• Only round things can move down a ramp. Make the ramp steep enough and a block slides down it. Rolling and sliding are two different ways of getting to the bottom.

Now read this part out loud to your child

Today we are going to build a hill.

A hill for a car. We call it a ramp.

We are going to use a book and some other books.

Build the ramp

Put one paperback on the floor. Lean the big book on it.

Run your hand down the slope. Is it steep, or is it gentle?

Now put the car at the very top. Do not push it. Just let go.

Watch where it stops. I am putting a shoe there.

Guess what a taller hill will do

Now I am putting three books under the ramp instead of one.

Look at it. Is this hill steeper than the last one?

Guess first. Will the car go further, or not so far?

Say your guess out loud before we try it.

Check the steep ramp

Put the car at the very top again. The same place as before.

Remember the rule. Do not push it. Just let go.

Watch it all the way. Put a second shoe where it stops.

Now look at your two shoes. Which one is further away?

Was your guess right?

Here is what happened. A steeper hill makes the car go faster. A faster car goes further.

Roll or slide?

Here are six things. A ball, a marble, a pencil, a block, a coin and a rubber.

Pick one up. Look at it closely. Is any part of it round?

Guess. Will it roll down, or slide down, or stay put?

Say your guess. Then put it at the top and let go.

Do the same for all six.

Now stand the coin up on its edge at the top. Let go and watch.

Tell me what decides it. Is it how heavy a thing is, or what shape it is?

Say what happened

Tell me which ramp sent the car further.

Tell me one thing that rolled.

Tell me one thing that slid.

We changed one thing today. Tell me what it was.

Now make the ramp as steep as you can and find out if the car still lands on the floor or flies off the side.

For the grown-up: when it does not go to plan

A very steep ramp often works worse, not better: the car tips, catches its nose or leaves the ramp sideways. That is a genuine result and not a failed experiment. Say what you both saw and try the middle height again.

Carpet swallows the difference between the two ramps. Do this on a hard floor if you have one, and if you do not, lay a strip of cardboard as a runway at the bottom.

Pulling it together

• A ramp is a hill that lets something move without being pushed.
• A steeper ramp makes the car faster, and a faster car travels further across the floor.
• Round things roll. Flat things slide, if the ramp is steep enough.
• Two cars of different weight usually reach the bottom together, which is worth testing twice.
• One start line, one car, one change at a time, and a shoe on the floor to remember the result.

Sources

1. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Inclined plane. en.wikipedia.org
2. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Rolling. en.wikipedia.org
3. NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards, K-PS2 Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions. nextgenscience.org
4. National Research Council. (2012). A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

For the grown-up: a paperclip, an apple and a wrong answer

Drop a paperclip into a mug of water. It goes straight to the bottom. Now drop a whole apple into a bowl of water and it bobs about on the surface, and the apple weighs perhaps forty times as much as the paperclip. Every child starts this lesson certain that heavy things sink, and the fastest way to help is not to contradict them but to hand them the paperclip and the apple.

So this lesson begins with the wrong answer and works out where it breaks.

Safety. Never leave a young child alone with a bowl or bucket of water, not even for a moment and not even in a few centimetres. Do this on the floor on a towel or at the sink, mop spills straight away, and keep the water well away from sockets and leads. Grapes and coins are choking hazards, so they go in the water and back into your hand, never into a mouth.

What your child is really learning

How to make a prediction, record it, and then find out. Ten objects gives ten chances to be right or wrong in one sitting, which is more feedback than most lessons manage.

The science underneath is that floating is not about weight on its own. It is about how heavy a thing is for its size. A big apple is mostly water and a little air, so it is light for how big it is, and it floats. A small coin is metal all the way through, heavy for its size, and it sinks. Grown-ups call this density. Your child does not need the word, but you may find it useful.

The shape part is the piece children find magical, and it is the same idea seen from another side: a shape that traps air is bigger for the same weight.

The core of it: Not how heavy. How heavy for its size, and what shape it is.

Where the wrong answer breaks

Start by writing your child's rule at the top of the paper: heavy things sink. Then work down the objects and mark where the rule fails.

