DO SCIENCE EVERY DAY

• Be Curious
• Make Time to Play Together
• Explore on the Go
• Use Everyday Materials and Tools

Foster Curiosity

The easiest method to foster your child's natural curiosity is to ask "I wonder" questions yourself. Take a minute to watch him follow an ant on the sidewalk. Where is that ant going? What do you think? If you're in a hurry, return later. We can bring an apple slice later today. Do ants eat apples? Asking questions aloud can spark dialogues. Darker clouds! Is it going to rain?

Play with your toddler

For toddlers, science is all about having fun. Your child will learn about the qualities of buckets, blocks, balls, water, and sand as they play with them. Can I put stuff in it? Can I play it loudly? When you play with your child, you may help her express what she sees and does. The water splashes into the glasses! Give her more materials, ideas, and words to explore. Do you want to spray this? It squirts water! Look at your droplets and streams!

Count your child's favorite objects or things

Explore as you go.

You may encourage your child's adventures when out and about, even doing chores. Observe and describe the textures of fruits at the market, smell and touch flowers in a sidewalk planter, or search for and identify forms in the buildings you pass. A playground visit allows your child to learn how to swing, slide, and climb. "You used your legs to climb up the slide!"

Use Everyday Resources

Your child will need exciting "stuff" to explore and equipment to practice science. Luckily, many of these may be found right at home! Sound exploration with pots, pans, and wooden spoons. You can use a regular flashlight to cast shadows. Find cardboard tubes to sing or look through in the recycle bin. Collect nuts and seeds in old plastic containers. Include open-ended toys like blocks and balls in your child's toy collection.

Explore Senses

Explore different objects and experiences through senses to connect feelings and vocabulary. To develop vision, explore light and colors, hear - music, taste food, touch textures and feel senses. Warm, cool, hot, and cold allow feelings of exploration and perfectly match the child's interest. Sensory experiences are all teachable opportunities for language development

PLANTS

Investigate Plants Outdoors.

When you explore plants outdoors with your child, she can observe plants in their natural environments and learn more about their characteristics and needs. Gather some drawing and writing materials and help your child choose some outdoor plants to investigate. Look at, feel and smell the stems, leaves, flowers, and other parts. How are the plants the same and different? Notice the area where the plants are growing. How dry or moist is the soil? How sunny or shady is it? What kinds of animals do you see or hear in the area? Encourage your child to draw one or two of the plants and where they are growing.

Talk About Plants’ Needs.

If you have a garden or a collection of houseplants, you have a ready-made opportunity to talk about the needs of plants with your child! Invite her to help you water the plants, remove dead blossoms or loosen up the soil. As you take care of the plants together, talk about what plants need, like water, sunlight, and space to live and grow. Ask questions like What else do you think plants need? And Do you think all plants need those things? What about trees? Listen to your child’s ideas and share your own. Talk about any plants that aren’t growing well. What do you think this plant needs? More water or less water? More sun or less sun?

Explore Fruits and Vegetables.

The produce section of the market is a wonderful place to introduce your child to the colors, sizes, shapes, and textures of the foods we eat that come from plants. Invite him to describe how some fruits and vegetables look, smell, and feel. Wonder together. Where do these foods come from? And talk about your ideas. Unless you live on a farm or have a vegetable garden, your child probably won't know that these foods come from plants.

Dig Up “Weeds” to Observe Roots

A “weed” isn’t a specific plant, but any plant that isn’t wanted where it is growing. Buttercups, dandelions, daisies, clover, violets, ivy, and many other plants are considered weeds by some gardeners, but they are all interesting plants to explore. Help your child dig up some of these plants around your home or a family member’s home with a spade or large metal spoon. Try to get the whole root! As you look at the plants, share ideas about their parts. What parts do you see? What do the roots look like? What color, size and shape are they?

HOUSEHOLD SCIENCE

Measuring Tools

• Toddlers are curious about all tools. Give them plenty of opportunities to measure as they fill, pour, dump, and stack. Here are some activities that will help toddlers learn math tools while having fun.
• Allow toddlers to help you in the kitchen with tasks such as preparing play dough, counting ingredients, or serving snacks to every kid.

Make a sand table (or a big plastic bucket) a measuring zone.

• Fill the table with sand, beans, water, or even wood chips. Add bowls, plastic containers, and stirrers.
• Allow children to fill and empty containers or pretend to measure ingredients.

Add Tools

• Fill the sandbox with measuring spoons, scoops, and various-sized recyclable containers (or large plastic bin). Add buckets, shovels, and dump trucks to the mix.
• Talk with them as the kids fill up smaller containers and drop them into larger ones. Ask them to estimate how many yogurt containers will be required to fill the dump truck.
• Investigate and discuss what occurs when they empty a full pail of sand into yogurt containers.

Static Electricity Balloon and Salt and Pepper Experiment

Step 1: Inflate the balloon

Step 2: Draw a face

Step 3: Sprinkle salt on the plate

Step 4: Add Pepper to the salt

Step 5: Rub your balloon with a woolen cloth

• Ask your kid to inspect the balloon near the cracked pepper before rubbing it with a cloth.
• Ask your child questions to see how much they comprehend the experiment.
• Solicit your child's assistance in charging the balloon by rubbing a dry woollen cloth against it.

Step 6: Bring the balloon near the salt and pepper

What draws pepper to a balloon?

• A negative charge, often known as static electricity, is created by rubbing a balloon against a piece of dry woolen cloth or fabric. The negative charge attracts neutrally charged surfaces like pepper and salt when the balloon accumulates enough static electricity.

Standing Hair: Static Electricity Experiment With Kids

• To begin, blow the balloon and tighten it to prevent air loss. Also, rub your child's head with the balloon. Then remove it from the head to see the hair strands standing. Place the balloon close enough so the hair stretches out.

ANIMALS

Observe Animals in the Wild

When you're out and about, look for squirrels, birds, worms, spiders, insects, or other wild animals in your region and talk about them. Introduce language to describe the appearance and movement of these creatures. Take a look at the fluffy grey squirrel as it climbs the tree! The soaring bird in the sky! The grasshopper is on the move! Invite him to run like a squirrel, soar like a bird, and jump like a grasshopper using only his own body. What additional options do you have for moving your body? Do you have the ability to swim like a fish?

Investigate Small Critters.

Investigating small critters such as worms, snails, pillbugs, and ants. Help her look for critters in the dirt, under rocks, around plants, in sidewalk cracks, on trees, and in the ground around them. When you find one, describe its appearance, behavior, and location. What does it eat? How is it kept warm and dry? Do you think worms can live in dirt? Why do you think that is?

However, since toddlers have little control over their bodies, they may easily damage little critters.

Read All About Animals.

Your one-year-old enjoys learning about pets, farm animals, and wild animals. However, this is a period of their life when they understand information through their senses. When you read about dogs, point to the dogs in the neighborhoods you stroll around. The same with all other types of animals. Try to get to the farm or even better go to a contact zoo, where kids have a chance to touch animals with their hands.

Listen, ask questions, and help research

• During this time, the older toddler asks questions and learns how to do research
• When your child asks you a question, take your time to listen to the whole thing and respond with interest and a desire to learn more with them.
• Because your child is at the stage to explore scientific knowledge and learn, the older toddler asks questions and learns how to do research during this time. "Where is the snow?" he may ask after the snow he brought inside melts. He can point to something that he has not seen before and says, "What's that?" They will now squat down on the ground for five minutes and watch ants near an anthill. When you hear a fire engine go by, you can say, "Is it a Fireman?" Spend time outside exploring insects and spiders to keep their curious minds going. Do not only explore but ask questions, "Look at the ants. Where are they going now?"
• Take pictures of the older toddler's exploration activities. Then, make a documentation panel (pictures posted with descriptions of the activity and quotes by the toddler).

Caring about living things.

• The older toddler begins to see and identify living objects and their basic needs.
• They can even feed the fish or bunny with the help of an adult. Whether you plant beans or herbs inside or outside with the toddler, engage them to help with small tasks (like watering) to help plants grow.
• Water and care for the plants together.
• Plan walks to local parks, pet stores, and flower shops.
• Talk about how to feed and care for living things.

DOING SCIENCE EVERY DAY

Young children are fascinated by the sights and sounds of the world around them. Light and sound cannot be touched, smelled, or tasted, but children can examine their characteristics. When young children feel the sun's warmth on their skin and see the colors, shadows, reflections, and rainbows formed as light interacts with the world around them, they are experiencing the qualities of light. They are aware of sound qualities when they hear it and feel its vibrations with their ears. Introduce new vocabulary like vibrant, vivid, clear, dull, and dim to assist children in communicating what they're doing.

Foster Curiosity

The easiest method to foster your child's natural curiosity is to ask "I wonder" questions yourself. Take a minute to watch him follow an ant on the sidewalk. Where is that ant going? What do you think? If you're in a hurry, return later. We can bring an apple slice later today. Do ants eat apples? Asking questions aloud can spark dialogues. Darker clouds! Is it going to rain?

Use body language

Have you noticed how your two-year-old expresses herself with her entire body? Encourage her to represent — or show — her scientific findings similarly. Encourage her to move like the animals you see when you go outside. Can you fly, chirp, and wiggle like a worm? Maybe she can bloom like a flower or float like a cloud! Help her describe her actions. Your arms flail like wings! What's your chirp? Use Everyday Resources

Talk About Your Research

Conversations help your child think and learn new words. Talk about your ideas before you go exploring, so he's excited. " It rained last night! Do we expect puddles today? Let's go! Focus on doing, observing, and describing while exploring. What happens when you jump in a puddle? A small puddle? Throw a little rock in the puddle. After exploring, describe your thoughts and ideas. What made huge puddles distinct from little ones? The best to jump in?

Play with your toddler.

For two-year-olds, science is all about having fun. Your child will learn about the qualities of buckets, blocks, balls, water, and sand as they play with them. Can I put stuff in it? Can I play it loudly? When you play with your child, you may help her express what she sees and does. The water splashes into the glasses! Give her more materials, ideas, and words to explore. Do you want to spray this? It squirts water! Look at your droplets and streams!

Explore as you go.

You may encourage your child's adventures when out and about, even doing chores. Observe and describe the textures of fruits at the market, smell and touch flowers in a sidewalk planter, or search for and identify forms in the buildings you pass. A playground visit allows your child to learn how to swing, slide, and climb. "You used your legs to climb up the slide!"

Use Everyday Resources

Your child will need exciting "stuff" to explore and equipment to practice science. Luckily, many of these may be found right at home! Sound exploration with pots, pans, and wooden spoons. You can use a regular flashlight to cast shadows. Find cardboard tubes to sing or look through in the recycle bin. Collect nuts and seeds in old plastic containers. Include open-ended toys like blocks and balls in your child's toy collection.

PLANTS

Investigate Plants Outdoors.

When you explore plants outdoors with your child, she can observe plants in their natural environments and learn more about their characteristics and needs. Gather some drawing and writing materials and help your child choose some outdoor plants to investigate. Look at, feel and smell the stems, leaves, flowers, and other parts. How are the plants the same and different? Notice the area where the plants are growing. How dry or moist is the soil? How sunny or shady is it? What kinds of animals do you see or hear in the area? Encourage your child to draw one or two of the plants and where they are growing.

Talk About Plants’ Needs.

If you have a garden or a collection of houseplants, you have a ready-made opportunity to talk about the needs of plants with your child! Invite her to help you water the plants, remove dead blossoms or loosen up the soil. As you take care of the plants together, talk about what plants need, like water, sunlight, and space to live and grow. Ask questions like What else do you think plants need? And Do you think all plants need those things? What about trees? Listen to your child’s ideas and share your own. Talk about any plants that aren’t growing well. What do you think this plant needs? More water or less water? More sun or less sun?

Explore Fruits and Vegetables.

The produce section of the market is a wonderful place to introduce your child to the colors, sizes, shapes, and textures of the foods we eat that come from plants. Invite him to describe how some fruits and vegetables look, smell, and feel. Wonder together. Where do these foods come from? And talk about your ideas. Unless you live on a farm or have a vegetable garden, your child probably won't know that these foods come from plants.

Dig Up “Weeds” to Observe Roots

A “weed” isn’t a specific plant, but any plant that isn’t wanted where it is growing. Buttercups, dandelions, daisies, clover, violets, ivy, and many other plants are considered weeds by some gardeners, but they are all interesting plants to explore. Help your child dig up some of these plants around your home or a family member’s home with a spade or large metal spoon. Try to get the whole root! As you look at the plants, share ideas about their parts. What parts do you see? What do the roots look like? What color, size, and shape are they?

Taste and Compare Fruits

You can make a healthy fruit salad and help your child explore the smells, tastes, and textures of different fruits at the same time! Invite your child to wash his hands and explore the fruits. Bananas and tangerines are especially easy for your child to work with. Do they feel smooth or rough on the outside? How do they smell? Encourage him to peel and taste the fruits. Does the tangerine taste sweet or sour? What about the banana? Which one is juicier?

Observe Bean Seeds

You can introduce your child to seeds with a package of mixed dried beans, two or three plastic bowls, and a large spoon. Beans are fun for young children to play with and interesting to look at. They are also big enough for little fingers to handle. Pour some beans into a bowl and invite your child to stir, scoop and pour them from one bowl to another. Join in and look at the beans together. Which seeds are big or small and round or flat? Try making bean soup or beans and rice. How do the beans look, smell, and taste once they are cooked?

Explore a Tree Together

Do you have a favorite tree in your yard, neighborhood or local park? Take a few minutes to explore it with your child. How big is it? Can you stretch your arms all the way around it? Can you reach the lowest branches or are they too high? Can you see the roots of the tree? Feel the trunk. Is it rough or smooth? Look for leaves, cones, pods, seeds, flowers, and other tree parts. How do they look? Feel? Smell? Play a game with your child: If you were a tree, what part of your body would be your trunk? Branches? Leaves? Roots?

Collect Nature

Young children are natural collectors. When you go for a walk, provide a small bag or container and invite your child to observe and collect fallen plant parts. Encourage him to notice and collect leaves, seeds, nuts, seed pods, cones, twigs and flowers. Your child’s collection will look different depending on where you live and the time of year. When you get home, invite him to spread out his discoveries. How does each item look, feel and smell? How are some parts the same? How are they different?

ANIMALS

All living things attract children. They are captivated by how animals move, communicate, and interact. The animals you and your two-year-old see will vary based on your geography, but animals are everywhere! The wildlife you'll find in your own backyard may surprise you.

As you and your child explore the outdoors, you will witness creatures searching for food and shelter. Your child may realize that dogs require food and water, similar to their own needs.

Also, your toddler knows there are many different kinds of animals. From a language perspective, the goal is to learn animal names and animal sounds.

Compare Real and Toy Animals

Talking about real and toy animals might help your child think about animal characteristics. Your Fluffy toy is soft like a real bunny! How else could he be compared to a real bunny? What makes him different? So, would Fluffy want lettuce and carrots for dinner? Maybe he'll do a little kitchen hopping before bed!

Take Care of Pets’ Needs.

Family pets — like dogs, cats, guinea pigs, fish, and other animals — offer great opportunities to talk with your child about what animals need to live and grow. Ask your child to help you make a schedule for taking care of your pet. How often do we need to feed our pet, give her water, exercise her, play with her, and clean her crate or tank? Visit a pet store to look at the items available for taking care of different kinds of pets.

Investigate Small Critters.

Your child can learn about different animals' needs in their habitat by investigating small critters such as worms, snails, pillbugs, and ants. Help her look for critters in the dirt, under rocks, around plants, in sidewalk cracks, on trees, and in the ground around them. When you find one, describe its appearance, behavior, and location. What does it eat? How is it kept warm and dry? Do you think worms can live in dirt? Why do you think that is? Read Denise Fleming's works Underground, In the Tall Tall Grass, and In the Small Small Pond to learn more.

Explore Feet at Bedtime.

