Elementary Science
Young children learn science best by living and exploring the world around them. Come and get some great resources, tips, and ideas for teaching elementary-aged children science and discovery.
Elementary Science Teaching Tips & Ideas
How I Teach a Large Family in a Relaxed, Classical Way: Science
Family style learning is a great way to tackle lots of different subjects, including science.
Things to See & Do in South Carolina
South Carolina Aquarium
The South Carolina Aquarium is located in Charleston and features thousands of aquatic animals from river otters and sharks to leggerhead turtles in over 60 exhibits, which represent the rich biodiversity of South Carolina from the mountains to the sea, housed in a 93,000 square foot building.
Riverbanks Zoo & Garden
Riverbanks Zoological Park & Botanical Garden in Columbia, offers more than 2,000 animals housed in natural habitat exhibits that use psychological barriers such as moats, water, and light to create an environment free of bars and cages for animals. A seventy-acre Botanical Garden provides visitors with an opportunity to experience both native and exotic plant exhibits.
Ripley's™ Aquarium
Ripley's™ Aquarium is a 87,000 square foot aquarium located in Myrtle Beach. Visitors are surrounded an all sides by menacing 10 foot sharks as they travel through Dangerous Reef, a 750,000 gallon tank, on the world's longest (330-foot) moving glidepath. Other features include Ray Bay, highlighting a variety of rays from multiple viewing levels and Friendship Flats, where guests touch Atlantic and Southern Cow-Nose Rays and Bonnet-Head sharks. Rainbow Rock offers a view of thousands of brilliantly colored Pacific fishes from Hawaii, Australia and the Indian Ocean through an acrylic window the size of two movie screens. The freshwater Rio Amazon exhibit showcases piranha and other exotic species unique to the Amazon rain forest. A collection of delicate undersea life such as Pacific Giant Octopus, sea anemones, living corals, jellies, weedy sea dragons, sea horses and pipefish are featured as art in The Living Gallery. The Schooling Fish Tank, a 10- foot cylindrical exhibit, is home to a unique collection of beautiful lookdowns.
Guests experience the thrill of holding horseshoe crabs at The Sea-For-Yourself Discovery Center, an interactive, multi-media playground and educational resource center that fascinates children and adults of all ages. Dive shows and marine education classes are presented hourly.
Brookgreen Gardens
Brookgreen Gardens, a nature preserve in Pawleys Island, offers daily programs and tours. The thousands of acres in Brookgreen's Lowcountry History and Wildlife Preserve are rich with evidence of the great rice plantations of the 1800's as well as with the native plants and animals of the distinctive landscaptes of the Lowcountry. Also features a Sculpture Garden.
Greenville Zoo
Learn about the world of animals at the Greenville Zoo. Explore animal exhibits and take in some of the educational programs.
Elementary Science Activities & Experiments
Arbor Day National Poster Contest
Join over 74,000 fifth grade classrooms and home schools across America in the Arbor Day National Poster Contest. The theme chosen will increase your students’ knowledge of how trees produce and conserve energy. The free Activity Guide includes activities to use with fifth grade students to teach the importance of trees in producing and conserving energy. These activities correlate with National Science and Social Study Standards. The Guide also includes all of the information you need for poster contest participation.
ExploraVision
ExploraVision is a competition for all students in grades K-12 attending a school in the U.S., Canada, U.S. Territory or a Department of Defense school. Homeschooled students are eligible to enter. It is designed to encourage students to combine their imagination with their knowledge of science and technology to explore visions of the future. Teams of students select a technology, research how it works and why it was invented, and then project how that technology may change in the future. They must then identify what breakthroughs are required for their vision to become a reality and describe the positive and negative consequences of their technology on society. Winning ideas have focused on things as simple as ballpoint pens and as complex as satellite communications. The student teams write a paper and draw a series of Web page graphics to describe their idea. Regional winners make a Web site and a prototype of their future vision.
Elementary Science Curriculum
Christian Kids Explore Chemistry
These user-friendly, unabashedly Christian, one-year science curriculums for elementary students include teaching lessons, coloring pages, hands-on time, memorization lists, review sheets, creative writing assignments, and a supplemental book list. The Chemistry text is intended for grades 4-8, and includes such hands-on activities as making model atoms, breaking covalent bonds, and making gas expand. It also lists chemistry terms, notations, and rules. The conversational style gives students the basic information they need, making this an ideal first course in life science, especially useful for those following a classical approach.
Featured Resources
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Montessori Method
This book is Montessori's own exposition of the theory behind her innovative educational techniques. She shows parents, teachers and administrators how to "free a child to learn through his own efforts".
Climb Inside a Poem for Children Big Book of Poems
The poetry anthology, Climb Inside a Poem: Original Poems for Children, uses the writings of contemporary children's poets, whimsical illustrations, and an expansive big book format (14"x 18") to create a 36-page poetry playground. The children's poems crafted expressly for this collection are written by acclaimed children's authors.
A Charlotte Mason Education: A Home Schooling How-To Manual
The immensely popular ideas of Charlotte Mason have inspired educators for many decades. Her unique methodology as written about in her six-volume series established the necessary protocols for an education above and beyond that which can be found in traditional classroom settings. In A Charlotte Mason Education, Catherine Levison has collected the key points of Charlotte Mason's methods and presents them in a simple, straightforward way that will allow families to quickly maximize the opportuni...
Black Children : Social, Educational, and Parental Environments
Black Children, Second Edition collects current empirical research unique to the experiences and situations of black children and their parents. As the editor emphasizes, "African American children develop a duality for their existence. To be fully functional, they must develop the skills to do well simultaneously in two different cultures, both black and non-black." This volume explores the meaning of this duality in four distinct environments: socioeconomic, parental, internal, and educational...
Minds More Awake: The Vison of Charlotte Mason
Anne E. White explores what is known as the Charlotte Mason, based on the educational philosophy of the 19th century British educator. The goal is to set a child on the path to an intentional, purposeful life. White explores both the practical and philosophical understanding the Mason's practices. White includes lots of examples of how to use these ideas in your own homeschooling.