Two objects that break a rule are worth more than ten that confirm it, and children take the point faster than you would expect. Say the new rule out loud together once the clay has floated.

What to say, and what to ask

• Guess first, every single time. No object goes in the water before a guess has been said out loud.
• Why do you think that? Take any reason at all. The reason is what gets tested, not just the answer.
• Can you make it do the other thing? A brilliant question for the clay, the foil and the plastic spoon.

Common misconceptions

• Heavy things sink and light things float. The most reasonable wrong idea in the course. A ship made of steel floats and a grain of sand sinks. Weight alone decides nothing.
• Metal always sinks and wood always floats. Metal foil shaped into a bowl floats happily until you crumple it into a ball. Take the same piece and do both.
• Big things sink because they are big. Size on its own decides nothing either. A large empty bottle with the lid on floats high; the same bottle full of water sits under the surface.

Now read this part out loud to your child

Here is a bowl of water.

Some things float. They stay up on top.

Some things sink. They go down to the bottom.

Before we put anything in, you have to guess.

Look closely, then guess all ten

Here are ten things. Pick up each one and feel how heavy it is.

Now tell me your guess for each one. Sink, or float?

I am writing every guess down. Say them all before we start.

Tell me your rule. How do you decide?

Check them one at a time

Put the stone in first. Watch it. Sink or float?

Now the cork.

Now the apple. Look at how big it is. Watch what it does.

Now the coin. It is much smaller than the apple.

Put the rest in, one at a time. Say your guess again just before each one goes in.

Count how many guesses you got right.

The clay that does both

Here is a lump of clay. Squash it into a ball.

Guess. Will the ball sink or float?

Put it in. It sinks to the bottom.

Take it out. Now we are going to change its shape.

Flatten it out and press the edges up. Make a little boat.

It is exactly the same clay. Not one bit more, not one bit less.

Guess. Will your boat sink or float?

Put it in gently and let go.

It floats. The clay did not change. Only its shape changed.

Worth holding on to: The same stuff can sink or float. It depends on its shape.

Say what happened

Tell me one heavy thing that floated.

Tell me one tiny thing that sank.

Is your old rule still true? Tell me a better one.

Now put a coin in your clay boat, then another one. How many can it hold before it sinks?

For the grown-up: when it does not go to plan

Wet clay gets soft and the boat walls slump. Rebuild them thicker and taller, and dry your child's hands first. If plasticine is beyond you, use kitchen foil: a foil bowl floats, and the same square crumpled into a ball sinks.

If your child changes their guess as the object touches the water, that is fine and very common. Write the guesses down before anything goes in and read them back at the end, which settles it kindly.

An orange is worth a go if you have one. Try it whole, then peel it and try it again, and see whether your child can work out why the two results differ.

What you now know

• Floating is not about weight on its own. A heavy apple floats and a tiny coin sinks.
• What counts is how heavy a thing is for its size.
• Shape matters: a lump of clay sinks, and the same clay as a boat floats.
• Guessing before testing turns a water game into an investigation, and ten objects gives ten chances to find out.

Sources

1. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Buoyancy. en.wikipedia.org
2. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Density. en.wikipedia.org
3. Chalufour, I., and Worth, K. (2005). Exploring Water with Young Children. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf Press.

For the grown-up: two saucers and two ice cubes

At ten on a bright morning, put one ice cube on a saucer on the sunny windowsill and an identical one on a saucer on the floor in the shade of the same room. Look again every five minutes. The sunny one is a puddle while the shady one still has corners, and your child watched it happen without being told anything.

If it is a grey day, the radiator and the fridge shelf do the same job. The comparison is what matters, not the sunshine.

Safety. This is the lesson where you name the things that are never touched: the oven, the hob, the kettle, the iron, a radiator turned up high, and the hot tap. Say them out loud as a list and have your child say the list back. Nobody tests hot water with a hand. Ice cubes are a choking hazard for the very young, so they stay on the saucer.

What your child is really learning

That warmth moves, and that where a thing sits decides how warm it gets.