Young children are naturally fascinated by their bodies. Spend a few minutes comparing your feet before bed. Are they alike/different? Whose feet are bigger/smaller? Examine what you can do with them. How many ways can we walk? Can we stretch them? From side to side? Circular? What else? Read a book like Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault's "Here Are My Hands" on bodily parts and what they can do.

Enjoy Dinosaur Play

Do your kids love dinosaurs and other big animals? He may love playing with dinosaurs or solving dinosaur puzzles. Encourage your child's pretend dinosaur play to ignite his interest in these intriguing animals. Are you a hungry T-Rex seeking food? T-Rex, how do you walk? What noises do you make? What will you eat?

Read All About Animals.

Two-year-olds enjoy learning about pets, farm animals, and wild animals. Every library includes animal books for kids. Look for books like Roger Priddy's My Big Animal Book or Catherine Hughes' National Geographic Little Kids' First Big Book of Animals. How does a lion look? What sound does it make? Make connections between the books' illustrations and creatures you've seen together. Remember the lion we saw last week? He was hiding in his den from the scorching sun!

Listen to Birds

You and your child can hear birds almost anyplace - seagulls on the beach, pigeons in a park, songbirds in a tree. Try to find a bird you hear but can't see. Invite your kid to imitate the various bird sounds and discuss what the birds are "saying." Do you think that bird is calling its friends? Or inviting them to play? Maybe it's signaling that it's time to eat?

Look at Baby Pictures.

Looking at animal baby pictures helps kids reflect on their own growth and development. Discuss how babies of all species change while growing. Discuss how your child has grown since she was a baby. What can he do today that he couldn't accomplish before? Show your childhood photos. Your toddler will like hearing about your childhood. You may also want to track your child's growth. Hang a strip of paper and check how quickly he grows every few months!

Think About Animal Homes.

Help your child think about where different animals live by talking about the homes of the pets, farm animals, and wild animals you observe in your area. Where do you think that animal lives? And What do you think its home looks like? Check out and read books like A House Is a House for Me by Mary Ann Hoberman. What makes each animal's home perfect for the animal that lives there? Have your child draw a picture of her own home. Why is your home a good home for you?

LIGHT AND SOUND

Young children are fascinated by the sights and sounds of the world around them. Light and sound cannot be touched, smelled, or tasted, but children can examine their characteristics. When young children feel the sun's warmth on their skin and see the colors, shadows, reflections, and rainbows formed as light interacts with the world around them, they are experiencing the qualities of light. They are aware of sound qualities when they hear it and feel its vibrations with their ears. Introduce new vocabulary like vibrant, vivid, clear, dull, and dim to assist children in communicating what they're doing.

Look for colors in the natural world.

Help your child notice the range of colors in nature when you're outside with him. Direct his attention to the various hues of green found in a single plant or leaf, as well as the different colors of pink or purple found in flowers. On bright sunny days, how do colors appear outside? What do they look like on a rainy day? Invite your kid to create a picture of a sunny or cloudy day. What colors will he use to display brighter or darker shades on different days?

Look for Reflections Outdoors.

When you are out and about with your child, look for your reflections on different surfaces. Can we see ourselves in mirrors, brick buildings, elevator doors, store windows, or in puddles? Talk about where you see reflections and what they look like. Which reflections are easier or harder to see? Why do you think so? Try looking for your reflections on different surfaces in your home. Can you see your reflections on the refrigerator, wall, window, or toaster? What about the window?

Make Shapes With Your Shadows.

Play with your shadows when you and your child are outdoors relaxing on a sunny day! Encourage your child to pay attention to how your shadows change as you move about. How do our shadows appear when we jump up and down, turn around, or stand in front of/behind one another? Make shadow forms with your partner. Can we form a circle, a square, or a heart with our shadows if we hold hands? Is it possible to make number and letter shapes? What other shapes could we be able to create? Make a shadow drawing. How do your shadows resemble you? What distinguishes them?

Investigate Shadows with Flashlights.

Collect two flashlights and various objects such as miniature toys, cooking utensils, and other everyday home items in multiple shapes. Start exploring by dimming the lights. What are the objects that cast shadows? And what happens to the shadows as you move the beam away? What happens if you shine the spotlight on the thing from different angles? Explain how and why shadows change. Move the light swiftly back and forth or in circles to make the shadows "dance."

Explore Light and Dark at Bedtime

As part of your child's nighttime routine, explore light and dark. Turn on one light at a time – an overhead, a bedside lamp, and a nightlight. Describe the room's appearance with and without the lights. Which produces the most/least light? We see shadows where? Look out the window and comment on the light or darkness. Dim the lights and shine a flashlight on the ceiling or wall.

Listen for Sounds

Draw your child's attention to the sounds you hear around you, whether at home or out and about. Sound in the kitchen, bedroom or backyard? Listen for noises of children laughing, playground swings creaking, and market cash registers clicking and clacking. Is the sound loud or soft? Try to identify an unknown sound with your child. Record different family members speaking. Do you have any idea who it is?

Reflections in a mirror

Spend a few minutes exploring your reflections in a huge mirror, either at home or in a store. Who do you see when you look in the mirror? What are the portions of our bodies that we can see? Encourage your kid to move in front of the mirror. What changes in our reflections? What keeps it the same? How can we enlarge or reduce the size of our reflections? What can we do to make them vanish? In a darkened room, play with a small mirror and a flashlight. What happens if we shine a light on a mirror? Can we direct the light to the ceiling?

Make Your Own Shadows

On a sunny day, point out your child's shadow if she hasn't already observed it. Encourage her to move in new ways and watch her shadow. How do our shadows change when we crouch? When we stand tall? Can we escape our shadows? Try it! Incorporate vocabulary to describe your shadows' size and location (in front, behind, or next to you).

Investigate Color

You may help your toddler learn colors by drawing or painting with her. Collect some paper and crayons. Discuss the colors your kid uses as she draws. You're making light blue circles! There are also a lot of dark red and purple Read books like Emma Dodd's Dog's Colorful Day: A Messy Story about Colors and Counting or Eric Carle's My Very First Book of Colors.

Listen to Music and Feel the Vibrations

When you let your child listen to music, she learns about sound creation and synthesis. She can also feel the vibrations of loud, quiet, high, and low sounds. Play your family's favorite music and sing or dance together. What moves your body to that music? She may feel the vibrations by placing her hands on the speaker and singing. How is it? Play other music. What makes this music unique?

Pots and Pans Drums

As long as you don't mind some noise, you can help your toddler discover sound while cooking. Give your toddler a variety of pots and pans, as well as wooden, plastic, and metal spoons. What noises can you make? Encourage him to play. Which drumstick is loudest? Quietest sound? What happens if you hit the pot hard? How about a gentle tap?

Make Body Sounds

Discover all the sounds your child can produce with his lips, hands, feet, and other body parts. What loud sounds can your mouth make? What sounds can you make? Can you speak without using your voice? Use his hands, fingers, and feet to generate noise. - How can you march and clap loudly? How can it be soft? Invite your kid to move like a dinosaur or a mouse.

Watch and Listen to the Wind.

You and your child can study how wind moves things on a windy day. What does the wind feel like? How is the wind affecting your hair and jacket? Encourage your youngster to seek for other wind signals. What do the trees' leaves do? What about the leaves on the ground? Flags? Suspended signs or traffic lights? Encourage your child to move as if blown by the wind. Introduce words like flapping, swaying, tumbling, and tossing.

Read About Light.

Your child may enjoy reading and talk about nonfiction and fiction books about light. You can find these in the children's section of your local library. Look for Shadows and Reflections by Tana Hoban and compare the images in the book to your own observations of shadows and reflections. Explore the night world with the child in the interactive book Flashlight by Lizi Boyd. Or check out Bear Shadow by Frank Asch, a story about a bear who tries to run away from his shadow.

Read About Sound

Your kid may like books that describe the sounds created by humans, animals, cars, and other items. Check out Rosemary Wells' Noisy Nora and Margaret Wise Brown's The Noisy Book. Watch how your child imitates the noises he hears. Where have we heard that before?

PROPERTIES

Young children explore the world with their entire bodies. They look, listen, smell, and touch blankets, toys, flowers, water, and sand. Two-year-olds notice color, size, form, weight, texture, and those items might be hard, soft, or squishy. They learn that round balls roll well, soft blankets cuddle well, and water splashes well. You can help your two-year-old learn by providing secure spaces and lots of “things” (even messy stuff!). By joining in, you show them that their explorations matter. Introduce adjectives like little, huge, smooth, rough, round, square, soft, and hard as you explore qualities with your youngster. Remember to follow your child's interests! Remind your two-year-old that only food goes in their mouths!

Explore Water at the Kitchen Sink

Examine properties with your toddler even if you're cooking! Set her up at the sink with a warm water basin and various plastic cups and bottles. Soak your hands and arms in the water. Watch the water splashes, flows, and fills the containers as she scoops and pours it. How does the water look in a big round container? in a square one? If you have a spray bottle or an empty soap dispenser, show her how to use it by squeezing it hard/gently.

Play With Ice Cubes

Use ice cubes, huge bowls, and two spoons to help your child learn about melting. Pour a tray of ice cubes into a bowl and let her explore their appearance, texture, and flavor. Let her pick them up, squeeze, and stir them with a spoon. Talk about the changes you see as the ice melts. Do they get smaller? Wet? Slippery? Where did that water come from? Discuss how the water looks and feels after the ice cubes melt. Warm or cold?

Explore the Properties of Fruits

Talk about the colors, sizes, forms, and textures of your child's favorite fruits. Which ones look, feel, and smell the best? Which fruit are apples? What makes them different? How about mangoes and melons? While out, you can discuss homes in other places you visit. Talk about the different shapes and sizes of mailing envelopes at the post office. Which one should we use to ship Grandma's gift? Why did you choose it?

Look for Shapes in Buildings

The next time you go for a walk with your child, try to make him notice that buildings and other structures are made of squares, circles, and other types of shapes. I see big and small squares in that store's display! How many more can we find? Look for shapes in nature like trees, bushes, and plants. Find a triangle-shaped tree! How about a circle-shaped bush?

Play a Touch and Feel Guessing Game

With a five-minute guessing game, you can learn about things' qualities with your child. Ask him to pick four or five objects from his room or bathroom (like a washcloth, a comb, a plastic cup, a toothbrush, and a soap bar). Put the things in a bag and take turns describing and feeling them. Ask if it's cool or hot. Is it soft? Is it soft or hard? So, what is it?

Build With Wooden Blocks

When your kid builds with wooden blocks, you can help her examine the size, form, and how well different blocks fit together. That big tower took a lot of square blocks! Do you believe the big triangle will balance on top? Give her alternative building materials like plastic, foam, or cardboard "blocks." Can we build a tall tower with these soft blocks? Let's try!

Investigate the Properties of Sand

Encourage your child to explore the qualities of sand at the beach, sandbox, or park. Encourage her to dig holes in the sand, push and pull it, draw on it, and fill containers with it. Use adjectives like dry, wet, soft, and rough to describe the texture. Stand near the water's edge at the beach with your child. What happens when the waves come?

Investigate the Properties of Foam

Foams, like shaving cream, contain intriguing qualities for your kid to discover! Spray some kid-safe shaving cream into a shallow container and discuss how it looks and feels with your child. What happens if you squeeze it? Can it be used to build a tower or a hill? Draw pictures in the shaving foam using your fingers or a spoon. Make roadways with toy cars.

Talk About Properties at Mealtime

Do your kids love watching you cook? Toasting bread can become a property discovery. How do untoasted bread feel, smell, and taste? What happens after toasting? Which do you prefer? Examine and discuss foods including eggs, pasta, and veggies.

Read About Properties

Books can help you and your kid talk about colors, sizes, forms, and textures. Visit the library and check out books like Red, Blue, Yellow Shoe; Is It Larger? Is It Less? Tana Hoban's Shapes and Look Book. Ask questions regarding the objects and materials in the photographs, like "Let's hunt for circles in our kitchen!" Do you think we can find colored shoes at home?

Earth and Sky

Nature and the outdoors naturally fascinate young children. They enjoy digging in sand and mud, splashing in puddles, looking up at the sky, and experiencing all types of weather when given the opportunity. While exploring the outdoors, two-year-olds learn about natural objects and elements such as rocks, sand, soil, and water. They learn the names of the sky objects (sun and moon) and become more aware of the weather (rain, sun, or cold). They may associate different types of weather to specific outfits. What you and your child see will depend on where you live and the time of year. Talk about what you see, hear, smell, and feel as you explore the soil and sky with your two-year-old. Introduce and use words that increase their vocabulary and allow them to express what they are noticing and thinking about. Above all, spend as much time as you can outside with your child. Remember that letting your child get dirty, dig in dirt, jump in puddles, and play in mud allows them to fully enjoy nature and the world around them. You also show them that their explorations are important to you, and that you care about them. Individual children will have different interests, so go with your child's lead! These experiences help your child learn about the earth's resources, its role as a home for all living things, and its significance in the broader scope.

Get Outdoors and Into Nature.

Your child's fascination with the natural world stems from her early nature experiences and what she learns from you. Family trips to the woods, seaside, lake, or mountains are fantastic ways to immerse your child in nature. Still, you can also help them enjoy it by observing living things, looking up at the sky, and discussing the weather. You are your child's most significant role model when it comes to learning about Earth's resources and how all life depends on them!

Splash in Puddles

Do you recall splashing in puddles as a kid? Explore the properties of water by jumping in puddles with your child! Put on boots and take her outside after the rain. What happens if you jump in a small puddle? And in a large puddle? Introduce words like splash and spatter.

Collect Natural Materials

Take a walk with your toddler and collect natural materials. Attract his attention to rocks, stones, dirt clumps, twigs, and other natural objects. Introduce colors, scents, shapes, and textures. This rock has a smooth side and a rough side! What does that twig smell? There are three big rocks; now find some small ones! Encourage him to gather a variety of items and discuss them.

Spray Water Outdoors

A spray bottle can help your toddler explore the water. Go outside and encourage him to spray water on sand, dirt, leaves, pebbles, pavement, and other surfaces. Discuss what he is doing and noticing. What does water do to rocks? Soil? Introduce new words such as drops, streams, and puddles.

Dig in Sand

Your toddler can discover a variety of textures as he moves about in the sand. Dig in dry sand with your child in the park, beach, or sandbox. Provide simple digging equipment such as shovels, spoons, and buckets, and discuss how the sand looks, moves, and feels with your child. Introduce words like soft, smooth, rough, and pebbly.

Experience the Weather With Your Senses

To learn about the weather, your child must first experience it. When you're out and about, let her experience the temperature, the breeze on her skin, the rain or wind, and the air. To explain her observations, use words like bright, cloudy, warm, cool, and breezy.

Dress for the Weather.

Every morning, when you and your child get dressed for the day, you have an opportunity to think and talk about the weather together. Do a quick weather check at the window. What is the weather like? How can we tell if it’s sunny or cloudy, rainy, or windy? Can we tell how cold or warm it is? Why or why not? Invite her to decide how she should dress based on the weather. What clothes will keep you dry, warm, cool? Do we need hats, mittens, boots, or umbrellas? Watch a weather forecast on TV together or show her how you use a weather app.

Look up at the Daytime Sky

Look up at the sky with your child and describe what you see and hear. You may observe the sun, clouds, various birds, airplanes (including drones), and even the moon. What do you see? How do clouds look? Are they puffy, flat, white, or gray?

Look up at the Nighttime Sky

On a clear night, look up at the night sky together. What do you see? What can we see now that we couldn't see earlier in the day? What's missing? Discuss and describe the moon together. How does the moon look tonight? How big is it?

Sort Trash for Recycling

You're probably already teaching your child to pick up his toys and put them away. If you recycle plastic, metal, and paper, you may start teaching him what goes in the recycle bin (s). Consider putting photos of these objects on the bins so he can match them.

