Your First-Grader and Science
In Your Child's Classroom
Learning science thinking skills
Science is not just a body of knowledge. It is also a way of acquiring knowledge. From the earliest years, elementary science should involve children in investigating the material and living world around them. While children learn concepts and vocabulary from investigations, they also develop the ability to ask a scientific question, plan experiments to try to answer the question and develop reasonable explanations based on their observations.
The topics children investigate at a particular grade level differ widely across the country, but the science thinking skills are universal. While a student will study sound, electricity, plants, animals, and solids, liquids and gases during their elementary years, each state has its own sequence of topics for each grade level. The National Science Education Standards - the jumping-off point states use to develop their standards - lists important topics and thinking skills for grades K-4.
The lists of topics below are examples taken from many states, and your state may require a different list in your child's grade. What's important is that the topics are used to develop scientific thinking. To learn topics your state does include at each grade level, you can look up your state's science education standards.
What science concepts will my first-grader learn?
Your first-grader will learn about the world around him both by observation and experimentation. He will be encouraged to use his five senses to observe and describe changes in living and non-living objects. Some or all of the following concepts will be introduced:
- Living things and their habitats: Living things need food, water, space and shelter to survive. Plants and animals live in particular habitats.
- Oceans and sea life: Waves, currents, coral reefs, sea animals and sea plants.
- The human body: The systems that make up the body - circulatory, muscular, skeletal, nervous and digestive - and how to take care of the body.
- Matter: Materials come in solid, liquid and gas forms, and matter can change states.
- Measurement: Temperature and how it is measured.
- Introduction to electricity and magnetism: Electric currents and circuits. Learns how batteries work and the push and pull of magnets.
- Sound: Vibrating objects produce sound, and sound travels.