The kindergarten standards ask children to observe the effect of sunlight on the Earth's surface, and then to build something that reduces it, which is what a sun hat and a parasol are. Two ice cubes on two saucers is the smallest honest version of that investigation: same ice, same room, same start, one difference.

The second idea is harder and worth planting early. A coat does not make heat. It keeps in the heat your own body is making, which is why a coat left on a chair never gets warm and why a jumper wrapped round ice cream keeps it cold. Your child's coat is warm when they take it off because they were in it.

In short: The Sun warms what it lands on. A coat traps warmth that was already there.

Why a metal spoon feels colder than a wooden one

Take a metal spoon and a wooden spoon out of the same drawer, in the same room, and let your child hold one in each hand. The metal feels cold and the wood does not, even though both have been sitting at the same temperature all night.

What the hand is feeling is not how cold the spoon is. It is how quickly the spoon takes warmth out of the hand. Metal moves heat fast, so it pulls warmth from the fingers and the fingers report cold. Wood moves heat slowly, so it feels neutral. This is not a trick; it is how touch works, and it is why a tiled floor feels colder than a rug on the same morning.

Four-year-olds accept this happily if you put it in their terms: the metal is drinking the warm out of your hand.

What to say, and what to ask

• Which one do you think will melt first, and why? Take the reason, and write it down beside the guess.
• Warm, hot or cold? Ask it about the bath, a cup of tea, the fridge, the doorstep, your hands.
• What could we do to keep this one cold for longer? A real engineering question that a child of five can answer with a tea towel.

Common misconceptions

• A coat makes heat. It does not. Wrap the third ice cube in a tea towel and it will outlast the one sitting in the open air, because the towel keeps warmth out just as it keeps warmth in. Children find this genuinely strange and remember it for years.
• Metal is colder than wood. Both spoons are at room temperature. Metal simply carries warmth away from the hand faster, so it reports as colder.
• Cold comes into a room. The warmth goes out. It is a small correction and it matters, because it explains why shutting a door keeps a room warm rather than keeping the cold outside.

Now read this part out loud to your child

Some things are hot. Some things are cold.

Today you are going to find out what makes things warm up.

First, some rules. There are things we never touch.

The oven. The kettle. The iron. The hot tap.

Say that list back to me.

Look closely at two spoons

Here is a metal spoon and here is a wooden spoon.

Hold one in each hand. Close your eyes.

Which one feels colder? Tell me.

Here is the surprise. They are both the same. They were in the same drawer all night.

The metal one is drinking the warm out of your hand. That is why it feels cold.

Guess which ice cube wins

Here are two ice cubes. They are the same size.

This saucer goes on the windowsill where the sun is.

This saucer goes here on the floor, where it is shady.

Guess. Which one will melt first? Point at it.

Now tell me why you think so.

Check every five minutes

We are not going to stare at them. We will come back when the timer goes.

Come and look. Which one is smaller now?

Touch the sunny saucer with one finger. Is it warm?

Now touch the shady saucer. Is it as warm?

Come back again when the timer goes.

Tell me which one is a puddle first.

Key idea: The sunshine made the windowsill warm, and the warm made the ice melt.

The ice cube in a coat

Here is a third ice cube. We are going to wrap it up in a tea towel.

Guess. Will a wrapped ice cube melt faster or slower?

Most people say faster. Let us find out.

Unwrap it and look. It is still there.

A coat does not make heat. A coat keeps warm things warm and cold things cold.

Your coat is warm when you take it off because you were inside it.

Say what happened

Tell me which ice cube melted first.

Tell me why.

Tell me one thing in this house we never touch.

Now go and find one cold thing and one warm thing, and bring them here to show me.

For the grown-up: when it does not go to plan

On a cloudy day, use the top of a radiator and a windowsill, or a warm hand against a cold plate. The finding is the same: warmth speeds up melting.

If your child wants to poke and pick up the ice, let them for ten seconds and then agree a looking only rule, otherwise warm fingers decide the race.