Read About Land, Water, and Sky

Your two-year-old may like looking at and discussing books with land, sea, and sky images. Check out Donald Crews' picture books Truck, Harbor, and Flying at your local library. These books recount the adventures of different vehicles across the land, water, and air. They also incorporate transportation-related vocabulary.

PUSHES AND PULLS

Children are always on the move. They move, climb, and tumble with their own bodies. They watch how toys react to their actions and how objects, materials, and live creatures move. Forces can make objects go, stop, speed up, slow down, or change direction. They can also form objects. Two-year-olds like to push, pull, drop, throw, and kick items to see what happens. They watch toys move, balls bounce, and the wind blows things. You can help your toddler learn by providing secure places and lots of opportunities to explore pushes and pulls. By joining in, you show them that their explorations matter. Introduce and use phrases like stand and fall, slide and roll, up, down, left, right, and sideways as you study pushes and pulls with your two-year-old. Individual children will have different interest levels in various topics, so remember to follow your child's lead!

Watch How Items Fall

Drop objects one at a time from an elevated area, such as a deck or playground structure, to see how they move. Make sure no one is underneath! Drop feathers, coins, pebbles, and paper one by one. Discuss how feathers fall, rocks fall, and a penny or piece of paper falls quickly or slowly.

Move to the Playground

The playground is a terrific place to help your child develop gross motor skills and balance! Encourage him to use slides, swings, bouncers, balance beams, and watch him climb, slide, swing, rock, and balance. Use positional words like climbing high/sliding down fast/swinging back and forth!

Observe the Movement

It's surprising what you can find when you and your toddler look for moving objects. When you push the cart in the market, the wheels spin. The pan on the scale drops and rises when you put down and take off the veggies. The grocery conveyor belt slides sideways with your groceries. What else is moving in the market? Can we find more items that go up, down, or sideways?

Squirt, Squeeze, and Spray Water

While cooking, you and your toddler may explore pushes and pulls! Set up a warm water basin, plastic cups and bottles, and kitchen appliances to push water, such as squeeze and spray bottles. Show her how her actions cause water to flow, squirt, and spray. What happens if you squeeze the bottle hard? How about a gentle squeeze?

Play With Push and Pull Toys

Kids' push-and-pull toys for two-year-olds include dogs on a leash, doll strollers, and train sets that run on tracks. As your child plays, point out how her efforts move the toys. Whoops! You almost knocked the dog down! or Your doll carriage is trapped! How can it cross the line? Help her learn about pushes and pulls by playing with ramps, automobiles, and blocks. The car slid down the ramp! How do you get it up?

Pound Playdough

Using store-bought or homemade playdough, investigate how pushes and pulls may form things. Encourage your kid to pat, squeeze, tear, and pound the dough, and show her how to roll or flatten it to make balls, snakes, and pancakes. Add some Popsicle sticks, spoons, or shells to make impressions on the play dough.

Explore How Block Structures Fall

Two-year-olds discover pushes and pulls by knocking down block constructions, which may upset older siblings. Help your child in building a simple block tower. How do the blocks fall when the tower is pushed? What if you gently press it? Try removing a brick from the tower's top, middle, or bottom. Now, what happens? Remind her that she can only destroy her own towers!

Read About Pushes and Pulls

Books can spark discussions on how things move and what causes them to move. Check out How Far Will It Bounce? at your local library. How High Will My Blue Ball Fly? DC Swain's Red Balloon Mama Zooms by Jane Cowan-Fletcher is about a young boy who travels with his mother in her wheelchair.

Play Catch and Investigate Motion

Playing catch with a large ball might help your toddler learn about motion. Ball activities also help your child practice letting go and sharing. Play catch, roll, or bounce the ball with your kid. Talk about how far it flies, rolls, or bounces. How can we improve it? Use beach balls, basketballs, soccer balls, and rubber balls. Which is your favorite? Why do you prefer that one?

The most critical skill for preschoolers starting from 3 yo is Learning How to Learn. It includes asking and answering questions about the properties of the objects throughout observation and investigation. Those skills are not specific to the observation of natural objects. It is a framework of thinking and investigation that can easily be applied to any other area, such as observing people figure out who is the best potential friend.

The following algorithm helps you to work on scientific inquiry skills:

Object Investigation

• Look Closely and Notice: What can you find out if you look closely at it? What do you notice about this leaf's edge?
• Observe and Describe: Observe and describe size and shape.
• Wonder and Ask Questions: How does the texture of this leaf feel different from the other one?
• Explore and Investigate: How is the texture (color, smell) different from the other similar objects?
• Develop Hypotheses: What is inside the leaf bumps/ apple/ plant stem?
• Show and Explain: Your drawing shows that you noticed the veins' pattern.
• Reflect and Ask More Questions: What do scientists call plants parts?
• Imagine and Create: Create craft or art about the object of exploration.

Leaf exploration

• Look Closely and Notice: What do you observe if you look closely at the leaf's edge? How will you describe it?
• Observe and describe the leaf's size and form.
• Wonder and Ask Questions: Wonder and Ponder: How does this leaf's texture compare to the other?
• Explore and Investigate: Does the look of the leaf change over time? Does it look different today than yesterday?
• Develop Hypotheses: What is inside the leaf bumps/stem?
• Show and Explain: Your drawing shows that you noticed the veins' pattern.
• Reflect and ponder: What do scientists call the leaf's parts?
• Imagine and Create: Let's do a leaf craft or draw it.

See how it grows

• Teach kids that plants are living things and only grow if they get what they need. They discover that all living creatures have similar basic needs. Plant seeds and bulbs with kids to track their growth for several weeks.
• Go outside and explore plants to learn more about their parts.
• Plant beans and wait for their germination
• Plant onion bulbs.
• Explore the purpose of a seed and a pit
• Explore the apple's structure. Compare it to other fruits. Make a list of similarities and differences

Investigate plants we eat

• Engage your preschooler to use their senses to investigate and describe different fruits and vegetables. Exploring and discussing plants helps children understand where some foods come from, what portions of plants we consume, and how seeds travel from one location to another.
• Grow and eat sprouts during the week.
• Continue to look for plants outdoors, discuss your observations, and explore the plants' anatomy.
• Classify edible plant parts as either root, stem, or leaf
• Compare and contrast indoor and outdoor plants. Collect and organize plants found outside.
• Investigate plants in their surroundings and what animals eat them.

Explore the Amazing Water

• Explore water. Kids will be surprised to notice that water does not have its own shape and behaves differently when poured on things like paper, sand, or glass. Study and experience evaporation, absorption, floating, and sinking by dripping drops, creating rivers, and building dams.
• Learn how a liquid takes on the shape of the container in which it is contained.
• Use different tools to move water (cup, spoon, skimmer). Watch and describe how the water moves when the tools are used.
• Explore and play with the ice

I wonder what would happen if.…

• Young children are natural scientists who love to explore things around them. Rough sand, wet water, moist soil, and cold snow offer your preschooler many different textures to explore.
• You can offer your toddler-scientist lots of opportunities to explore indoors or outdoors with just a few pans or buckets. She can:
• test whether objects float or sink in water
• bring the snow indoors to watch it melt
• pour and fill other containers with sand or dirt
• Help keep her exploration going by asking questions that begin with:
• I wonder what would happen if.…
• What do you think will happen when...?

Sort It Out

As your toddler notices how things around him are alike or different, encourage him to use his senses to sort objects into categories. Together you can:

• Do laundry and sort clothes by color
• Clean up toys into piles that are soft or hard or big or little
• Organize kitchen groceries by boxes and cans
• Sort big plates and little plates for dinner

Your toddler may enjoy sorting objects into containers (laundry baskets, toy bins, bags), making piles, or lining or stacking things up. There are many other things around your home that your toddler can organize into groups, such as food, crayons, or silverware.

• With your help, toddlers can find exciting objects outside, such as rocks, leaves, or sticks.
• Many toddlers also like to make “families” of toy animals, trucks, rocks, or other small objects—with “grown-ups,” “children,” and “babies.”

Nature Walk

• Take a nature walk together. Observe birds and animals or collect leaves and pinecones from a park, forest, beach, lake, or stream.
• Take your child's lead. Follow his interests, even if they are not yours! Help him notice both new and familiar objects outdoors.
• Take a picture of a bug, bird, plant, animal, rock, or other objects that captured your toddler's interest to help you learn more about it later.
• You and your toddler can create your own adventure book, collection, or exhibition at home. Your child may want to draw images, pick and organize photos or objects, label items with genuine or made-up names, or tell you a story.

DOING SCIENCE EVERY DAY

Foster Curiosity

The easiest method to foster your child's natural curiosity is to ask "I wonder" questions yourself. Take a minute to watch him follow an ant on the sidewalk. Where is that ant going? What do you think? If you're in a hurry, return later. We can bring an apple slice later today. Do ants eat apples? Asking questions aloud can spark dialogues. Darker clouds! Is it going to rain?

Use body language

Have you noticed how your two-year-old expresses herself with her entire body? Encourage her to represent — or show — her scientific findings similarly. Encourage her to move like the animals you see when you go outside. Can you fly, chirp, and wiggle like a worm? Maybe she can bloom like a flower or float like a cloud! Help her describe her actions. Your arms flail like wings! What's your chirp? Use Everyday Resources

Talk About Your Research

Conversations help your child think and learn new words. Talk about your ideas before you go exploring, so he's excited. " It rained last night! Do we expect puddles today? Let's go! Focus on doing, observing, and describing while exploring. What happens when you jump in a puddle? A small puddle? Throw a little rock in the puddle. After exploring, describe your thoughts and ideas. What made huge puddles distinct from little ones? The best to jump in?

Play with your toddler.

For tree-year-olds, science is all about having fun. Your child will learn about the qualities of buckets, blocks, balls, water, and sand as they play with them. Can I put stuff in it? Can I play it loudly? When you play with your child, you may help her express what she sees and does. The water splashes into the glasses! Give her more materials, ideas, and words to explore. Do you want to spray this? It squirts water! Look at your droplets and streams!

Explore as you go.

You may encourage your child's adventures when out and about, even doing chores. Observe and describe the textures of fruits at the market, smell and touch flowers in a sidewalk planter, or search for and identify forms in the buildings you pass. A playground visit allows your child to learn how to swing, slide, and climb. "You used your legs to climb up the slide!"

Use Everyday Resources

Your child will need exciting "stuff" to explore and equipment to practice science. Luckily, many of these may be found right at home! Sound exploration with pots, pans, and wooden spoons. You can use a regular flashlight to cast shadows. Find cardboard tubes to sing or look through in the recycle bin. Collect nuts and seeds in old plastic containers. Include open-ended toys like blocks and balls in your child's toy collection.

PLANTS

Investigate Plants Outdoors.

When you explore plants outdoors with your child, she can observe plants in their natural environments and learn more about their characteristics and needs. Gather some drawing and writing materials and help your child choose some outdoor plants to investigate. Look at, feel and smell the stems, leaves, flowers, and other parts. How are the plants the same and different? Notice the area where the plants are growing. How dry or moist is the soil? How sunny or shady is it? What kinds of animals do you see or hear in the area? Encourage your child to draw one or two of the plants and where they are growing.

Talk About Plants’ Needs.

If you have a garden or a collection of houseplants, you have a ready-made opportunity to talk about the needs of plants with your child! Invite her to help you water the plants, remove dead blossoms or loosen up the soil. As you take care of the plants together, talk about what plants need, like water, sunlight, and space to live and grow. Ask questions like What else do you think plants need? And Do you think all plants need those things? What about trees? Listen to your child’s ideas and share your own. Talk about any plants that aren’t growing well. What do you think this plant needs? More water or less water? More sun or less sun?

Explore Fruits and Vegetables.

The produce section of the market is a wonderful place to introduce your child to the colors, sizes, shapes, and textures of the foods we eat that come from plants. Invite him to describe how some fruits and vegetables look, smell, and feel. Wonder together. Where do these foods come from? And talk about your ideas. Unless you live on a farm or have a vegetable garden, your child probably won't know that these foods come from plants.

Dig Up “Weeds” to Observe Roots

A “weed” isn’t a specific plant, but any plant that isn’t wanted where it is growing. Buttercups, dandelions, daisies, clover, violets, ivy, and many other plants are considered weeds by some gardeners, but they are all interesting plants to explore. Help your child dig up some of these plants around your home or a family member’s home with a spade or large metal spoon. Try to get the whole root! As you look at the plants, share ideas about their parts. What parts do you see? What do the roots look like? What color, size and shape are they?

Taste and Compare Fruits

You can make a healthy fruit salad and help your child explore the smells, tastes, and textures of different fruits at the same time! Invite your child to wash his hands and explore the fruits. Bananas and tangerines are especially easy for your child to work with. Do they feel smooth or rough on the outside? How do they smell? Encourage him to peel and taste the fruits. Does the tangerine taste sweet or sour? What about the banana? Which one is juicier?

Observe Bean Seeds

You can introduce your child to seeds with a package of mixed dried beans, two or three plastic bowls, and a large spoon. Beans are fun for young children to play with and interesting to look at. They are also big enough for little fingers to handle. Pour some beans into a bowl and invite your child to stir, scoop and pour them from one bowl to another. Join in and look at the beans together. Which seeds are big or small and round or flat? Try making bean soup or beans and rice. How do the beans look, smell, and taste once they are cooked?

Explore a Tree Together

Do you have a favorite tree in your yard, neighborhood, or local park? Take a few minutes to explore it with your child. How big is it? Can you stretch your arms all the way around it? Can you reach the lowest branches or are they too high? Can you see the roots of the tree? Feel the trunk. Is it rough or smooth? Look for leaves, cones, pods, seeds, flowers, and other tree parts. How do they look? Feel? Smell? Play a game with your child: If you were a tree, what part of your body would be your trunk? Branches? Leaves? Roots?

Collect Nature

Young children are natural collectors. When you go for a walk, provide a small bag or container and invite your child to observe and collect fallen plant parts. Encourage him to notice and collect leaves, seeds, nuts, seed pods, cones, twigs, and flowers. Your child’s collection will look different depending on where you live and the time of year. When you get home, invite him to spread out his discoveries. How does each item look, feel and smell? How are some parts the same? How are they different?

ANIMALS

All living things attract children. They are captivated by how animals move, communicate, and interact. The animals you and your two-year-old see will vary based on your geography, but animals are everywhere! The wildlife you'll find in your own backyard may surprise you.

As you and your child explore the outdoors, you will witness creatures searching for food and shelter. Your child may realize that dogs require food and water, similar to their own needs.

Also, your toddler knows there are many different kinds of animals. From a language perspective, the goal is to learn animal names and animal sounds.

Compare Real and Toy Animals

Talking about real and toy animals might help your child think about animal characteristics. Your Fluffy toy is soft like a real bunny! How else could he be compared to a real bunny? What makes him different? So, would Fluffy want lettuce and carrots for dinner? Maybe he'll do a little kitchen hopping before bed!

Take Care of Pets’ Needs.

Family pets — like dogs, cats, guinea pigs, fish, and other animals — offer great opportunities to talk with your child about what animals need to live and grow. Ask your child to help you make a schedule for taking care of your pet. How often do we need to feed our pet, give her water, exercise her, play with her, and clean her crate or tank? Visit a pet store to look at the items available for taking care of different kinds of pets.

Investigate Small Critters.

Your child can learn about different animals' needs in their habitat by investigating small critters such as worms, snails, pillbugs, and ants. Help her look for critters in the dirt, under rocks, around plants, in sidewalk cracks, on trees, and in the ground around them. When you find one, describe its appearance, behavior, and location. What does it eat? How is it kept warm and dry? Do you think worms can live in dirt? Why do you think that is? Read Denise Fleming's works Underground, In the Tall Tall Grass, and In the Small Small Pond to learn more.

Explore Feet at Bedtime.

