Kindergarten

Objectives Overviews Kindergarten: Science


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Your kindergarten student will gain knowledge about scientific inquiry, and will develop the necessary abilities to perform scientific inquiries by:

  • Asking questions about objects, organisms, and events in underwater, woodland, and desert habitats
  • Accessing information from a variety of sources
  • Identifying the causes of natural human reflexes such as sneezing, burping, yawning, and crying
  • Exploring the answers to questions about nature
  • Planning and conducting simple explorations through active play
  • Using the senses, tools, and instruments to obtain information from his surroundings
  • Using simple experiments and observations to draw conclusions about an object’s physical properties
  • Communicating about scientific explorations and explanations through speaking, drawing, and writing
  • Exploring student-generated “what happens if” questions
  • Using appropriate safety procedures when completing scientific investigations
  • Using the five senses to make observations about the natural world
  • Drawing pictures that correctly portray features of the item being described
  • Recognizing that numbers can be used to count a collection of things
  • Measuring the lengths of objects using non-standard units of measurement
  • Recognizing the importance of accurate measurements
  • Making pictographs and using them to describe observations and to draw conclusions
  • Recognizing that information from multiple resources can be combined to make new observations

Your kindergarten student will gain knowledge about scientific inquiry, and will develop the necessary abilities to perform scientific inquiries by:

  • Asking questions about objects, organisms, and events in underwater, woodland, and desert habitats
  • Accessing information from a variety of sources
  • Identifying the causes of natural human reflexes such as sneezing, burping, yawning, and crying
  • Exploring the answers to questions about nature
  • Planning and conducting simple explorations through active play
  • Using the senses, tools, and instruments to obtain information from his surroundings
  • Using simple experiments and observations to draw conclusions about an object’s physical properties
  • Communicating about scientific explorations and explanations through speaking, drawing, and writing
  • Exploring student-generated “what happens if” questions
  • Using appropriate safety procedures when completing scientific investigations
  • Using the five senses to make observations about the natural world
  • Drawing pictures that correctly portray features of the item being described
  • Recognizing that numbers can be used to count a collection of things
  • Measuring the lengths of objects using non-standard units of measurement
  • Recognizing the importance of accurate measurements
  • Making pictographs and using them to describe observations and to draw conclusions
  • Recognizing that information from multiple resources can be combined to make new observations

Your kindergarten student will demonstrate an understanding of science as a human endeavor, and will examine the history and nature of science by:

  • Demonstrating curiosity and initiative during active play and explorations
  • Engaging in online activities to simulate a scientific exploration
  • Recognizing that in science, people work alone or as a team to share ideas and findings
  • Recognizing the use of science and technology in everyday lives
  • Recognizing that scientific investigations involve asking open-ended questions
  • Recognizing that some scientific theories are not wellaccepted at first and must be proven several time

Your kindergarten student will develop and demonstrate an understanding of safety by:

  • Demonstrating personal and group safety when engaged in science
  • Describing the various resources in their environment
  • Recognizing the importance of water, minerals, rocks, dirt, and soil as natural resources and recognizing some of their use
  • Recognizing pollutants and some of their potential effects on the environment
  • Recognizing different types of energy sources such as solar, wind, water, electricity, and fuel/gas
  • Practicing conservation of resources
  • Interacting with living things and the environment in ways which promote respect
  • Recognizing that people influence the quality of life of those around them
  • Demonstrating ways science is practiced by people every day

Your kindergarten student will develop and demonstrate an understanding about science, engineering, technology, and technological design, and demonstrate abilities of technological design by:

  • Recognizing that scientists and technologists use a variety of tools to obtain information in more detail and to make work easier
  • Identifying the wheel and axle, wedge, lever, screw, inclined plane, and pulley as simple machines and how they make work easier
  • Recognizing the importance of water, minerals, rocks, dirt, and soil as natural resources and recognizing some of their use
  • Recognizing that some tools are used to manipulate materials and connect pieces to make a functioning whole
  • Explaining how tools and technology are used at home and in society
  • Identifying ways that tools and technology are used to make our lives easier
  • Recognizing that tools and technology change over time as new inventions and ideas occur
  • Recognizing the objects can be sorted as “natural” or “man-made”
  • Understanding that some materials can be used over and over again
  • Recognizing that each kind of tool has an intended use, which can be helpful or harmful

Your kindergarten student will develop and demonstrate a conceptual understanding of the characteristics of organisms, their life cycles, and their environments, and the structure and function of living systems, populations, and ecosystems on Earth by:

  • Recognizing selected characteristics of plants and animals that live in Africa, the Arctic, oceans, rivers, ponds, and rainforests
  • Recognizing that animals move in different ways
  • Recognizing that some animals will act together as a family to accomplish a common goal
  • Recognizing that some forms of life are too small to see without scientific equipment
  • Comparing the growth and change in living organisms
  • Developing respect, care, and sensitivity to the needs of living organisms in the environment
  • Exploring the differences between living and non-living things
  • Describing how plants and animals usually resemble their parents
  • Investigating variations that exist among individuals of the same species of plant or animal
  • Recognizing observable features of plants and animals that help them live in different kinds of places
  • Describing the habitats of many different kinds of local plants and animals and some of the ways in which animals depend on plants and each other in their community

Your kindergarten student will develop and demonstrate a conceptual understanding of Earth materials, objects in the sky, and changes in Earth and sky, Earth’s system, history and place in the solar system, and the organization of Earth and other celestial bodies by:

  • Identifying and describing simple properties of rock, soil, and water
  • Identifying and describing different types of weather
  • Identifying and describing features of objects in the sky
  • Observing that the sun can be seen only in the daytime, but the moon can be seen sometimes at night and sometimes during the day
  • Exploring that animals and plants cause changes to their surroundings
  • Exploring that sometimes change is too fast to or too slow to see
  • Observing and describing day-to-day weather changes
  • Observing and describing seasonal changes in weather

Your kindergarten student will develop and demonstrate a conceptual understanding of the organization of matter, motion, energy, forces, and transfer of energy, and interactions between them by:

  • Classifying objects according to observable properties
  • Exploring and explaining how physical properties may affect the motion of objects
  • Describing observable properties of light, heat, and magnets
  • Demonstrating that objects are made up of parts
  • Examining and describing objects according to the materials that make up the object
  • Describing and sorting objects by one or more properties
  • Exploring that things can be made to move in many different ways such as straight, zigzag, up and down, around in circles, back and forth, or fast and slow
  • Investigating ways to change how something is moving
  • Describing properties of the three states of matter