Summing up

• Sunshine warms whatever it falls on, and warmth melts ice.
• Two ice cubes, one difference, is how you find out what the sunshine did.
• A coat does not make heat. It keeps warmth where it already is, in both directions.
• Metal feels colder than wood at the same temperature, because it takes warmth from your hand faster.
• The oven, the hob, the kettle, the iron and the hot tap are never touched.

Sources

1. NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards, K-PS3 Energy. nextgenscience.org
2. NASA Space Place. (n.d.). Where Does the Sun's Energy Come From? spaceplace.nasa.gov
3. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Melting. en.wikipedia.org

For the grown-up: a torch, a toy dinosaur and a blank wall

Switch the kitchen light off after tea. Stand a plastic dinosaur on the table and shine a torch at it from about a hand's width away. On the wall behind, the dinosaur is the size of a dog. Walk the torch backwards half a metre and the dinosaur shrinks to the size of a cat. The toy never moved.

Children have been making shadows since they could walk. What they have not done is control one on purpose and say what they did.

Safety. Torches are not shone into anybody's eyes, including your own in a mirror. Nobody looks at the Sun, not for a second, not through sunglasses, not through baking paper, not through anything at all. Clear the floor before you turn the light off, and use a torch rather than a candle for every part of this lesson.

What your child is really learning

That a shadow is not a thing. It is a place where the light has been stopped.

That sentence takes the mystery out without taking the fun out. Light travels in straight lines from the torch. The dinosaur is in the way. Behind the dinosaur there is a dinosaur-shaped patch of wall the light never reached, and that patch is the shadow.

The first grade standards ask for two things: evidence that objects in darkness can be seen only when lit, and an investigation into what happens when different materials are put in the path of a beam. Both are one torch and one evening.

Remember: A shadow is where the light cannot reach. Move the light and the shadow changes, because you have changed what the light can reach.

Three materials in the beam

Hold each one in the torch beam in turn and look at the wall.

Ask your child to sort the three into an order, darkest to lightest, and to place a fourth thing in that order. Sorting into an order is a step up from two piles.

What to say, and what to ask

• What do you have to do to make it bigger? Then let them do it, rather than describing it.
• Where is the light not getting to? This is the question that explains every shadow you will ever meet.
• What shape can you make with your hands? The puppets are the reward and the practice.

Common misconceptions

• A shadow is a dark thing stuck to you. Children picture it as a possession that follows them about. Stand your child in the torch beam, then step the torch round to the other side, and watch the shadow jump to the far wall.
• Shadows only happen outside in the sunshine. Any single bright light makes shadows. A torch in a dark kitchen makes better ones than the Sun, because you can pick the light up and move it.
• You can see in complete darkness if you wait. Eyes do adjust to a dim room, and children take that to mean they could see with no light at all. With no light at all there is nothing to see.

Now read this part out loud to your child

We are going to turn the light off.

First, look around. Is the floor clear? Move anything you might trip on.

Here is the rule for the torch. It never shines in anybody's eyes.

Ready. Off goes the light.

Look closely at the dark

Stand still. What can you see now?

Wait a little bit. Can you see more than you could at first?

Your eyes get better in the dark, but not perfect.

Now I am switching the torch on. Look how much you can see.

We need light to see things. In the dark there is nothing for your eyes to catch.

Make a shadow

Put the dinosaur on the table, near the wall.

Shine the torch at it. Look at the wall behind.

There is the dinosaur, on the wall. That is a shadow.

A shadow is the place where the light could not get to.

Put your hand in front of the torch. Watch your hand appear on the wall.

Guess how to make it bigger

Now we have a puzzle. I want that shadow to be huge.

Guess. Should I move the torch closer to the dinosaur, or further away?

Say your guess out loud.

Now try it. Move the torch and watch the wall.

Was your guess right? Move the torch the other way and watch it shrink.

Say the rule out loud: torch close, shadow big. Torch far, shadow small.

Check three things in the light

Here are three things. A book, a piece of baking paper, and a clear plastic lid.

Guess which one will make the darkest shadow.

Hold up the book. Look at the wall. Is the shadow dark or pale?

Now the baking paper. What happened to the shadow?

Now the clear plastic. Can you even see a shadow?