Young children are naturally fascinated by their bodies. Spend a few minutes comparing your feet before bed. Are they alike/different? Whose feet are bigger/smaller? Examine what you can do with them. How many ways can we walk? Can we stretch them? From side to side? Circular? What else? Read a book like Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault's "Here Are My Hands" on bodily parts and what they can do.

Enjoy Dinosaur Play

Do your kids love dinosaurs and other big animals? He may love playing with dinosaurs or solving dinosaur puzzles. Encourage your child's pretend dinosaur play to ignite his interest in these intriguing animals. Are you a hungry T-Rex seeking food? T-Rex, how do you walk? What noises do you make? What will you eat?

Read All About Animals.

Two-year-olds enjoy learning about pets, farm animals, and wild animals. Every library includes animal books for kids. Look for books like Roger Priddy's My Big Animal Book or Catherine Hughes' National Geographic Little Kids' First Big Book of Animals. How does a lion look? What sound does it make? Make connections between the books' illustrations and creatures you've seen together. Remember the lion we saw last week? He was hiding in his den from the scorching sun!

Listen to Birds

You and your child can hear birds almost anyplace - seagulls on the beach, pigeons in a park, songbirds in a tree. Try to find a bird you hear but can't see. Invite your kid to imitate the various bird sounds and discuss what the birds are "saying." Do you think that bird is calling its friends? Or inviting them to play? Maybe it's signaling that it's time to eat?

Look at Baby Pictures.

Looking at animal baby pictures helps kids reflect on their own growth and development. Discuss how babies of all species change while growing. Discuss how your child has grown since she was a baby. What can he do today that he couldn't accomplish before? Show your childhood photos. Your toddler will like hearing about your childhood. You may also want to track your child's growth. Hang a strip of paper and check how quickly he grows every few months!

Think About Animal Homes.

Help your child think about where different animals live by talking about the homes of the pets, farm animals, and wild animals you observe in your area. Where do you think that animal lives? And What do you think its home looks like? Check out and read books like A House Is a House for Me by Mary Ann Hoberman. What makes each animal's home perfect for the animal that lives there? Have your child draw a picture of her own home. Why is your home a good home for you?

EARTH AND SKY

Nature and the outdoors naturally fascinate young children. They enjoy digging in sand and mud, splashing in puddles, looking up at the sky, and experiencing all types of weather when given the opportunity. While exploring the outdoors, two-year-olds learn about natural objects and elements such as rocks, sand, soil, and water. They learn the names of the sky objects (sun and moon) and become more aware of the weather (rain, sun, or cold). They may associate different types of weather to specific outfits. What you and your child see will depend on where you live and the time of year. Talk about what you see, hear, smell, and feel as you explore the soil and sky with your two-year-old. Introduce and use words that increase their vocabulary and allow them to express what they are noticing and thinking about. Above all, spend as much time as you can outside with your child. Remember that letting your child get dirty, dig in dirt, jump in puddles, and play in mud allows them to fully enjoy nature and the world around them. You also show them that their explorations are important to you, and that you care about them. Individual children will have different interests, so go with your child's lead! These experiences help your child learn about the earth's resources, its role as a home for all living things, and its significance in the broader scope.

Get Outdoors and Into Nature.

Your child's fascination with the natural world stems from her early nature experiences and what she learns from you. Family trips to the woods, seaside, lake, or mountains are fantastic ways to immerse your child in nature. Still, you can also help them enjoy it by observing living things, looking up at the sky, and discussing the weather. You are your child's most significant role model when it comes to learning about Earth's resources and how all life depends on them!

Splash in Puddles

Do you recall splashing in puddles as a kid? Explore the properties of water by jumping in puddles with your child! Put on boots and take her outside after the rain. What happens if you jump in a small puddle? And in a large puddle? Introduce words like splash and spatter.

Collect Natural Materials

Take a walk with your toddler and collect natural materials. Attract his attention to rocks, stones, dirt clumps, twigs, and other natural objects. Introduce colors, scents, shapes, and textures. This rock has a smooth side and a rough side! What does that twig smell? There are three big rocks; now find some small ones! Encourage him to gather a variety of items and discuss them.

Spray Water Outdoors

A spray bottle can help your toddler explore the water. Go outside and encourage him to spray water on sand, dirt, leaves, pebbles, pavement, and other surfaces. Discuss what he is doing and noticing. What does water do to rocks? Soil? Introduce new words such as drops, streams, and puddles.

Dig in Sand

Your toddler can discover a variety of textures as he moves about in the sand. Dig in dry sand with your child in the park, beach, or sandbox. Provide simple digging equipment such as shovels, spoons, and buckets, and discuss how the sand looks, moves, and feels with your child. Introduce words like soft, smooth, rough, and pebbly.

Experience the Weather With Your Senses

To learn about the weather, your child must first experience it. When you're out and about, let her experience the temperature, the breeze on her skin, the rain or wind, and the air. To explain her observations, use words like bright, cloudy, warm, cool, and breezy.

Dress for the Weather.

Getting ready in the morning allows you and your child to discuss the weather connecting it to clothes choice. Check the weather out in the window. How is the weather? Who knows if it's sunny, cloudy, wet, or windy? Can we tell the temperature? What does it mean to us? Invite her to dress for the weather. Are you dry, warm, or relaxed? Hats, mittens, boots, and umbrellas? Show her how to use a weather app or watch a weather report on TV.

Pinwheel Games

Explore the wind with a pinwheel. On a windy day, try out your pinwheel. Is it spinning? What happens if you twist it? On a calm day, try sprinting with your pinwheel. How do you make it spin faster or slower? What happens if you blow on it?

Look up at the Daytime Sky

Look up at the sky with your child and describe what you see and hear. You may observe the sun, clouds, various birds, airplanes (including drones), and even the moon. What do you see? How do clouds look? Are they puffy, flat, white, or gray?

Look up at the Nighttime Sky

On a clear night, look up at the night sky together. What do you see? What can we see now that we couldn't see earlier in the day? What's missing? Discuss and describe the moon together. How does the moon look tonight? How big is it?

Sort Trash for Recycling

You're probably already teaching your child to pick up his toys and put them away. If you recycle plastic, metal, and paper, you may start teaching him what goes in the recycle bin (s). Consider putting photos of these objects on the bins so he can match them.

Read about the Weather

Your three-year-old will enjoy reading weather-themed books. Check out Lucy Cousins' Maisy's Wonderful Weather Book, Jean Taft's Worm Weather, and Taro Yashima's Umbrella.

PROPERTIES

Young children explore the world with their entire body. They look, listen, smell, and touch blankets, toys, flowers, water, and sand. Two-year-olds notice color, size, form, weight, texture, and that items might be hard, soft, or squishy. They learn that round balls roll well, soft blankets cuddle well, and water splashes well. You can help your two-year-old learn by providing secure spaces and lots of “things” (even messy stuff!). By joining in, you show them that their explorations matter. Introduce adjectives like little, huge, smooth, rough, round, square, soft, and hard as you explore qualities with your youngster. Remember to follow your child's interests! Remind your two-year-old that only food goes in their mouths!

Explore Water at the Kitchen Sink

Examine properties with your toddler even if you're cooking! Set her up at the sink with a warm water basin and various plastic cups and bottles. Soak your hands and arms in the water. Watch the water splashes, flows, and fills the containers as she scoops and pours it. How does the water look in a big round container? in a square one? If you have a spray bottle or an empty soap dispenser, show her how to use it by squeezing it hard/gently.

Use Buttons to Investigate Properties

Do you or a family member collect buttons? Buttons are interesting to look at and entertaining for your child to scoop and pour. Invite your youngster to investigate the buttons by gathering them into two or three plastic containers and giving him a large spoon. Talk about your favorites while you look at the buttons. What exactly do you Like about that button? This one looks and feels good. The other one is bumpy! Compare the properties of various buttons: Which is larger/smaller? Which are smooth and which are rough? Which are round/non-round?

Look for Shapes in Buildings

The next time you go for a walk with your child, try to make him notice that buildings and other structures are made of squares, circles, and other types of shapes. I see big and small squares in that store's display! How many more can we find? Look for shapes in nature like trees, bushes, and plants. Find a triangle-shaped tree! How about a circle-shaped bush?

Learn About Cloud Dough's Properties

Make cloud dough with your child to experience different textures. Get some flour, oil, and a plastic container. Help your youngster add 4 cups flour and 12 cups oil to the container. Mix using your hands. Squeeze and crush the dough. How does it feel? Is it dry in some places and sticky in others? Experiment with little glasses and plastic forks.

Play a Touch and Feel Guessing Game

With a five-minute guessing game, you can learn about things' qualities with your child. Ask him to pick four or five objects from his room or bathroom (like a washcloth, a comb, a plastic cup, a toothbrush, and a soap bar). Put the things in a bag and take turns describing and feeling them. Ask if it's cool or hot. Is it soft? Is it soft or hard? So, what is it?

Build With Wooden Blocks

When your kid builds with wooden blocks, you can help her examine the size, form, and how well different blocks fit together. That big tower took a lot of square blocks! Do you believe the big triangle will balance on top? Give her alternative building materials like plastic, foam, or cardboard "blocks." Can we build a tall tower with these soft blocks? Let's try!

Investigate the Properties of Sand

Encourage your child to explore the qualities of sand at the beach, sandbox, or park. Encourage her to dig holes in the sand, push and pull it, draw on it, and fill containers with it. Use adjectives like dry, wet, soft, and rough to describe the texture. Stand near the water's edge at the beach with your child. What happens when the waves come?

Talk About Properties at Mealtime

Do your kids love watching you cook? Toasting bread can become a property discovery. How does untoasted bread feel, smell, and taste? What happens after toasting? Which do you prefer? Examine and discuss foods including eggs, pasta, and veggies.

Explore Size and Shape with Laundry

Asking your kid to sort laundry can turn a mundane task into a delightful exploration of size and shape. Ask him to organize family members' items into piles and discuss things like Whose pants are these? How are our jeans all alike? How do they differ? Asking Can I wear your clothes tomorrow and you mine? Why do you think that is? Let's wear our pants on our heads, and let's put socks on both hands! What's up with it?

READ ABOUT PROPERTIES

Books can help you and your kid talk about colors, sizes, forms, and textures. Visit the library and check out books like Red, Blue, Yellow Shoe; Is It Larger? Is It Less? Tana Hoban's Shapes and Look Book. Ask questions regarding the objects and materials in the photographs, like "Let's hunt for circles in our kitchen!" Do you think we can find colored shoes at home?

PUSHES AND PULLS

Children are always on the move. They gain body stability, mobility, and balance as they run, jump, climb, and tumble. They watch how toys react to their actions and how objects, materials, and live creatures move. Forces can make objects go, stop, speed up, slow down, or change direction. They can also form objects. Three-year-olds like to push, pull, drop, throw, and kick items to see what happens.

Investigate How Objects Fall

Drop objects one at a time from an elevated area, such as a deck or playground structure, to see how they move. Make sure no one is underneath! Drop feathers, coins, pebbles, and newsprint one by one. Discuss how feathers, pebbles, and a cent or piece of paper fall.

Pound Playdough

Using store-bought or homemade playdough, investigate how pushes and pulls may form things. Encourage your kid to pat, squeeze, tear, and pound the dough, and show her how to roll or flatten it to make balls, snakes, and pancakes. Add some Popsicle sticks, spoons, or shells to make impressions on the play dough.

Squeeze, Squirt, and Spray

Even while you're cooking, you and your toddler may explore pushes and pulls! Set up a warm water basin, plastic cups, bottles, and water-moving instruments like basters, squeeze bottles, and spray bottles at the sink. Observe how the water flows, squirts, streams, and sprays as she uses the equipment. How do we fill and empty the baster? Can it make bubbles? Color the water with food dye. Now what?

Play volleyball with a Balloon

Play a fun balloon game with your kid to explore pushes and pulls. Blow some balloons with air and encourage your child to toss one in the air. Take turns tapping it to keep it aloft, counting your taps aloud. Keep it in the air! How do you keep the balloon afloat?

Observe Movements at the supermarket

It's surprising what you can find when you and your kid look for moving objects. When you push the cart in the market, the wheels spin, the pan on the scale drops and rises with the veggies, and the grocery conveyor belt slides sideways. What else is moving at the store? Can we find more items that go up, down, or sideways?

Play Catch and Investigate Motion

Playing catch with a large ball might help your toddler learn about motion. Ball activities also help your child practice letting go and sharing. Play catch, roll or bounce the ball with your kid. Talk about how far it flies, rolls, or bounces. How can we improve it? Use beach balls, basketballs, soccer balls, and rubber balls. Which is your favorite? Why do you prefer that one?

Watch and Listen for the Wind.

You and your kid can explore how wind moves things on a windy day. What does the wind feel like? How is the wind affecting your hair and jacket? Encourage your kid to seek for other wind signals. What do the trees' leaves do? The fallen leaves? Flags? Suspended traffic signs? Encourage your child to move as if blown by the wind. Introduce words like flapping, swaying, tumbling, and tossing.

Explore How Block Structures Fall

Three-year-olds discover pushes and pulls by knocking down block constructions, which may upset older siblings. Help your child in building a simple block tower. How do the blocks fall when the tower is pushed? What if you gently press it? Try removing a brick from the tower's top, middle, or bottom. Now, what happens? Remind her that she can only destroy her own towers!

Read About Pushes and Pulls

Books can spark discussions on how things move and what causes them to move.

Find picture books about how wind moves things at your local library, like The Wind Blew by Pat Hutchins or How High Will It Fly? DC Swain wrote My Red Balloon. Talk about the different things that are moved by the wind. The book by Frank Asch and Devin Asch is called Like a Windy Day, and it is about a little girl who thinks she is the wind. Invite your child to move like the wind. No, I can't. What about a gentle breeze?

LIGHT AND SOUND

Young children are fascinated by the sights and sounds of the world around them. Light and sound cannot be touched, smelled, or tasted, but children can examine their characteristics. When young children feel the sun's warmth on their skin and see the colors, shadows, reflections, and rainbows formed as light interacts with the world around them, they are experiencing the qualities of light. They are aware of sound qualities when they hear it and feel its vibrations with their ears. Introduce new vocabulary like vibrant, vivid, clear, dull, and dim to assist children in communicating what they're doing.

Explore Light and Dark at Bedtime

As part of your child's nighttime routine, explore light and dark. Turn on one light at a time – an overhead, a bedside lamp, and a nightlight. Describe the room's appearance with and without the lights. Which produces the most/least light? We see shadows where? Look out the window and comment on the light or darkness. Dim the lights and shine a flashlight on the ceiling or wall.

Listen for Sounds

Draw your child's attention to the sounds you hear around you, whether at home or out and about. Sound in the kitchen, bedroom or backyard? Listen for noises of children laughing, playground swings creaking, and market cash registers clicking and clacking. Is the sound loud or soft? Try to identify an unknown sound with your child. Record different family members speaking. Do you have any idea who it is?

Reflections in a mirror

Spend a few minutes exploring your reflections in a huge mirror, either at home or in a store. Who do you see when you look in the mirror? What are the portions of our bodies that we can see? Encourage your kid to move in front of the mirror. What changes in our reflections? What keeps it the same? How can we enlarge or reduce the size of our reflections? What can we do to make them vanish? In a darkened room, play with a small mirror and a flashlight. What happens if we shine a light on a mirror? Can we direct the light to the ceiling?

Make Your Own Shadows

On a sunny day, point out your child's shadow if she hasn't already observed it. Encourage her to move in new ways and watch her shadow. How do our shadows change when we crouch? When we stand tall? Can we escape our shadows? Try it! Incorporate vocabulary to describe your shadows' size and location (in front, behind, or next to you).

Listen to Music and Feel the Vibrations

When you let your child listen to music, she learns about sound creation and synthesis. She can also feel the vibrations of loud, quiet, high, and low sounds. Play your family's favorite music and sing or dance together. What moves your body to that music? She may feel the vibrations by placing her hands on the speaker and singing. How is it? Play other music. What makes this music unique?

