Pre K - K modules description

Measurement and Mapping is designed to be used at the beginning of the school year to help students form a community and establish routines. Children are introduced to the science cycle and various forms of measurement. They learn to use representations – graphs, charts, drawings, photography and writing - as a way of understanding and organizing important ideas.

Color and Light, a common theme in preschool classrooms, is treated as a scientific investigation of primary and secondary colors, how light travels, shadows, and reflection. Children design experiments and learn that repeating/replicating experiments produces similar results.  Children make predictions as a part of their experiments and then compare their results with their predictions.

Properties of Matter involves exploration of the properties of solids, liquids, and gases in their everyday lives.  Children investigate solid building materials, how liquids move, what sinks or floats, and how air can make things move and fill things up. Children also explore how changes in temperature can cause materials to change their state – cooking scrambled eggs, making ice cubes and popsicles, melting chocolate, and evaporating water.

Neighborhood Habitat is a life-science module during which children learn that all living things need food, water, air, and space and have a habitat that supports them. Children explore their neighborhood to find out about the plants and animals that live there and how their special habitat meets their needs.

Movement and Machines begins with children making careful observations of how their own bodies bend, twirl, dance, and relax.  These observations provide a foundation for exploring the movements of other objects such as spinning tops and pendulums. Topics like gravity and friction are investigated and finally, children learn about the simple machines used in their daily life -  for example, wheels, axles, ramps, levers, and pulleys.