AlfrescoLearning

 Start by collecting lots of different leaves from youroutdoor area with the children. If your area is sparse,use as an excuse for you to go on a nature walk oneevening. Use a leaf ID app - we used British Trees app fromThe Woodland Trust (it's FREE!) so you can identifyyour leaves.Imprint the leaves in salt dough and dry them outslowly in the oven for a lasting piece of artwork.

Plant ID

Once dry, you could also use them as a prompt forasking scientific questions, a chance to develop languagethrough careful observation or as the basis of a patternseeking enquiry based on plants and leaf structure.

Go on a word hunt around your outdoor space! Give out word cards and children need to bring objectsback, or you could even hide the word cards too so thechildren have an added bit of fun trying to find them! We use this game for  Science, it's great for securingchildren's understanding of new vocabulary.But you could use it for anything, including finding thingsto represent calculations, as well as using language toprompt creativity.

Go on a flower hunt in your outdoor area.Ask children to use their finger to make a single cutdown the side of their flower, they can use a magnifyingglass to closely observe what they notice. Great formixed age ranges as older children can explain whatthey see to younger children.This activity prompts lots of curiosity and questions thatpromote opportunities for language development. You could also use your magnifying glass to go on aplant hunt in your outdoor space, or a minibeast hunt.Pooter pots are great fun for this!

Science Teaching Tips

AlfrescoLearning

Investigate floating and sinking with lots of differentnatural materials. All you need is a box, water andnature to make the most of this acitvity. You can extend it to challenge children to make raftsmade from nature to float on the water.

Worm hunt!Have many string worms can you find in this photo? This is a great activity that makes lots of links to theScience curriculum in a fun way. It involves usingdifferent coloured wool or string and hiding it in youroutdoor space. Hide them all around and at differentheights and get the children to find them. Then have alook to see if there is a pattern to which colours werefound first! This activity can link to camouflage in Scienceas well as increasing concentration skills and payingattention to detail.

Food ChainsBring some meaning to this science objective byinvestigating the possible food chains happening in yourown outdoor space!Here we found some rhubarb growing with somesuspicious looking holes in the leaves. We came to theconclusion it was likely from snails; as we found anempty snail shell nearby. This was all located under ahedge so we suspect it was likely a hedgehog that atethe snail! We've used salt dough and natural items from theoutdoor space we were investigating, to represent ourfindings. Then we used post-it notes to display ourunderstanding & terminology.

Science Teaching Tips