Make Body Sounds

Discover all the sounds your child can produce with his lips, hands, feet, and other body parts. What loud sounds can your mouth make? What sounds can you make? Can you speak without using your voice? Use his hands, fingers, and feet to generate noise. - How can you march and clap loudly? How can it be soft? Invite your kid to move like a dinosaur or a mouse.

Tube Talking and Singing

Gather toilet paper, paper towel, and wrapping paper tubes to help your child investigate the sound. Use the tubes to hear your surroundings. What can you hear? Sing and chat through the tubes. What about loud and mild sounds? High and low tones? Cover the tube's end with paper. What happens to the paper when we sing or chat into the tube?

Read About Light.

Your child may enjoy reading and talk about nonfiction and fiction books about light. You can find these in the children's section of your local library. Look for Shadows and Reflections by Tana Hoban and compare the images in the book to your own observations of shadows and reflections. Explore the night world with the child in the interactive book Flashlight by Lizi Boyd. Or check out Bear Shadow by Frank Asch, a story about a bear who tries to run away from his shadow.

Read About Sound

Your kid may like books that describe the sounds created by humans, animals, cars, and other items. Check out Rosemary Wells' Noisy Nora and Margaret Wise Brown's The Noisy Book. Watch how your child imitates the noises he hears. Where have we heard that before?

Color mixing

Use finger paints or tempera paints and brushes from a department or craft store to explore color. If it's nice out, do this outside! Put two colors — red, yellow, or blue — in opposite corners of a large white piece of paper and experiment with moving and mixing them. What happens when blue and yellow mix? How did that green get there? Add a third color for experimentation. Discuss books like Ellen Stoll Walsh's Mouse Paint and Leo Lionni's Little Blue and Little Yellow, or Herve Tullet's interactive book Mix It Up.

EXPLORE PUSHES AND PULLS

Make a Helium Balloon Fly Objects.

Do you ever buy helium balloons for family celebrations? After the celebration, use the balloons to examine pushes and pulls! Tie a toy figure, a block, a pebble, or other small objects to each balloon string. What objects are responsible for lowering the balloons? Who gets lifted by the balloons? Discuss your discoveries and help your kid draw and write about them.

Bathtime Sinking and Floating.

The bathtub is an excellent location to experiment with water pressure and how items sink and float. Exactly what does a rubber ducky do in water? How about the washcloth? Soap bar? Encourage your kid to investigate various objects. What happens if you submerge the rubber ducky? Put a dry washcloth on the water. Throw the soap into the water from different angles. Add tiny toys, wooden blocks, or plastic boats for your kid to explore in the water. Can you make floaters sink and sinkers float?

Balls Run.

Making your own ramps at home allows you and your child to experiment with different little balls. Collect cardboard, thick books, or cardboard tubes for ramps (cut the tubes in half lengthwise). Place the “ramps” on blocks or a chair and launch the balls. So, what happens? Change the incline or have the balls move down and then up. Try tennis balls, golf balls, and little rubber balls. Why do balls roll differently?

Pushes and Pulls in the Pool or Beach.

You can point out water pushes and pulls at the pool or beach. Help her float on her back. How is it? Experiment with floating while standing, sitting, or on your sides. What must you do to keep afloat? Which position helps or hinders flotation? Stand in the surf together and feel the waves push and pull if you're at the beach. How are your feet affected?

Read about Pushes and Pulls.

Check out books like Building a House by Byron Barton, which depicts varied characters building, and books about children building with blocks and other materials, such as Dreaming Up by Christy Hale and Block City by Robert Louis Stevenson.

LIGHT AND SOUND

Young children are fascinated by the sights and sounds of the world around them. Light and sound cannot be touched, smelled, or tasted, but children can examine their characteristics. When young children feel the sun's warmth on their skin and see the colors, shadows, reflections, and rainbows formed as light interacts with the world around them, they are experiencing the qualities of light. They are aware of sound qualities when they hear it and feel its vibrations with their ears. Introduce new vocabulary like vibrant, vivid, clear, dull, and dim to assist children in communicating what they're doing.

Look for colors in the natural world.

Help your child notice the range of colors in nature when you're outside with him. Direct his attention to the various hues of green found in a single plant or leaf, as well as the different colors of pink or purple found in flowers. On bright sunny days, how do colors appear outside? What do they look like on a rainy day? Invite your kid to create a picture of a sunny or cloudy day. What colors will he use to display brighter or darker shades on different days?

Look for Reflections Outdoors.

When you are out and about with your child, look for your reflections on different surfaces. Can we see ourselves in mirrors, brick buildings, elevator doors, store windows, or in puddles? Talk about where you see reflections and what they look like. Which reflections are easier or harder to see? Why do you think so? Try looking for your reflections on different surfaces in your home. Can you see your reflections on the refrigerator, wall, window, or toaster? What about the window?

Make Shapes With Your Shadows.

Play with your shadows when you and your child are outdoors relaxing on a sunny day! Encourage your child to pay attention to how your shadows change as you move about. How do our shadows appear when we jump up and down, turn around, or stand in front of/behind one another? Make shadow forms with your partner. Can we form a circle, a square, or a heart with our shadows if we hold hands? Is it possible to make number and letter shapes? What other shapes could we be able to create? Make a shadow drawing. How do your shadows resemble you? What distinguishes them?

Investigate Shadows with Flashlights.

Collect two flashlights and various objects such as miniature toys, cooking utensils, and other everyday home items in multiple shapes. Start exploring by dimming the lights. What are the objects that cast shadows? And what happens to the shadows as you move the beam away? What happens if you shine the spotlight on the thing from different angles? Explain how and why shadows change. Move the light swiftly back and forth or in circles to make the shadows "dance."

Mix paints to create colors.

You and your child can try mixing colors with tempera, watercolors, or any other paints you can find in a craft store. Put dabs of two or three different colors like red, yellow, and/or blue — in the corners of a large piece of white paper. The larger paper, the better, and work with your child to examine color mixing. As you mix red with yellow or blue, make predictions about what will happen. Is it more likely to turn orange or purple? Experiment with varying proportions of each hue. What happens if you add additional yellow to the mix? How about a little more blue? Mix It Up by Herve Tullet is an interactive book on colors.

Look in the Mirror.

Spend a few minutes exploring your reflections in a huge mirror, either at home or in a store. Who do you see when you look in the mirror? What are the portions of our bodies that we can see? Encourage your kid to move in front of the mirror. What changes in our reflections? What keeps it the same? How can we enlarge or reduce the size of our reflections? What can we do to make them vanish? In a darkened room, play with a small mirror and a flashlight. What happens if we shine a light on a mirror? Can we direct the light to the ceiling?

Listen to Music and Feel the Vibrations.

It's a good idea for your child to listen to music so that she can see how sounds can be made and mixed. She can also hear and feel the vibrations of loud and soft, high and low sounds. Play your favorite music as a family and listen, sing along, or dance to it. What motions does your body want to do in response to the music? Invite her to put her hands on the speaker or her throat as she sings to feel the vibrations. How does it feel? Ask other family members to share their favorite types of music with you and your child. How does this music sound and feel different?

Talking and Singing Through Tubes.

You can help your child explore sound by gathering toilet paper, paper towels, and wrapping paper tubes. Use the tubes to listen to the sounds around you. What do you hear? Try talking and singing through the tubes. Can we make loud and soft sounds? High and low sounds? Put a piece of paper over the end of the tube. What happens to the paper when we talk or sing through the tube? Try exploring sound with plastic corrugated tubes — they can be found at hardware or home goods stores in the plumbing department.

Hunt for the Source of that Sound!

When you are out and about with your child, you can help her think about where sounds come from — the sources of different sounds. Draw her attention to far-off sounds like sounds made by emergency vehicles, lawnmowers, trains, planes, or birds. Can we figure out what's causing that sound? Talk about how loud or soft the sound is and what direction it's coming from. Do you think the fire truck is close or far away? Why do you think so? Talk about how the sound changes. Do you think it's coming closer? How can you tell?

Watch and Listen to the Wind.

You and your child can study how wind moves things on a windy day. What does the wind feel like? How is the wind affecting your hair and jacket? Encourage your youngster to seek for other wind signals. What do the trees' leaves do? What about the leaves on the ground? Flags? Suspended signs or traffic lights? Encourage your child to move as if blown by the wind. Introduce words like flapping, swaying, tumbling, and tossing.

Read About Light.

Your child may enjoy reading and talk about nonfiction and fiction books about light. You can find these in the children's section of your local library. Look for Shadows and Reflections by Tana Hoban and compare the images in the book to your own observations of shadows and reflections. Explore the night world with the child in the interactive book Flashlight by Lizi Boyd. Or check out Bear Shadow by Frank Asch, a story about a bear who tries to run away from his shadow.

PROPERTIES

Four-year-olds use lots of descriptive vocabulary, including words like "wood, plastic, rubber, metal." Depending on their qualities, they choose blocks and other toys (some are "bouncier" than others). Also, four-year-olds can investigate cause-and-effect relationships and love experimenting with different materials. Providing a variety of objects and materials for your kid to study, disassemble, and reassemble (even if it gets messy!) promotes learning, critical thinking, and problem-solving.

Explore Properties of Objects and Materials

Kitchen Sink Water Play. Even when you're busy in the kitchen, your child may learn about water's characteristics. Put warm water, various plastic cups and bottles, and cooking utensils like basters, funnels, and spray bottles by the sink. What does it feel like to have water on your hands and arms? How does it look in a big round container? In a little box? Watch how she scoops and pours the water. What happens to the water when you squeeze the baster's bulb? A gentle squeeze? Provide these tools in the bathtub or an outside kiddie pool on hot days.

Investigate Properties With Buttons.

Do you or someone else in your family collect buttons? Buttons are interesting to look at and sort based on properties. Gather a cup of buttons and an egg carton or other container for sorting. Talk about your favorites and compare their properties as you look at the buttons together.

Which ones are bigger/smaller? Which ones are smooth/bumpy? Which ones are round/not round? Invite your child to sort them by size, color, shape, or another way. To extend this activity, use other objects like mixed dried beans.

Discover the Properties of Goop.

Goop is fascinating because it has the properties of a solid and a liquid. Gather some cornstarch, a measuring cup, a large spoon, and a large shallow plastic container. Mix 1 cup of cornstarch and ½ cup of water using your hands or a spoon. How does the mixture look and feel? It's hard and smooth in the container, but when you pick it up, it drips and pours! How is it the same as playdough? How is it different? To extend this activity, add a few drops of food coloring and watch how the color moves through the goop.

Go on an Outdoor Shape Hunt.

You can help your child discover that everything in the human-designed world is made up of shapes. When you are out walking, look for rectangles, squares, circles, ovals, triangles, and other shapes on buildings. What shape is that apartment building? What about the bricks it's made of? Remember to look for shapes in nature. What shapes can we find in a tree or a flower? What shape do you see when you throw a pebble into a pond?

Investigate Size, Texture, and Color With Socks.

When you ask your child to help sort the laundry, you can turn a routine activity into a fun exploration. Invite your four-year-old to help sort family members’ socks and encourage him to notice and compare details in their sizes, textures, colors, and designs. Ask questions like How do you know those two socks belong together? And could you find a match to this sock with your eyes closed? Why or why not?

Explore Building Materials.

Does your child enjoy building? You can help her explore the properties of building materials by providing different types of blocks (wood, plastic, foam) or other materials (wood scraps, cardboard boxes, foam cushions) for her to build with at home. You can also explore building materials on the go by observing the houses, barns, office buildings, or bridges in your community. What materials are they made of? Where do you see cement, brick, wood, vinyl, or glass in a building? To explore further, take photos of some of the buildings. When you get home, invite your child to re-create one of them using her own building materials.

Talk About Properties at Mealtime.

Does your child enjoy watching you prepare meals? You can turn something as simple as toasting bread into an exploration of properties. How does bread look, feel, smell and taste before it’s toasted? What about after? Which one do you like to eat the most?

Talk about other foods “before and after” like eggs, pasta, and vegetables. Introduce and use vocabulary like runny, firm, rigid, and flexible. Have a conversation about how different family members like their eggs cooked. Why do you like them cooked that way?

Building Structures

Children learn about the many materials and tools used in constructing houses and other structures. They start to understand that how a structure is built and designed will affect its strength and stability. Offer your child to make structures out of different materials and ask them to use measurement tools to learn how to figure out how big things are as they build.

• Explore the different materials that are used to build houses and other things.
• Learn about the various parts of a house.
• Recognize and name two-dimensional shapes found in homes and structures.
• As they listen to the song Building a House, they will be exposed to the notion of construction.
• Watch Between the Lions "Huff and Puff," a show about the three little pigs, to learn why it is important to build a strong house.
• As they compare Paul Galdone's story The Three Little Pigs to the Between the Lions "Huff and Puff" video, they discover that there can be many distinct versions of a story.
• Think about the fact that people and animals live in many different types of homes.

Roll Balls on Playground Slides

If the playground is not too crowded, you can watch balls roll down slides. Encourage your kid to throw a ball from the top of both steep and not-so-steep slides. How does it go down the slides? How far does it fly off each slide before landing? Try bouncy balls and tennis balls. What causes different balls to roll in the same manner? What makes them roll differently? If a spiral slide is available, use it to guide the balls down the slide. How do they move? Where do they go when they get off the slide? Discuss why balls roll differently on different slides.

Balloon Games

Play a fun balloon game with your child to explore pushes and pulls. Invite your child to toss a balloon in the air. Take turns tapping it to keep it aloft, counting your taps aloud. Keep it up as long as you can! How do you keep the balloon afloat? Play the balloon game outside. Can you keep a balloon aloft outside? Ask to explain why does he think so?

Read About Properties.

You can use books to stimulate conversations and explorations with your child about the colors, sizes, shapes, and textures in the world around you.

Some books about color — Dog's Colorful Day: A Messy Story of Colors and Counting by Emma Dodd, Mouse Paint by Ellen Stohl Walsh, Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni, and the interactive book Mix It Up by Herve Tullet — and books about shape like When a Line Bends, a Shape Begins by Rhonda Gowler Greene, and Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stohl Walsh.

EARTH AND SKY

Nature and outdoor life captivate young children. Sand, mud, water, and rocks are their favorite earthly elements to explore. Kids at this age notice how natural materials like water and sand alter properties when combined. They know everyday weather, seasonal changes, and appropriate clothing and activities. Preschoolers can spot changes in the sun and moon's positions or how the moon appears at different times of the day. They adore making and using weather and astronomy gadgets. The things and weather your child sees will vary depending on location and season. Talk about what you see, hear, smell, and feel as you explore the land and sky with your four-year-old. Introduce and use adjectives like fine, coarse, damp, and moist to help children expand their vocabulary. Above all, spend time outside with your child. To thoroughly enjoy nature and the world around them, remember to let your kid get filthy. You thank them for their work. Keep exploring the natural world with your four-year interests. old's Experiences like this teach your child about the earth's resources, its role as a home for all living creatures, and its place in the greater cosmic picture

Get Outdoors and Into Nature.

Your child's interest in the environment and the earth begins with her earliest nature experiences and what she learns from you. Family trips to the woods, ocean, lake, or mountains are great opportunities to get immersed in nature. Still, you can also help your child appreciate being outdoors in simple ways — noticing living things and where they live, looking up at the sky, and talking about the weather. When it comes to developing an appreciation for the earth's resources and how all living things depend on them, you are your child's most important role model!

Collect and Observe Rocks.

Rocks can be found everywhere and are interesting to look at, describe and compare. When you are out and about, encourage your child to collect different types of rocks and talk about their characteristics. What sizes, shapes, textures, and colors are they? Are they plain or patterned? Do any of them glisten or shimmer? Spray the rocks with water. How do they change? What details do you notice now? Encourage your child to start a rock collection in an empty egg carton or muffin tin.

Watch Raindrops Fall.

