My son is a big fan of doing science activities. His favorite at the moment is observing different things.
Since this week is all about the ocean, I thought observing seashells would be perfect for him.
Materials:
- observation sheet
- shells (You can purchase them at craft stores.)
- crayons or markers
Directions:
- Before digging into the observation activity I let the boy explore the shells. He spent a good 10 minutes just looking at them. While he looked, we talk about how different animals live in shells and that shells help protect their bodies.
- Then we decided to sort them by similarity. I love how he referred to the ones pictured below as tornado shells. I thought that was pretty clever.
- Finally, after he seemed to have his fill, I asked him to pick just one shell that he wanted to observe more closely. We basically just went down the worksheet together. (He had a tough time deciding on the shell color – orange or yellow. So, I told him he could color it both colors.)
| Special Note: When observing the shell’s texture I tried to use clip art that your child could relate to and that would be around everyone’s house. I used a mirror to represent smooth and a cheese grater to represent rough. So, if you child doesn’t know the term smooth have him/her touch a mirror and say, “This is smooth.” Do the same with the cheese grater. Then have him/her touch their shell and compare it to both objects. You can then ask your child, “Is your shell smooth like the mirror or rough/bumpy like the cheese grater?” |
And that was it. The boy really enjoyed himself and I was glad to bring a touch of the beach to him. Especially since the last time he visited the beach he was 6 months old.
Pictures and printables are nice, but when it’s possible the real thing is so much better!
It was nice to see kids that are interested with science its just like they’re gonna be the next scientist or inventor or something. That was indeed clever idea, it’s great that you have examples for teaching things that kids do not know.