Put them in a line. Darkest shadow at this end, no shadow at that end.

Now find one more thing in the room and put it in the right place in your line.

Say what happened, and then a show

Tell me what a shadow is.

Tell me how to make a shadow bigger.

Tell me which thing made the darkest shadow.

Now make a bird with your two hands in front of the torch. Make it fly.

Make a dog. Make it bark by moving your thumb.

The point: You are not making a dog. You are stopping the light in the shape of a dog.

For the grown-up: when it does not go to plan

A fuzzy shadow usually means the light source is too big or too close to the wall. Move the torch back, turn off any other lamp, and put the toy nearer the wall than the torch is.

Outside, draw round your child's shadow in chalk at breakfast and again after lunch. The Sun is a torch nobody can move, so the shadow moves instead. The Moon does this on a grand scale: a solar eclipse is the Moon casting its shadow on the Earth.

Recap

• We need light to see. In complete darkness there is nothing for eyes to catch.
• A shadow is the place where light has been stopped, not a thing that belongs to you.
• Torch close means a big shadow. Torch far away means a small one.
• Some things stop all the light, some let a little through, and some let nearly all of it through.

Sources

1. NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards, 1-PS4 Waves and Their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer. nextgenscience.org
2. NASA Space Place. (n.d.). What Is an Eclipse? spaceplace.nasa.gov
3. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Shadow. en.wikipedia.org

For the grown-up: a rubber band, an empty box, and a blur

Stretch a thick rubber band round an empty tissue box and pluck it. For about a second the band is not a line any more. It is a blur, because it is moving too fast for an eye to follow, and while it blurs there is a note. Put one finger on it and both the blur and the note stop at the same moment.

That is the physics of sound on a kitchen table, for the price of a rubber band.

Safety. Nobody bangs a pot near anybody's ear, and nobody shouts into an ear. Loud noise at close range damages hearing, and that damage does not come back. Rubber bands snap towards eyes, so they are stretched over a box and never pulled back at a face. Put loose bands and rice away afterwards, because both are a choking hazard.

What your child is really learning

That a sound is something moving, and that if you stop the movement you stop the sound.

This runs in both directions, which is exactly what the first grade standard asks for: vibrating materials can make sound, and sound can make materials vibrate. The rubber band does the first half. Rice grains jumping on cling film while you bang a pot beside them do the second.

The word for the movement is vibrate, and it is a good word for a five-year-old because it sounds like what it means. A thing that vibrates is going backwards and forwards very fast indeed.

So what?: No movement, no sound. A finger on the band is the proof, and your child can do it themselves as often as they like.

Loud is not the same as high

Children mix these two up, and so do plenty of adults, because we use the word big for both.

A drum is loud and low. A whistle is quiet and high. Having both in the room at once is the quickest way to separate the two ideas.

What to say, and what to ask

• What is moving? Ask it of the band, the drum skin, your own throat, and a slammed door.
• How could you make that quieter? Then try it. A hand on the pot works, and so does a tea towel.
• Was that louder, or higher? Insist gently on the difference, because the words are the lesson.

Common misconceptions

• The box makes the sound. The band makes it. The box makes it bigger, by having air inside that moves along with the band. Take the band off the box, stretch it between two hands and pluck it: same note, much quieter.
• Loud and high are the same thing. They are two separate dials. A quiet whistle is high. A loud drum is low. Children need both examples side by side in the same minute.
• Sound needs air, so it cannot go through solid things. Put an ear flat on the table and have somebody tap the far end gently. Sound travels through the table very well, and through walls, which is how you hear the neighbours.

Now read this part out loud to your child

Close your eyes and listen. Do not talk.

Tell me three sounds you can hear right now.

Every single sound is something moving. Let us find out how.

Look closely at a plucked band

Here is a rubber band round a box. Pull it up a little bit and let it go.

Listen. Now look at the band. It has gone blurry.

It is moving so fast your eyes cannot keep up. That is called vibrating.

Pluck it again and watch it go blurry.

Now, while it is still making the noise, put one finger on it.

What happened to the sound? Tell me.

You stopped it moving, so you stopped the sound.