Sit by a window with your child on a rainy day and observe the raindrops falling outside. What happens when they fall on the grass? On the pavement? Look at the drops on the window. What happens when they hit the glass? How do they move or stay put? Pretend the drops are racing and make predictions about which drop will get to the bottom of the window first! Are some drops faster or slower than others? Why do you think so?

Spray Water on Outdoor Surfaces.

You can use a spray bottle to help your child investigate water outdoors. Fill the spray bottle with water, go outdoors with your child and encourage him to spray water onto sand, dirt, leaves, rocks, pavement, and other surfaces. Talk with him about where the water makes drops, streams, and puddles. Encourage him to notice what happens to the water on each surface. Where does the water stay on the surface? Where does it get absorbed — soaked up?

Make Sandcastles.

Building sandcastles is a fun family beach activity. It’s also a chance for your child to explore how water can change the shape of his sand structures. The next time you go to the beach or the lake, bring along some buckets and shovels and build some sandcastles with your child in the wet sand. What happens when a wave comes in or when you dump water in and around your sand structure?

Make Mud Pies.

Did you make mud pies as a child? Unleash your inner child and help your child investigate soil and water and what happens when they are mixed. Find a spot where you can dig safely and give him a shovel or large spoon, two or three plastic containers, and a spray bottle of water. How does the soil look, smell, and feel? Does it crumble or clump when your squeeze it? Encourage him to add water. How does the soil change? How much water makes a good consistency for mud pies? When you are out and about, notice patches of mud at the park, playground, or other places around your home or neighborhood. Share your ideas about why some places are muddier than others.

Make a Streamer to Observe Wind.

You and your child can make a simple tool for observing the wind by tying or taping a 3-to-4-foot length of crepe paper or ribbon to the end of a cardboard tube or long stick. Take it outside on a windy day and invite your child to hold it up high. What happens to the ribbon? What can the ribbon tell us about how hard the wind is blowing? About which way the wind is blowing? Check out some books about wind, such as Like a Windy Day by Frank Asch, and The Wind Blew by Pat Hutchins.

Dress for the Weather.

Every morning, when you and your child get dressed for the day, you have an opportunity to think and talk about the weather together. Do a quick weather check at the window. What is the weather like? How can we tell if it’s sunny or cloudy, rainy, or windy? Can we tell how cold or warm it is? Why or why not? Invite her to decide how she should dress based on the weather. What clothes will keep you dry, warm, cool? Do we need hats, mittens, boots, or umbrellas? Watch a weather forecast on TV together or show her how you use a weather app.

Enjoy Cloud-Watching.

Spend some time cloud-watching with your child on different weather days and help her notice and describe the colors, sizes, and shapes of the clouds, how many there are, and where they are in the sky. How much of the sky do they cover? How high or low do they seem to be? Are they moving? How can we tell? Make connections between clouds and other aspects of the weather. Do you think it's going to rain today? Why or why not?

Look up at the Nighttime Sky.

On a clear night, spend a few minutes before bedtime looking at the night sky together. What do you see? What can we see now that we couldn’t see — or couldn’t see as well — during the day? What’s missing? Talk about the moon. What does it look like? What shape and size is it? What else do you notice about it? Talk about how the moon seems to follow you and your child when you are out driving or riding at night!

Sort Trash for Recycling.

Most likely, your child is learning to clean up his toys and put things where they belong. He can also increasingly describe objects based on what they are made of. If you recycle, talk to him about what materials go in the recycle bin(s), such as plastic, aluminum, and paper products. He can help you sort disposables and put them in the right bin(s). Show him what the recycle symbol looks like and invite him to look for it on clean empty containers

Read About the Moon.

Enjoy looking at and talking about images of the moon online with your child. You can also find lots of picture books about the moon in the children’s section of your local library. Look for stories about characters who want to reach out and touch the moon, like Papa Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle; Moon Bear by Frank Asch; I Took the Moon for a Walk by Carolyn Curtis and Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes.

ANIMALS

Young kids are captivated by all living things. They are fascinated by the way animals move, communicate, and interact. People are, of course, members of the animal world. So kids may learn as they discover animals! The wild creatures you and your four-year-old see will vary depending on your region, whether rural, suburban, or urban, but animals are everywhere! You'll be surprised by the creatures you'll encounter in your own backyard. You will see animals moving about, looking for food, and building shelters while you and your youngster explore the outdoors. Inspect pets or agricultural animals. These early investigations help your child grasp that animals, like people, have characteristics and want their environment meets that. Animals, their needs, and the environment are becoming increasingly apparent to four-year-olds. Ducks, seagulls, and sparrows are all birds, but they will laugh if you tell them that people are animals! They notice how their parents and other role models treat animals. If your child sees you as afraid of dogs or disgusted by worms, they are likely to react similarly.

Investigate Small Critters.

When you help your child investigate small critters like worms, snails, pillbugs, and ants, you can help her think about how different animals find the food, water, and other things they need in those environments. Help her look for critters in the dirt, under rocks, around plants, in sidewalk cracks, and on trees. When you find one, observe and talk about what it looks like, what it's doing, and where you found it. What do you think it eats? How do you think it stays warm and dry? Do you think the dirt is a good place for a worm to live? Why or why not? To learn more, read books with vibrant images of animals that live in different environments, like Underground, In the Tall Tall Grass; and In the Small Small Pond by Denise Fleming.

Observe How Animals Use Their Bodies.

You can support your child’s thinking about how animals’ bodies work by closely observing different animals in action. If you see ducks at a local pond, for example, notice their wings, bills, and feet. What do they look like? What colors, sizes, and shapes are they? As you observe, ask questions, like "How do they use their bodies to quack, eat, walk, swim and fly?" Encourage her to think about how she uses her own body. What do your hands look like? How do you use them to play ball, eat and drink and brush your teeth?

Take Care of Pets’ Needs.

Family pets — like dogs, cats, guinea pigs, fish, and other animals — offer great opportunities to talk with your child about what animals need to live and grow. Ask your child to help you make a schedule for taking care of your pet. How often do we need to feed our pet, give her water, exercise her, play with her, and clean her crate or tank? Visit a pet store to look at the items available for taking care of different kinds of pets.

Look for Animal Tracks.

Even when you don't see any animals, you and your child can find evidence of them. Look for animal tracks on the ground, flattened grass, or knocked-over trash cans. Take a close look at a tree. Can you find holes in any leaves, a stash of nuts, or broken shells around it? Wonder with your child about questions like What kind of animal was here? And Why do we think it was that animal? Check out books about animal tracks such as Who Was Here? by Mia Posada. Which tracks look like ones that we saw?

Explore Feet at Bedtime.

Young children are naturally curious about their bodies and all their parts. At bedtime, spend a few minutes comparing your feet. How are they the same/different? Whose feet are longer/shorter or wider/narrower? Investigate what you can do with them. How many ways can we move our feet? Can we bend them back and forth? Side to side? Around in circles? What

else can we do? Read a book about body parts and everything a child can do with them, like "Here Are My Hands" by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault.

Make a Simple Bird Feeder.

You can support your child’s observations of backyard birds by helping her make a simple hanging feeder. Observe birds that visit the feeder and talk about their colors and sizes. Which ones seem to come to the feeder most often? Can you record each time you see a blue, red, grey, or brown bird at the feeder? Talk about why feeding the birds is important, especially when it's hard for them to find food during the cold times of the year. Check out bird books such as About Birds: A Guide for Children by Cathryn Sill and John Sill and Birds, Nests, and Eggs by Mel Boring.

Look at Baby Pictures.

Looking at their baby pictures is a great way for kids to think about how they have grown and continue to grow! Talk with your child about she has changed since she was a baby. Talk about questions like What are some things you can do now that you couldn’t do then? Show your child photos of yourself and other family members as babies and children. She will enjoy hearing stories about when you were little. You may also want to measure your child’s height over time. Place a strip of paper on the wall and measure every few months. Look how fast you are growing!

Talk About Animals Born Alive or Hatched.

Has your child ever observed baby animals being born or hatched? You can help him think about the different ways animals begin their lives. What animals have we observed that hatch from eggs, and what animals have we observed that are born? Watch a PBS video about animal babies or read and talk about books like Chickens Aren't the Only Ones and Animals Born Alive and Well by Ruth Heller. You and your child may be surprised to find out how many different kinds of animals hatch from eggs!

Think About Animal Homes.

Help your child think about where different animals live by talking about the homes of the pets, farm animals, and wild animals you observe in your area. Where do you think that animal lives? And What do you think its home looks like? Check out and read books like A House Is a House for Me by Mary Ann Hoberman. What makes each animal's home perfect for the animal that lives there? Have your child draw a picture of her own home. Why is your home a good home for you?

Do Research on Dinosaurs.

Is your child fascinated by dinosaurs? If so, he may know many of the names and characteristics, including meat-eaters like Tyrannosaurus rex and plant-eaters like Stegosaurus. You can support his interest in dinosaurs by checking out books

like My Big Dinosaur Book by Roger Priddy and the National Geographic Little Kids' First Big Book of Dinosaurs by Catherine Hughes. Talk about the characteristics, behaviors, and diets of different dinosaurs. Make a family field trip to a dinosaur exhibit at a local science museum to learn more.

Draw Pictures of the Critters You Find.

Once your child has observed a few worms, snails, ants, or other small critters, invite her to draw one of them. Keep in mind that her drawing may not look like the animal — worms and snails may have big grins on their "faces" — because drawing from observation takes time and practice! By giving her opportunities to draw the animals, you support her observation skills, recording skills, and physical skills all at the same time! Ask your child to describe her drawing and write down what she says. Encourage her to share and talk about it with other family members.

PLANTS

Investigate Plants Outdoors.

When you explore plants outdoors with your child, she can observe plants in their natural environments and learn more about their characteristics and needs. Gather some drawing and writing materials and help your child choose some outdoor plants to investigate. Look at, feel and smell the stems, leaves, flowers, and other parts. How are the plants the same and different? Notice the area where the plants are growing. How dry or moist is the soil? How sunny or shady is it? What kinds of animals do you see or hear in the area? Encourage your child to draw one or two of the plants and where they are growing.

Talk About Plants’ Needs.

If you have a garden or a collection of houseplants, you have a ready-made opportunity to talk about the needs of plants with your child! Invite her to help you water the plants, remove dead blossoms or loosen up the soil. As you take care of the plants together, talk about what plants need, like water, sunlight, and space to live and grow. Ask questions like What else do you think plants need? And Do you think all plants need those things? What about trees? Listen to your child’s ideas and share your own. Talk about any plants that aren’t growing well. What do you think this plant needs? More water or less water? More sun or less sun?

Explore Fruits and Vegetables.

The produce section of the market is a wonderful place to introduce your child to the colors, sizes, shapes, and textures of the foods we eat that come from plants. Invite him to describe how some fruits and vegetables look, smell, and feel. Wonder together. Where do these foods come from? And talk about your ideas. Unless you live on a farm or have a vegetable garden, your child probably won't know that these foods come from plants.

Make predictions while planting bean seeds.

Planting seeds with your child allows him to witness how plants grow and develop. Putting dried lima beans in wet paper towels overnight will help them sprout faster. Help your kid fill three or four cups with dirt by poking little holes on the bottoms of the cups. Place a bean seed about 1 inch under the soil in each cup and wet it. Place the cups in a location where your child can water them daily. Sun will be required after the leaves develop. Encourage your child to predict their development and keep track of them. From the bean seed, what kind of plant will emerge? In five to 10 days, you should see a difference. Encourage your youngster to track the progress of the beans as they grow. When will the leaves begin to appear? How do they develop and evolve from one day to the next? When the plants outgrow the cups, move them outside or into bigger pots to grow. Put dowels or rods into the dirt and twine or twist ties around the plants. Read and discuss books like Anne Rockwell's One Bean and Cecil Kim's One Little Bean.

Record Plant Growth Over Time.

You and your child can witness how bean plants grow and develop into mature plants as you and your child care for them over time. You can also use a ruler or tape measure to track their progress. Every three to four days, assist your kid in measuring the height of her bean plants. Discuss how big the plant has gotten. Are the bean plants all growing in the same direction? Tape a piece of paper to the wall, and measure your child's height over time. Is she progressing at the same rate as the bean plants?

Compare Real and Artificial Plants.

Do you or another family member have plastic, cloth, or silk flowers as decorations? If so, you can help your child compare living and artificial plants and learn more about the characteristics of plants as living things. Look at and describe each plant with your child. How are they the same? Different? Encourage him to explore them with his senses of smell and touch. What is the same and different about how they smell and feel? Which plants are living or not living? How do you know? Listen to your child's ideas and share yours.

Explore a Tree and Its Residents.

Is there a tree in your yard, neighborhood, or local park that you particularly like? Observe and listen for bugs and other animals in, on, and near the tree. Discuss your findings with your child. Is there an animal in the tree? Is there anyone that flies around the tree? Crawling up the trunk of the tree? Discuss questions like "Why does the animal stay so close to the tree?" What role does the tree play in this? Read and discuss a book like Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree to learn more about how trees aid people and other creatures. What methods do people use to harvest food from trees? Staying cool in the shade of a tree? Is it possible to use tree wood?

Pick apples or pumpkins.

Visit an apple orchard, a pumpkin patch, or even a pick-your-own farm as a family to encourage your child's interest in where their food comes from. Try to make your child notice how different the plants are as you pick. Is there any similarity between the trees or plants, or can we perceive some differences? How do fruits from various plants resemble or differ from one another? Cook a delicious apple or pumpkin pie when you get back home!

Draw Plants.

Once your child has observed some plants or plant parts closely, invite her to draw one of them. Keep in mind that her drawing may not look like the plant — drawing from observation takes time and practice! By giving her opportunities to draw the plants she observes, you support her observation skills, recording skills, and physical skills all at the same time! Ask your child to describe her drawing and write down what she says. Encourage her to share and talk about it with other family members.

Read All About Plants.

You can use books to spark conversations with your child about plants. Take a trip to the library and check out these picture books with colorful illustrations of plants and families planting together, like Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert, The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin, Flower Garden, and The Sunflower House by Eve Bunting. Browse gardening books with large photos of different kinds of plants. How are these plants the same or different from the ones in our family's garden?

Five-year-olds like asking questions about the world and, with help, can conduct small investigations, report their discoveries and build theories about how and why. They can also draw and chart data to capture and represent information. They still learn via direct discovery and from books, films, and other people. Five-year-olds can use tools, including hand lenses, droppers, and measuring cups. In addition to science, many young children's projects include engineering. Science is about asking questions and researching answers, while engineering is about recognizing problems and researching solutions.

From the time they wake up in the morning until they go to bed at night, five-year-olds have numerous opportunities to do and study science. However, to take advantage of these opportunities, they will need your help. Nobody knows your child better than you. So, you are the ideal person to help your child do science every day!

The following algorithm helps you to work on scientific inquiry skills:

Object Investigation

• Look Closely and Notice: What can you find out if you look closely at it? What do you notice about this leaf's edge?
• Observe and Describe: Observe and describe size and shape.
• Wonder and Ask Questions: How does the texture of this leaf feel different from the other one?
• Explore and Investigate: How is the texture (color, smell) different from the other similar objects?
• Develop Hypotheses: What is inside the leaf bumps/ apple/ plant stem?
• Show and Explain: Your drawing shows that you noticed the veins' pattern.
• Reflect and Ask More Questions: What do scientists call plant parts?
• Imagine and Create: Create craft or art about the object of exploration.

DOING SCIENCE EVERY DAY

Make and Use a Science Notebook

Your child can draw and write about fascinating observations in a science notebook. You can make a journal yourself by stitching together 10-20 pieces of paper. Invite him to decorate the cover. Encourage him to depict a stormy day, a bug on the brunch, and snowflakes on the glass. Then assist him in writing out his thoughts. Notebooks are also helpful for tracking investigations over time. Make a chart to track the weather or the moon cycle over the number of nights. Encourage him to date his entries and share his notebook with relatives.

