It includes the March working titles of our FUN WITH STEM project.
Subject(s): mathematics and natural sciences, engineering, practical skills, water density, capillarity, water retention, etc.
Course objectives:
- Familiarize students with basic concepts about certain concepts, water-based phenomena;
- Participation of students in conducting experiments, practical and explanatory scientific activities;
- Developing a positive attitude towards science and technology
- Developing basic scientific concepts
- Discover students’ love for science and learning.
Age of students: 5 – 6 years old
Preparation time: One week before the selected students review the steps to perform the experiments
Our goal is to educate students on a solid knowledge base in STEM. That’s why I aimed to integrate Stem activities into the preschool curriculum.
Water transformations: solidification, melting, evaporation, boiling, condensation
Energy sources: water and its practical uses.
Considering the curiosity of 5-6 year old children, the multitude of questions seeking answers, and the fact that some concepts can only be understood through play at this age, we embarked on a magical journey into the world of water. It creates important real-life learning contexts by systematically making connections between all disciplines provided in the classroom program.
Acting on the belief that introducing children to science at an early age for a week helps their brain development, we entered the world of STEM activities with the help of scientific experiments. Even small children can do scientific experiments. Using materials that kids enjoy playing with helps them develop great ideas and understand key concepts.
Our First Event :
Our Second Event: most enjoyable way of learning in this age group is the way of learning by doing. For this reason, we first made the water cycle with the wheel painting and assembly activity, and then we made the water cycle more interesting with the experiment.
Our Third Event: The most active area of preschool students is the game. For this reason, we prepared games with water-themed learning apps and jigsawplanet web 2 tools and gave our students the opportunity to play.
Fourth Activity: It was time for the design. I told our students that we would design a watermill together.
Materials for this:
Foam cups, 2 foam plates, glue and skewers
First of all, we brainstormed with them and listened to their ideas about where we should start our design and what we should pay attention to in order not to have problems in the rotation of our mill.
They played the role of engineering. We made the design. Happy ending 🙂 Our mill was spinning smoothly.
We Design a Water Mill – YouTube
Fifth Activity: In this section, we focused on water experiments. First experiment ”Refraction in Water”
Materials: Transparent bag, crayons
We filled the inside of the bag with water and tied the mouth part. And we passed the colored crayons through it. It was observed that the part of the flat crayons that remained in the water changed shape and broke.
The second experiment, the napkin experiments with a simple but incredible effect, the students notice the absorption movement. I explained what the paper is made of, the role of cellulose and its relationship with water. I explained to them that this movement is also present in plants. they form a rainbow or various patterns.
it was observed how water circulated from one glass to another.
Students wanted to do more experiments because experimenting in my classroom always amused them.
Last Activity : In this event, we included World Water Day activities. First of all, water-related training was given by our instructor from the university in the conference hall of our school. We have prepared a striking board for the school entrance. My students, wearing the water drop costume, walked around the classrooms and made presentations on water conservation.
Once again I am proud of my students. They happily completed all their water related tasks.