Guess how to change the noise

Guess first. If I pluck it harder, will it be louder or quieter?

Try it. Pluck it gently. Now pluck it hard.

Here is a harder guess. This band is thin and this one is thick.

Which one do you think will sound squeaky and high?

Say your guess. Then pluck them both.

The thin one is higher. The thick one is lower.

Check with a drum

Here is a saucepan and a wooden spoon. This is your drum.

Tap it softly. Now tap it a bit harder. Not next to anybody's ears.

Is a drum high and squeaky, or low and deep?

A drum is loud, and it is low. Those are two different things.

Now put your hand flat on the pot and tap it again. What happened to the sound?

Make the rice jump

Look at this bowl. I have stretched cling film tightly over the top.

Now I am putting a few grains of rice on top of the film.

Guess. If I bang the pot right next to it, what will the rice do?

Say your guess out loud.

Watch the rice, not the pot. Ready.

Did it jump? Tell me what you saw.

Nothing touched the rice. The sound went through the air and shook the film.

Why this matters: Moving things make sounds, and sounds make things move. It works both ways round.

Say what happened

Tell me what the band was doing when it made a noise.

Tell me how you stopped the sound.

Which was higher, the thin band or the thick one?

Now put your fingers on your throat and hum. Tell me what you can feel.

For the grown-up: when it does not go to plan

A slack band gives a dull thud and no clear note. Stretch it tighter, or use a smaller box so the band has to work harder to reach round it.

If the rice will not jump, the film is too loose or the pot is too far away. Pull the film tight enough to tap like a drum, use only three or four grains, and bang the pot within a hand's width of the bowl.

Humming with fingers on the throat is the best part of this lesson and costs nothing. Your child can feel their own vocal cords vibrating, which makes the whole idea personal.

The short version

• Sounds are made by things moving fast. We call that vibrating.
• Stop the movement and you stop the sound. One finger on the band proves it.
• Plucking harder makes it louder. A thinner band makes it higher. Loud and high are not the same.
• Sound moves things too: rice jumps on a cling film drum with nothing touching it.

Sources

1. NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards, 1-PS4 Waves and Their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer. nextgenscience.org
2. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Sound. en.wikipedia.org
3. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Pitch (music). en.wikipedia.org

For the grown-up: curtains still shut on Monday morning

Before anybody opens the curtains, ask your child what the weather is doing outside. Take the answer seriously, write it down, and then open the curtains. You have just run the whole four-step pattern before breakfast, and you will run it again on six more mornings.

This lesson is the only one in the course that takes a week, and the week is the point. One rainy Tuesday is not weather. Seven days in a row, drawn on one sheet of paper, is.

Safety. You cut the bottle, not your child, and you cover the cut rim with tape because it is sharper than it looks. Stand the gauge away from paths where somebody might trip and weight it with a stone. Nobody goes outside in a thunderstorm to read it. Sun hats in bright weather, and nobody looks at the Sun for any reason.

What your child is really learning

That you find a pattern by keeping records, not by remembering.

The kindergarten standard is exact about this: use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time. Over time is doing the work. Ask a five-year-old on Sunday what the weather was like this week and you get today's weather back. Hand them seven days of their own drawings and they can count four cloudy days and two rainy ones, and counting is a kind of remembering that does not fade.

The rain gauge adds something new: a measurement, rather than a description. Rainy is a word. Two centimetres is a number, and two numbers can be compared.

The upshot: Records beat memory. That is the real lesson, and the weather is just what it is practised on.

Weather and climate, for you rather than for your child

Weather is what is happening outside right now. Climate is the pattern that shows up over many years in one place, which is why a cold week is not an argument about anything. NASA's Climate Kids pages explain the difference for children and are worth a look before your child asks.

At four or five, do not go further than this: today is rainy, and here where we live it rains a lot in winter. That sentence has both ideas in it in the right proportion.

What to say, and what to ask

• What do you think it is doing out there? Ask it before the curtains open, every morning.
• How do you know it is windy? Push for evidence: the tree, the flag, the washing, your hair.
• Is today the same as yesterday, or different? A comparison a day keeps the chart alive.

