r/ScienceTeachers • u/unusualusually • 4d ago

Self-Post - Support &/or Advice Tips- Private science lessons

I’ve started doing private science lessons with a first grader, and we’ve had two sessions so far. For our first session, we took a nature walk, did a scavenger hunt, and I just followed his questions to get a sense of his interests. Turns out he’s enthusiastic about pretty much EVERYTHING science-related lol For our second session, we visited the Science Center and had the best time.

We meet for two hours every other week, and I’d love to mix in some hands-on experiments and projects we can do at home. I have plenty of outing ideas, but I’d like some options for rainy days and days when we stay in.

I could, of course check the internet, but I want to hear from you all, too. What are your favorite simple but exciting experiments for this age? Ideally, I’m looking for activities with easy to find materials and minimal prep that leave room for him to ask questions, explore, and try things out. They don’t need to fill the whole two hours, we can combine a few activities!

I’d love to hear any tried-and-true favorites from other science teachers!

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u/missmarple78 4d ago

https://pandiapress.com/pages/real-science-odyssey-1

Real Science Odyssey is a secular homeschool curriculum. Lots of easy and fun experiments. I've only done chemistry, but an enthusiastic 1st grader could do it. But there are other choices too. The pdfs go on sale somewhat frequently

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u/unusualusually 4d ago

Awesome, I’ll check it out. Thanks so much :)

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u/EmmaAmmeMa 4d ago

Always start with the question and let him try out things to find the answer. Example: can yeast breathe? And if it can, what does it need to breathe? Give him some stuff to try out, yeast of course, some bottles and balloons to put over the top, and different stuff like sugar, oil, flour, salt, etc., and he can change the temperature of the water as well, wirks much much faster when the water is about 45 C. If he puts ice in, yeast won’t breathe.

He can see that the balloon will get bigger when the yeast has sugar and warmth. 

Stuff like that. But if he has a question to figure out, he will learn much more than if he just learns from straightforward instructions.

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u/tenderhart 4d ago

Here you go! This website has so many great elementary school science activity ideas, you will never run out of things to do: https://agclassroom.org/

Second recommendation: another incredible open source resource is Start With A Book https://www.startwithabook.org/hands-science-learning

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u/unusualusually 1d ago

Thank you so much!