You Are Never Too Small to Become a Scientist!

Cultivating the child's desire to learn is one of the main objectives of education; so is developing their capacity for understanding. These aims are achieved by stimulating and satisfying the child's curiosity, explaining and understanding the world around them, and investigating it.

The experiment, as a method of exploring reality, has an undeniable formative value, because it develops in the preschooler the spirit of observation and investigation, the ability to understand the essence of objects and phenomena, and stimulates interest in knowledge. The teacher supervises and directs the execution of the steps that the experiment involves, the active role falling for the most part to the child, who is put in direct contact with reality, studies it, brings about changes in it himself and notes the results obtained. Therefore, he learns by discovery! And as a great Romanian educator, Professor Ioan Cerghit, remarked: “The pupil develops through the exercises he does himself, and not through those done in front of him!”, this method of learning is, undoubtedly, an exceptional one.

To understand the scientific way in which the experiment is approached, here are its stages:

1. Observing certain facts;
2. Formulating hypotheses (based on analyzing and relating the facts);
3. The experimenting proper (provoking the phenomenon under determined conditions in order to verify the previously formulated hypotheses);
4. Processing the data obtained (formulating a conclusion).

Obviously, going through these stages in experimental activities in kindergarten takes place at the cognitive and language level corresponding to the age of the preschoolers.

Here are a few simple experiments that can be done in kindergarten but also at home, under adult supervision:

• Dissolving substances in liquids (salt, baking soda, sugar, etc.)
• Sprouting seeds and caring for plants
• The outline of shadows
• The elastic egg
• Floating
• The movement of air in nature
• The water cycle in nature
• Communicating vessels
• The tornado in a bottle
• The volcano
• Whirlwind of balloons
• The rainbow

I will now present a simple experiment that can be done to show children the importance of brushing their teeth after every meal. Materials needed: a raw egg, a glass and food vinegar. How to carry out the experiment: The egg is put in the glass, and vinegar is poured in so that the egg is covered. Air bubbles are observed appearing around the egg. The egg is left overnight in the vinegar, and in the morning it is noticed that a foam has risen to the surface of the liquid. On the third day the vinegar is changed, and on this occasion the children can hold the egg and see its consistency. It is found that it has become soft, elastic, and that, pressed between the fingers, it feels like rubber. The explanation is that the acid (the vinegar) has eaten away all the calcium from the eggshell. After a few more days, the egg will become translucent because its shell dissolves. Through this experiment, children can understand how acids attack tooth enamel and the importance of cleaning the teeth after every meal.

In conclusion, the scientific experiment is an activity much loved by children which, besides its educational aspect, contributes to creating an atmosphere of curiosity and interest, favorable to scientific study and, why not, to the emergence of future successful researchers!

author: Sorina – Preschool teacher, Little Bees Group