Common misconceptions

• The trees make the wind. A very common idea at this age, and reasonable: the trees move and then you feel the wind. Hold a ribbon up in an open space away from any tree and watch it stream out sideways. The wind moves the tree, not the other way round.
• Clouds are solid and you could sit on one. Cloud is made of tiny water droplets and looks solid from far away, like a swarm of midges. Fog is a cloud sitting on the ground, which is the argument that wins, because your child has walked through fog.
• Rain comes out of holes in the clouds. The water is already in the cloud as tiny droplets. They join up, get heavy, and fall. No holes required.

Now read this part out loud to your child

This week you have a job.

You are the weather scientist for this house.

Every day you will look outside and write it down.

Make the chart

Here is a big piece of paper. I have drawn seven boxes on it, one for each day.

We need four pictures. Draw me a sun. Draw me a cloud.

Now draw rain. Now draw something blowing in the wind.

Every morning you will draw the right picture in the box for that day.

Build the rain gauge

Here is a plastic bottle. I am cutting the top off. You watch, hands behind your back.

Now I am turning the top upside down and pushing it in. That is a funnel to catch the rain.

Stick this strip of tape up the side. I will draw lines on it so we can see how high the water gets.

Put a stone in the bottom so the wind cannot blow it over.

Now put it outside, away from the wall and away from the tree.

Guess before you look, every morning

The curtains are still shut. What do you think the weather is doing today?

Say your guess out loud before we look.

Now open the curtains. Were you right?

Go to the window. Tell me what you can see moving.

Now draw today's picture in today's box.

Check the wind and the rain

Take your ribbon outside and hold it up high.

Is it hanging down, or is it flying out sideways?

Hanging down means no wind. Flying out means windy.

Which way is it pointing? The wind is pushing it that way.

Now look at the rain gauge. Is there any water in it?

Show me with your finger how high the water is.

Tip it out and put it back for tomorrow.

On Sunday: say what happened

Bring the chart to the table. Look at all seven days at once.

Count the sunny days. Say the number out loud.

Count the rainy days.

Which kind of day did we have most of this week?

Was the weather the same every day, or did it change?

Which day had the most rain in the gauge?

Now tell me what you would take outside tomorrow if it looks like today.

What matters here: You could not remember all seven days. You did not have to. You wrote them down.

For the grown-up: when it does not go to plan

A week with no rain at all still works. An empty gauge every morning is a real record, and a dry week is exactly the kind of pattern the chart is for.

Missed days happen. Leave the box empty rather than filling it in from memory on Sunday, and say why out loud: we do not know, so we do not write anything. That is a bigger lesson than the weather.

If the gauge blows over, move it somewhere sheltered and weigh it down more heavily. Under a tree does not count, because the leaves catch the rain first.

What to carry forward

• Weather is what it is doing outside today, and it changes.
• One day tells you almost nothing. Seven days on one chart shows a pattern.
• A rain gauge turns rainy into a number you can compare with tomorrow's number.
• The wind moves the tree. The tree does not make the wind.
• If you did not see it, you do not write it down.

Sources

1. NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards, K-ESS2 Earth's Systems. nextgenscience.org
2. NASA Climate Kids. (n.d.). Weather and Climate. science.nasa.gov
3. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Rain gauge. en.wikipedia.org
4. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Weather. en.wikipedia.org

For the grown-up: four things on the kitchen table

Put out a jam jar with a bean in it, a saucer with an ice cube, a torch, and a rubber band stretched round a tissue box. Ask your child which one they would like to show somebody. That question is the whole of this last lesson.

Thirteen lessons have run the same four steps: look closely, guess, check, say what happened. Today your child runs them for an audience, which is the first time they have had to explain rather than just do.

Safety. Whichever investigation is chosen keeps the safety rules it came with. You do all cutting. You stay beside any bowl of water. Torches are not shone at faces, pots are not banged near ears, and nothing from the kitchen is tasted for the audience's entertainment. Agree all of this before the guests arrive, not during the show.