Make Predictions

Predictions are educated assumptions about what is likely to occur next. You may assist your kid make and test predictions every day. Begin each day by looking up at the sky. Do you expect rain today? Then confirm what happened. It poured a lot! Those storm clouds told a lot! Predict what will happen next when you read novels or watch movies together. Encourage your child to make predictions and explain them. Is it true that the red ball will roll farther than the blue? How do you know? Go find out!

Sort and categorize

Sort the leaves you collected by size, shape, and color during your walk. Ask him to sort clean knives, forks, and spoons or categorize his toys. Invite him to organize your button, screw, or penny collection. What are some different ways you could arrange the buttons? How about by color? Size? Shape? Design? How many holes?

Use Photos

When she finds caterpillars around her house, take a picture of them with your phone or camera and use them to start new research, “Let's research these caterpillars online!” Encourage your kid to share experiences and observations with others.

Listen to Your Child’s Science Ideas

Listen more and explain less while teaching science to kids. Where does lightning come from? and how do plants eat? Instead of giving a response or referring to a book or online, ask your child, What do you think? Ask questions to learn more and avoid correcting your child! These discussions help your child think critically and share her views, even if they are incorrect. Then you may arrange your future steps accordingly. What can we do to learn more?

Observe and Describe the World

Encourage your youngster to notice the landscape, trees, buildings, and animals from the car or bus window. Have you ever played I Spy? Each person describes what they see, and the other guesses what they see. A pair of magnifying glasses or hand lenses can help you and your child see fine details in plants and rocks. These are fantastic for bird watching or stargazing. Using all of your senses involves paying attention to how the world looks, hears, feels, smells, and tastes!

Get the Whole Family Involved

She can obtain information from different sources when the whole family is participating in her science explorations! Invite family members with careers, jobs, or interests connected to your child's passions. Planting seeds or bulbs with your kid? Ask a family gardener for gardening advice or a book with plant photographs for you and your child to look over. Do you collect shells, rocks, or other items? Ask a family collector how to organize and exhibit his collection.

PLANTS

Use a Science Notebook

A scientific journal is a place where your kid may draw and write about his plant discoveries. Sew 10-15 pieces of paper together and decorate the cover to create a simple science notebook. Tell him he can use the notebook to draw drawings of plants he finds and to write down questions, observations, and ideas about plants. Encourage him to use the journal and show it to other family members.

Investigate Plants Outdoors

Outdoor plant exploration allows your child to study plants in their natural habitat and learn about their traits and needs. Assist your child in selecting some outdoor plants to study. Examine the stems, leaves, flowers, and other parts. What makes the plants unique? Observe the plant growth area. Is the soil dry or wet? Is it sunny or shady? What creatures do you see or hear? Encourage your youngster to draw a plant or two and their location.

Take Care of a Houseplant

Your kid may love having a houseplant of her own to take care of. Consider growing one together from seed, giving her a plant for a particular occasion (nothing too pricey!) or asking a family gardener to donate one. Help her investigate the plant’s demands in a gardening book or on a website like Better Homes and Gardens’ Caring for Houseplants. Things to consider include: How much water will it need? Should it be in a bright sunny area or in a more protected spot? Does it prefer warmer or cooler temperatures? If you have another houseplant, ask her to compare the plants. How are the needs of the plants the same and different?

Plant Bean Seeds and Make Predictions

Activity for 5-year-olds but depending on your kid's readiness can be introduced at 4 or 6. Planting seeds with your child allows him to witness how plants grow.

• Bean seeds are easy to handle.
• They sprout quickly when soaked overnight in damp paper towels.
• Help your kid fill three or four tiny glasses with soil. Moisten a bean seed and push it into each cup.
• Have your child water them daily, and do not forget to keep the plant in a sunny area.
• Growth should occur in 5-10 days.

When you and your child watch the beans grow, encourage the child to make predictions.

• What will sprout from a bean seed?
• When do the leaves come out?
• How do they grow and change?

You can write down his answers to check if he was right.

Move them outside or into larger pots when they outgrow the cups.

Put dowels or stakes in the dirt and twine or twist ties around the plants.

• Try to get involved as little as possible. Give your child instructions on what to do and step back. Even if they damage the plant, it is also a lesson.
• Read and discuss relevant books that you can find. For example, is "One Bean" by Anne Rockwell and "One Little Bean" by Cecil Kim.
• Use your target language to talk to the child. Do not be afraid to introduce new and scientific vocabulary.
• Track how the plant changes in your science journal.
• Ask your child to draw each stage of the plant growth,
• Have your child measure the plant with the ruler

This activity targets:

• critical and logical thinking development
• understanding of the plant cycle in reality, not from pictures
• learning how to measure with a ruler
• writing down the numbers
• Tracking growth chart
• Expressive language development
• literacy
• Learning new vocabulary in all your languages
• I would suggest using both/3 of the languages at the same time, but if you are not comfortable with it, use one language at the time

Record Plant Growth Over Time

When you and your child care for plants, you can watch them grow into mature plants. You can also use a ruler or tape measure to track their growth. Every three or four days, help your youngster measure her bean plants. Mention the plant's growth. Do all the plants grow the same? Tape a strip of paper to the wall and track your child's growth. Is she as green as the plants?

Collect Seeds from Fruits.

It is a good idea to let your child pick out seeds from fruits like apples and peaches. You can also let them pick out seeds from watermelons and tomatoes and avocados and other fruits that your family eats as well. What fruits have the most seeds? Which has the least? So you know? Encourage your child to keep a journal of his observations regarding fruits and seeds. Encourage your youngster to plant some of the seeds to observe what happens. Here is how to plant tomato, pumpkin, and avocado seeds.

Plant Bean Seeds in Water

Try sprouting dry beans or peas without soil and seeing the roots and stems grow! Five or six sheets of paper towel folded in half and rolled tightly into a cup of clear plastic. Four or five bean seeds should be placed halfway down between the towel and the cup. Pour 1-2 inches of water into the cup, so the towel is wet but no extra water remains at the bottom. Keep the towel damp and keep an eye on the seeds. What comes first? Second? Third? Was it unexpected? Or not? Watch and discuss the time-lapse video of kidney bean sprouting for more information.

Collect Seeds from Fruits.

It is a good idea to let your child pick out seeds from fruits like apples and peaches. You can also let them pick out seeds from watermelons and tomatoes and avocados and other fruits that your family eats as well. What fruits have the most seeds? Which has the least? So you know? Encourage your child to keep a journal of his observations regarding fruits and seeds. Encourage your youngster to plant some of the seeds to observe what happens. Here is how to plant tomato, pumpkin, and avocado seeds.

Investigate a Tree and Its Inhabitants

Is there a tree in your yard, neighborhood, or local park that you particularly like? Examine the tree for insects, birds, squirrels, and other animals. Discuss your findings with your kid. Is an animal climbing in the tree? Flying around the tree? Crawling on the tree? Discuss why the animal stays so close to the tree. the tree's assistance Discuss how trees aid people and other creatures by reading a book like Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree. How can trees produce food? What about shade? Use tree wood?

Plant Bean Seeds in Water

Grow Plants From Leftovers. Help your kid learn about plant growth by growing leftover lettuce and carrots! Place the bottom of a romaine bunch — the portion you normally discard — in a shallow container of water. Keep it in a bright place and refill it daily. Wait 5–7 days for it to sprout. Or chop the top off a carrot and put it in a saucer of water. This plant won't produce carrots, but it will produce lush greens! Learn how to grow plants from leftovers.

Go Apple or Pumpkin Picking.

A family field trip to an apple orchard, pumpkin patch, or pick-your-own farm can help your kid learn about food production. Encourage your youngster to look for differences in plants. How similar or different are the trees or plants? How do fruits from various plants seem alike or different? Bake an apple pie or toast pumpkin seeds!

Read All About Plants.

Books can help you and your child talk about plants. Visit your local library and check out Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert, The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin, and Flower Garden and The Sunflower House by Eve Bunting. Examine gardening books with large plant photographs. Describe how these plants compare to those in our home garden.

ANIMALS

Kids are fascinated by life. The way animals move, communicate, and interact fascinates them. Humans are, after all, animals too. Kids may learn it while exploring animals! Local wildlife will vary based on where you live. Your backyard fauna may surprise you. While outside with your child, you will see critters seeking food and shelter. Inspect livestock or pets. They help your child understand that animals, like people, have needs and life cycles that are satisfied. Typically, five-year-olds can describe animal features and behavior. They will chuckle if informed that people are animals! They may know that young animals resemble their parents. How their parents and others treat animals. Fear of dogs or worms may cause comparable reactions in your youngster. Except for biting dogs and stinging insects, most of the animals your youngster may study are harmless. You are the best person to teach your child to safely explore animals.

Observe How Animals Use Their Bodies.

By paying attention to how an animal uses its body parts, you may help your child think about how animals meet their needs. Observe the wings, beaks, and feet of ducks at a local pond. How do those parts look? What are their dimensions? As you watch the ducks, discuss how they fly, clean themselves, eat, walk, and swim. Encourage her to consider her own body. How are your hands? How do you use them to play ball, eat and drink and brush your teeth?

Investigate Small Critters and Their Environments

Observing worms, snails, pillbugs, and ants can help your child consider how creatures get food, water, and other necessities in their surroundings. Find animals in the ground, rocks, plants, sidewalk cracks, and trees. When you find one, describe its appearance, behavior, and location. What does it eat? How is it kept warm and dry? Do you think worms can live in dirt? So, why? Observe or read about other animals that live in diverse areas. Why do you think a rabbit should live in a meadow? Why does a frog like ponds?

Take Care of Pets’ Needs

Pets like dogs, cats, guinea pigs, fish, and other animals provide fantastic chances to teach children about animal needs. Ask your kid to help you plan your pet's care. How often should we feed, hydrate, exercise, play, and clean our pet's kennel or tank? Visit a pet store to see different pets and products for their maintenance. Needs of all pets What sets them apart? Then have your child create his own “how-to” pet book on your family pet.

Look for Animal Tracks

Even if you do not see any animals, your child can discover evidence of their presence. Look for animal footprints, flattened grass, or overturned trash cans. Examine a tree closely. Find any holes in the leaves, a nut stash, or broken shells nearby? Ask your child, "What sort of animal was here?" ...and why do we think it was? Books about animal trails include Mia Posada's Who Was Here? Which tracks do we recognize?

Explore Animal Feet

Young children have a natural curiosity about their own bodies as well as the bodies of other creatures. Photograph familiar animal feet or discover animal foot images online. How do squirrel, robin, and cat feet look? What are their dimensions? Who uses them? Consider what would happen if your child traded feet with another animal. How would a robin walk, jump, and run? Can you fly and perch on a limb with your feet?

Make a Simple Bird Feeder

Make a simple hanging feeder with your child to let her observe backyard birds. Be sure to discuss about the birds that come to the feeder. What kind of birds frequent the feeder? Can you keep track of the birds at the feeder? Examine the importance of feeding the birds, especially during the winter months when food is scarce. Look for books like Cathryn and John Sill's About Birds and Mel Boring's Birds, Nests, and Eggs.

Look at Baby Pictures

Looking at infant images helps kids reflect on their own growth and development. Use your child's baby images to discuss her growth. Ask questions like, What can you do now that you couldn't before? Expose your child to images of you and your family as infants, kids, and teenagers She will like hearing about your life phases.

Talk About Animals Born Alive or Hatched

Has your child seen a baby animal hatch? You can help him consider how animals begin their lives. What animals hatch from eggs and what animals are born? Watch a PBS movie about animal newborns or read Ruth Heller's Animals Born Alive and Well and discuss it. You and your child may be astonished at the variety of animals that hatch from eggs!

Think About Animal Homes

Discuss with your child the houses of pets, farm animals, and wild animals you see in your region. Do you know where that animal lives? and where do you believe it lives? Read books like Mary Ann Hoberman's A House Is a House for Me. What makes each animal's house wonderful for its occupant? Make your child draw her own home. Why is your house a good fit?

Create a Critter Observation Kit

Assist your child in setting up a temporary worm or pillbug home in a wide-mouthed jar or transparent plastic container with a tight-fitting lid. Gather dirt, sand, small plants, grass, or dead leaves from the animals' outdoor area with a spoon or spade. Then collect two or three critters and return them later. Talk about their appearance and movement. What do you see? Is there a pattern? How do the insects dig, crawl, climb, or jump? Give your child a little hand lens or magnifying glass to look closer. Are there any parts you can't see?

Create a Habitat for Garden Snails.

Make an indoor garden snail habitat for your kid to study an animal over time. Garden snails live in wet, cold, shady areas under decaying leaves and inside leafy plants. Keeping and observing them is simple. Discuss what body components you can observe as you watch the snails. Who uses them? and how do those parts assist them to obtain food and go around? Solicit drawings and writings from your child. Among the best garden snail books are The Snail's Spell by Joanne Ryder and Are You a Snail? by Judy Allen. What if we were snails? What to eat? What would we do? Keeping us safe?

Observe Baby Animals

Your child can see baby animals at a farm, zoo, or nature center. In what ways are baby animals similar to their parents? What sets them apart? How do they care for them? Encourage your child to draw her own family when you get home. How are we related? How are we unique? What do we do for each other? Discuss any babies in your family. What does our baby need and how do we care for him? How does our baby communicate?

Read All About Animals

Young children appreciate reading stories about animals, especially those they have seen up close. Find nonfiction books about pets, farm animals, and wild animals, including little critters, in the children's department of the library. Make connections between the animals in the books and creatures you've seen together. How are the insects in the book like the ones we studied? Which animals have we seen in the wild, pet stores, farms, or zoos? What do you recall most? You can also use fiction to talk about animal qualities, actions, and needs with your child. Check out Ezra Jack Keats' Pet Show and Margie Palatini's The Perfect Pet.

EARTH AND SKY

Nature and the outdoors naturally fascinate young children. They enjoy exploring the earth's components — sand, mud, water, and rocks — and the sky during the day and night. Five-year-olds can compare various natural materials' colors, sizes, forms, textures, and weights. They are becoming more aware of daily and seasonal changes and enjoy making and using equipment to measure and record the weather. They also learn that "reduce, reuse, and recycle" activities can positively impact the environment. What you and your child investigate will depend on your location and the season. Discuss your five-year discoveries, old's experiences, and thoughts as you explore the ground and sky together. Your youngster will learn to value their earth and sky discoveries when you encourage them. If your five-year-old is interested in water, the sky, or weather, remember to follow their lead! These experiences help your child learn about the earth's resources, its role as a home for all living things, and its significance in the larger universe. Remember that storms, especially thunder and lightning, can scare young children. If your child is like this, read these parenting tips.

Become a Rock Collector

Rocks are common and fun to collect, compare, and sort. Explore the variety of rocks in your yard, neighborhood, and other locations with your child. Describe and sort the rocks by size and shape. Smooth? Sharp thorns? What colors, patterns, or designs do they have? Weigh the rocks on a kitchen scale if you have one. Help your kid draw the rocks and write about where and when they were found. Make a guessing game. Lay down a few rocks on a table and take turns describing one without naming it while the other tries to guess.

Investigate Water Puddles and Streams

With a water spray bottle, you and your child may test the effects of water on various outdoor surfaces. Encourage your child to squirt water on sand, dirt, leaves, rocks, pavement, etc. Where does water puddle? Where does it float or sink? After a rainstorm, search for streams or puddles. Explain why you think water rushes away from or collects in certain regions.

Make Sandcastles

Family beach activity: sandcastle building. It also allows your kid to experiment with how water affects his sand sculptures. Next time, take buckets and shovels to the beach or lake and construct sandcastles with your kid. What happens when a wave hits or you pour water on your sandcastle? Bring a spray bottle or an eyedropper. What happens if you water your sandcastle?