What your child is really learning

To explain. It is a different skill from doing, and it is harder.

A child who can say I thought the ball of clay would float, and it sank, and then I made it into a boat and it floated, and the clay never changed, is doing something a great deal more advanced than making a boat. They are reporting a result and giving a reason, to somebody who was not there.

There is a second thing, quieter and worth more. Somebody is going to ask a question your child cannot answer, and this is the lesson where they find out that the honest reply is I do not know, let us find out. The NAEYC advice to families puts it plainly: you do not need to know the name of every plant, and you and your child can investigate the answer together.

Bottom line: Doing an investigation is half of science. Telling somebody what happened is the other half.

The script, which is the four steps

Do not write a speech. Give your child four sentences to say, in this order, and rehearse them once.

Asking the audience to guess is the part children love most, because it puts a grown-up at risk of being wrong. Let that happen. An adult who guesses that the wrapped ice cube melts fastest, and is wrong, does your child more good than one who guesses right.

What to say, and what to ask

• Which one do you want to show? Their choice, not yours.
• What will you need? Let them gather it, and let them discover at rehearsal that they forgot the towel.
• What will you say first? One rehearsal, all the way through, with you as the audience.

Common misconceptions

• A science show is a magic show. A magician hides how it works and a scientist explains it, and the explaining is the best part. If your child wants to say ta-da, let them, and then have them say and here is why it happened.
• If the experiment goes wrong the show is ruined. The bean may have died, the clay boat may sink. A show where something unexpected happens and the presenter says out loud that they did not expect it is a better show and a truer one.

Now read this part out loud to your child

Today you are going to be the teacher.

You are going to show somebody something you found out.

You get to choose which one.

Choose your investigation

Look at what is on the table. Think about all the things we did.

The bean in the jar. The ice cubes. The shadow on the wall. The rubber band. The clay boat. The ramp.

Which one was your favourite? Say it out loud.

That is the one you are going to show.

Get everything ready

Tell me everything you need. I will write the list.

Now go and fetch each thing. Put them on the tray in the order you will use them.

Is anything missing? Check your list again.

Now make a ticket for everybody who is coming. Draw what they are going to see.

Practise it once

I am going to be the audience. Show me.

Start like this. Here is what I have got. Come and look at it.

Now ask me to guess. Say: what do you think will happen?

I will say my guess. Then you say: watch, I am going to do it now.

Do it. Then tell me what happened.

Last of all, tell me why you think it happened.

Do the show

Stand where everybody can see. Hold your thing up high.

Say your first sentence.

Ask everybody to guess out loud.

Now do it. Take your time.

Tell them what happened.

Tell them why you think it happened.

Now ask: has anybody got a question?

If you do not know the answer, say so. Say: I do not know. Let us find out.

Say what happened, one last time

Tell me the four steps we have done in every single lesson.

Look closely. Guess. Check. Say what happened.

You have done that fourteen times now.

Tell me one thing you found out that surprised you.

Tell me one thing you still want to find out about.

Write that one down. That is your next investigation.

The core of it: You are a scientist. Not one day when you grow up. Today, at this table.

For the grown-up: when it does not go to plan

Stage fright is common and easily solved. Let your child do the show for one teddy first, or from behind a chair, or with you saying the sentences and your child doing the actions. Performing is not the objective. Explaining is.

If the investigation fails in front of the audience, say so cheerfully and ask everybody what went wrong. That conversation is worth more than the show.

Keep the drawings. The seven bean pictures in a row are the most persuasive thing in the house, and your child will want to look at them again in a year.

What you now know

• Every investigation in this course ran the same four steps: look closely, guess, check, say what happened.
• Explaining what happened to somebody who was not there is the harder half, and the more useful one.
• A scientist explains how it worked. A magician does not. That is the whole difference.
• An investigation that goes wrong in front of an audience is a better story, not a failure.
• I do not know, let us find out, is a complete and respectable answer at any age.

Sources

1. National Association for the Education of Young Children. (n.d.). Exploring the World of Science with Your Child. naeyc.org
2. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Scientific method. en.wikipedia.org
3. National Research Council. (2012). A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.