Investigate Temperature

With this outdoor tube thermometer, your child may learn about temperature and the methods used to measure it. What happens to the thermometer's liquid in hot weather? What about in the winter? Place the thermometer in various outside locations. What happens to the thermometer liquid? So what? Encourage your youngster to investigate dial and digital thermometers. How are they used?

Make a Streamer to Observe the Wind

Make a wind streamer with your child to examine wind speed and direction. Bring a 3- to 4-foot ribbon and a long stick outside on a windy day. What can the ribbon tell us about the wind? Which way is the wind blowing? Add several types of ribbon, cloth strips, or feathers to the streamer. How is the streamer moving now? Make a permanent windsock out of recycled plastic bags and hang it outside.

Make Sandcastles

Family beach activity: sandcastle building. It also allows your kid to experiment with how water affects his sand sculptures. Next time, take buckets and shovels to the beach or lake and construct sandcastles with your kid. What happens when a wave hits or you pour water on your sandcastle? Bring a spray bottle or an eyedropper. What happens if you water your sandcastle?

Enjoy Cloud-Watching

On sunny and rainy days, spend time with your child observing and describing the clouds' colors, sizes, shapes, and locations in the sky. How much sky do they occupy? How high or low? Have fun predicting the weather depending on the clouds you observe! How well did you predict? Look for shapes of things and animals in the clouds.

Observe the Night Sky

Spend a few minutes each night with your child gazing up at the night sky. Discuss what you notice. What color are the stars? Note the moon's features. Describe any night-to-night variations. How are the stars alike/different? How does the moon change? Encourage your youngster to draw the night sky.

Turn Trash Into Treasure

Reusing objects that would otherwise be thrown away is one approach to teaching your child about environmental protection. Invite him to help you repurpose ordinary garbage things. Make a collage with old bottle caps. Made of old hangers and tin cans? Make a toy boat with a huge plastic bottle, sponges, straws, and old envelopes. Take some garbage or recyclables, wash them, and see what your child can create!

Read About Clouds.

Visit the library to find books featuring photos of the sky and clouds to discuss with your child. To discuss clouds with your child, read John A. Day's The Book of Clouds. How are these clouds similar/different from those seen?

PROPERTIES

Young children observe the world with all their senses. They study the colors, forms, weights, and textures of items (trees, pebbles, toys) (like water, sand, wood, and plastic). Five-year-olds are increasingly aware of material qualities — wood and ice are hard, while cotton is fluffy and soft — and their utility for various purposes. They start to distinguish between natural materials (sand and wood) and man-made materials (glass and plastic). Five-year-olds enjoy studying cause-and-effect relationships, mixing ingredients, and helping with cooking. You encourage their curiosity and critical thinking by giving your five-year-old a wide range of things and materials to study. Engineers think like builders and problem solvers. Discuss your five-year-thoughts old's and opinions while you tour properties. Mention rigid/flexible and wide/narrow, as well as action phrases like investigating and classifying. Keep sketching and writing supplies handy so kids can jot down their thoughts. Follow your five-year-hobbies old's (creating with different materials, exploring color and design, or going outside)!

Sort Clothes By Different Properties

Organizing her clothes before putting them away together can help her learn about properties. Discuss how she now sorts her clothes and how she would like to arrange them. Will she sort by style? Color? By grit? Or by another trait? Invite your kid to sort her books or toys. Explain your sorting method. Will that manner of sorting help or hinder your search? What makes you think so?

Discover the Properties of Goop

Goop is an intriguing material since it is both a solid and a liquid (takes the shape of its container). Ask your youngster to mix 1 cup cornstarch and 12 cup water in a jar with their hands and a spoon. How does the blend look and feel? If you pick it up, it drops and flows! Encourage your youngster to add extra cornstarch or water to the concoction. Changes the consistency of the mixture?

Build With Recycled Materials

Empty plastic and foam packaging and containers, paper cups, and other recyclables can help your kid learn about qualities while creating. Give him supplies and tape, and suggest projects. Discuss how the cardboard, plastic, and foam pieces aid (or hinder!) his construction. How about additional materials? Read and discuss Christy Hale's Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building, about a youngster who recreates historic buildings using blocks.

Investigate How Tools Are Made and Used

Does your child enjoy helping with chores and using adult tools? You can enlist her help while teaching her about object attributes! Show your toddler how to peel vegetables and fruits using a simple peeler. The job requires a peeler. Show her how to safely use hammers, screwdrivers, and other tools while you supervise. What do you suppose distinguishes a hammer from a screwdriver? What additional tools do we have around the house?

Explore Building Materials

Do your kids like to build? Provide her with a variety of construction blocks (wood, plastic, foam) or other materials (wood scraps, cardboard boxes, foam cushions) to experiment with at home. You can also learn about building materials by looking at local houses, farms, offices, and bridges. What are their materials? Where do you see concrete, brick, wood, vinyl, or glass? Take photos of the structures to learn more. Invite your youngster to recreate one of these at home using her own resources.

Explore Indoor and Outdoor Smells

Encourage your child to explore properties and use her sense of smell. Invite your kid to go on a “smelling hunt” indoors and outdoors with little plastic containers (yogurt containers work nicely). Persuade her to gather fragrant goods such as fruit, soap, spices and leaves. What does each smell like? How do indoor and outdoor scents compare? Make two containers of each odor, label the bottoms, and challenge family members to discover the matching pairs by smelling.

Explore Colors on Signs

Draw your child's attention to the colors on traffic signals, signage, and vehicle lights. RED, YELLOW AND GREEN Any orange, blue or white? Discuss why stoplights and stop signs are red. What else is red? Give him drawing tools, safety scissors, and tape to do this at home. Help him make his own play signs. Inquire about the stop, go, and slow down colors. What more signs do you want to make and in what colors?

Talk About Trucks and Other Vehicles

Is your child fascinated with garbage, trailer, or fire trucks? Explore trucks to help him think about properties. When you see a fire vehicle, ask yourself, "Why is there a big ladder on top?" And what are the hoses for? When you notice a trailer truck, inquire why it has so many wheels. When passing a building site, comment on the trucks. Which ones dig? Big loads? How to tell? Examine and discuss Nicholas Harris' A Year at a Construction Site.

Bake Brownies to Learn About How Materials Change.

Invite your youngster to help you measure and mix ingredients for brownies, cookies, or cakes. Distinguish the changes in the ingredients as he mixes. How does the final blend appear, feel, and taste? Is it thick? Does it pour from the bowl or must you spoon it? When it's done, ask What has changed since we baked it? What else can we bake by mixing ingredients?

Read About Properties

You and your child can use books to spark conversations and new explorations. Look for books at the library that appeal to your child's interest in properties. Books like April Jones Prince's What Do Wheels Do All Day? can inspire us to look find circles and other forms in the world. Gail Gibbons' How a House Is Built and The Toolbox are fantastic reference books with tons of topic-specific information and language. You can utilize books to encourage your child's interest in science and engineering. Architect Iggy Peck, Engineer Rosie Revere, and Scientist Ada Twist are all by Andrea Beatty.

PUSHES AND PULLS

Young children like moving their bodies, moving items, and observing motion. Forces work on objects, materials, and living beings to move, halt, speed up, slow down, change direction, or change shape. Forces are applied or natural. On ramps, for example, five-year-olds experiment with changing object motion and forecast how fast or far their balls would roll. They think of ways to regulate or influence the velocity of balls, balloons, water, and other objects. By allowing your child to experience pushes and pulls in a safe environment, you foster critical thinking. As you assist kids design, building, and creating structures for motion exploration, you also help them solve problems and think like engineers. Talk to your youngster about their experiences as you study pushes and pulls. Incorporate words like "strong," "steady," "balanced," "collide," and "directed" into their vocabulary. Remember to follow your child's lead!

Explore Friction on Different Surfaces

Play with friction by rolling balls on smooth and rough surfaces. Gather some balls and a small rug or doormat for a rough surface. Build a ramp from wood, cardboard, or a thick book on blocks or a chair. Roll the balls down the ramp, first smooth, then rough. How do balls stop on different surfaces? What does the ball type mean?

Use a Helium Balloon to Make Objects Fly.

Do you ever buy helium balloons for family celebrations? After the celebration, use the balloons to examine pushes and pulls! Tie a toy figure, a brick, a pebble, or other small objects to each balloon string. Then why are the balloons drooping? Whose balloons lift? Help your child draw and write about her observations, and discuss why some objects drew the balloons down, while others were raised by them.

Flip a Marshmallow

Use a ruler, a rock, or other solid items, and something soft like a marshmallow to study motion and levers. Place the marshmallow on one end of the seesaw-like ruler. Grasp the ruler's opposite end. What becomes the s'more? How far is it? Repeal the distance. How can it go further? Experiment by bouncing the ruler on the rock. Which posture makes the marshmallow fly? Make her draw and write about her discoveries. A book about an elephant and a mouse trying to seesaw together by Ann Tompert. How is the seesaw like the marshmallow lever?

Go Bowling

What is your family's favorite game? Regardless of the size of the bowling ball, your youngster will learn about pushes and pulls. Observe how the pins fall when hit by the ball. What does the ball's speed mean? What about the angle of impact? Discuss how the balls' weight affects the game. Why is a bowling ball so big? What if we played bowling with tennis balls?

Explore Friction on Different Surfaces

Sled and Roll Down Hills. Snow sledding is a fantastic way to explore motion with your child! We slid down a snowy slope. How did we do? Where did we go the fastest? Try sliding on cardboard, plastic bags, and metal or plastic saucers. Which one propels us forward? So what? Check out Kim Norman's Ten on the Sled for some fantastic movement terminology like swirled, flipped, jumbled, and bailed. If there is no snow, roll down a hill with your youngster. Once you've reached the bottom, reflect. Could you feel your body accelerating?

Take a Neighborhood Building Walk

A neighborhood walk is a fantastic time to discuss about the structures you see and what makes them sturdy and solid. Encourage your youngster to examine the materials and construction of the structures. Have you ever studied a brick wall or a brick building's side? Observe how the bricks are staggered for stability! Take photos of intriguing buildings to discuss when you get home. Build a house, castle, barn or other structure with your child using blocks and other objects like plastic cups, cardboard tubes, and shoe boxes. What did you do to reinforce your structure?

Build a Fairy House

Building fairy houses with natural things is a fun approach to exploring stability and balance while encouraging your child's imagination! Build a house outside with rocks of various sizes and shapes, sticks, seeds, nuts, cones, and other plant components. How can you balance the rocks? What design makes a solid and stable miniature house? Create pebble paths and twig fences. Then wait for the fairies!

Read About Building

Look for books at the library that appeal to your child's interests in constructing. The topic-specific terminology and material in books like How a House is Built by Gail Gibbons and A Year at a Construction Site by Nicholas Harris. Use them to start talks with your child and let him decide how much to read. Andrea Beaty's Iggy Peck, Architect and Rosie Revere, Engineer will help your youngster develop positive engineering attitudes.

LIGHT AND SOUND

Young children are fascinated by the sights and sounds of the world around them. Light and sound cannot be touched, smelled, or tasted, but children can examine their characteristics. When young children feel the sun's warmth on their skin and see the colors, shadows, reflections, and rainbows that are formed as light interacts with the world around them, they are experiencing the qualities of light. They are aware of sound qualities when they hear it and feel its vibrations with their ears. Introduce new vocabulary like vibrant, vivid, clear, dull, and dim to assist children in communicating what they're doing.

Five-year-olds can now explore light and sound. Like changing the light source to change an object's shadow or building tools to examine different sounds. They know that mixing colors create new hues and tints, but they are eager to learn more. Talk about your child's experiences with light and sound. Create a vocabulary of words that help children describe what they are doing, noticing, and thinking. Young children can be scared by loud noises, dark areas, and shadows. Your sponsorship will encourage them to explore. Remember to follow your child's lead!

Look for Reflections

Look for your reflection on different surfaces when you are out with your youngster. Are we visible in mirrors, brick buildings, elevator doors, store windows, or puddles? Describe where and how you perceive reflections. Which reflections are more visible? So what? Scan the house for reflections. Do you see yourself in the fridge, window, or toaster? When is it easiest to see your reflection? Look for your reflection in a metal soup spoon. Did you get a shock?

Make Different Shades of Color With Paint

Use tempera paints and brushes from a department or craft store to explore light and dark hues. Put a large dab of red, yellow, or blue in the center of a large white piece of paper, with white and black dabs on either side. How to make lighter and darker colors? How much white do we need? Maybe more black? Add a second color if you dare. What happens when we combine red, blue, and black? White? Make your own color wheel. Make a little sample of each color on white paper. Give each color a descriptive name, such honeydew green or sunset orange.

Trace Your Shadows

When you trace your shadows with your child, she can observe its features. Invite her to trace your shadow on a beautiful morning. Describe your shadows' colors, forms, and sizes. How are they like us and different? What distinguishes them? What's missing? Stand in the same position in the afternoon to check your shadows. How have our shadows evolved? What do you think about why? How has the sun shifted?

Make a Kazoo

Make a simple kazoo with your child using toilet paper or paper towel tubes, waxed paper, and elastics. Secure a small piece of waxed paper tightly over one end of the tube using an elastic and poke a small hole in the waxed paper. Then make sounds through the open end of the tube. How do our voices sound? Touch the waxed paper as you make sounds. What do you feel? Experiment with poking more small holes in the waxed paper, making loud/soft and high/low sounds or holding the tube closer to and farther from your mouth. How can you make the best kazoo sound?

View Reflections With a Mirror

Explore reflections using a hand-held mirror. Begin by looking at yourself in the mirror! Then move the mirror around. What becomes of our reflections? Closer and farther away the mirror. How do our reflections evolve? How do they remain the same? Try to capture the reflections of other things in the room. Were they able to see us? Show your child how your car's rearview and sideview mirrors help you notice traffic behind you.

Trace Your Shadows

When you trace your shadows with your child, she can observe its features. Invite her to trace your shadow on a beautiful morning. Describe your shadows' colors, forms, and sizes. How are they like us and different? What distinguishes them? What's missing? Stand in the same position in the afternoon to check your shadows. How have our shadows evolved? What do you think about why? How has the sun shifted?

Investigate Shadows with Flashlights

Make Sound Shakers. Make sound shakers with paper clips, coins, buttons, marbles, cotton balls, rice, acorns, leaves, maple tree seeds, pebbles, or sand to explore volume and timbre. Shake the things in various containers! How do you hear? Can you hear them? How can you change the volume? Make matching shakers and challenge family members to find them.

Investigate Shadows with Flashlights

Collect two flashlights and a variety of objects such as little toys, cooking tools, and other everyday goods. Turn off the lights and go! What casts shadows? And what happens to the shadows as you move the beam away? What if you shine the flashlight from different angles? Let us know how and why the shadows vary. Can you make the shadows “dance” by moving the light quickly? Encourage your child to observe and draw.

Make Rubber Band Instruments

Collect various sized rubber bands and empty plastic containers, shoeboxes, or baking pans to enable your child study vibration, volume, and pitch. Stretch numerous rubber bands of varying diameters and thicknesses around each container and start picking! What is vibration to you? Experiment with louder, softer, higher, and lower sounds. How do you make loud/soft sounds? Which rubber bands sound better? If you can't make a fancy guitar, ask a family member who does. How do you make your instrument louder/softer/higher/lower?

Hunt for the Source of That Sound!

While out and about with your kid, you might discuss the origins of certain noises. Bring her attention to distant sounds like emergency cars, lawnmowers, and birds. Dare we try to decipher the noise? Describe the volume and direction of the sound. Is the fire truck close or far? What makes you think so? Describe the sound changes. Do you see it getting closer? How to tell? Emergency vehicles make unique noises. Why do you believe it's vital that those cars sound different?

Read About Light and Sound

Oscar and the Moth, a Book about Light and Dark, and Oscar and the Bat, a Book about Sound are two novels by Geoff Waring about a curious cat who wants to learn more about light and sound. Light and Sound by Dr. Mike Goldsmith is a great resource for more light and sound studies.