Natural Science Lessons for KS1We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. This costs the purchaser nothing extra. In this way I can continue to provide free resources. Thank you for your support. |
Learn how to keep a Nature diaryBy keeping a nature diary you can record the changes that you see taking place all around you through the seasons. January is a good time to start! Something to write in You will need a little book to draw, write and stick things into. You can make it yourself from some sheets of paper folded in half and stapled, or you can buy one. You can find ours here. You do not need any special equipment, but you do need to learn to use your eyes, ears and sometimes even your nose! What to Record: Always write the date, and give a short description of the weather. Then say where and what you saw or found. You can draw your finds, take a photo, or stick things like feathers into your book. Where shall I look? You do not have to go far. Look out of your window, in your garden or street. There is always something to see! Look for foot prints in mud or snow. Look where ever you go. Look everywhere! Find our Nature Diary at TES and TPT
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The natural world naturally (excuse the pun) gives plenty of opportunities for cross curricular learning. Home-educating families make use of this wonderful resource, which children at school have only limited access to. It is no mean resource either and it has no age cut-off. Even parents will learn much! Better still - no worrying about age-appropriate work, as you will all naturally learn at your own level.
Whether your child would usually be in school or you usually home-educate we can all benefit from unpacking the benefits of learning through nature. Go for a walk
Your starting point can arise during a simple walk. You do not have to go far. Start to learn to use your eyes. As you use your eyes and point things out to your child, s/he will start to use his/her eyes too.
Let's look at an example. This morning we walked around our block (part of our P.E.!). There had been a heavy frost overnight and the twigs on the trees were laced with delicate ice. Occasionally, blobs of ice fell on us as they melted. At first we were struck by the whiteness. We asked 'What is frost'? 'Why has it come?' We noted that it had been very cold lately. We started to see that in places where the sun had not shone (facing north) the frost was not melting, but in the sun it was. We stood and examined a tree, looking closely at the pattern the frost made. The smaller twigs almost looked like icicles. It was beautiful. Awe and wonder are important components of learning about nature. Back home we found out about frost - I learnt something too. I won't tell you - you must find out for yourself. We learnt about different kinds of frost. This was Science but the children didn't need to know that. We decided to keep a temperature diary for a few days and note when the frost came and when it didn't. This entailed looking at a thermometer, seeing how it worked, learning to read the scale and deciding how to take fair measurements (same time of day, same place etc...) This was Maths, and more Science, but still they didn't need to know! I found a poem I recalled about 'Jack Frost' and I read it to the children:
Jack Frost
by Cecily E. Pike Look out! look out! Jack Frost is about! He's after our fingers and toes; And, all through the night, The gay little sprite Is working where nobody knows. He'll climb each tree, So nimble is he, His silvery powder he'll shake; To windows he'll creep, And while we're asleep, Such wonderful pictures he'll make. Across the grass He'll merrily pass, And change all its greenness to white; Then home he will go, And laugh, “Ho! ho! ho! What fun I have had in the night!”
We liked the words 'silvery powder' and started to think of some more descriptive words of our own. We didn't write them down, but just enjoyed playing with language. We were learning so much that I didn't want to lose the interest by making it into 'school work'. One child fancied writing a poem and wrote it down. A willing writer is much better than a conscript! However, I did manage to make copy writing time more exciting by letting them copy a verse of 'Jack Frost'. They were both eager to do this! This was English work to supplement our English curriculum.
Art work followed as we tried to re-create the frosty look. The internet is full of ideas - but don't forget to use your own imagination too!
And so our simple walk turned into an educational opportunity that covered P.E., Science, Maths, English and Art - without even trying.
The only necessary ingredient for this kind of learning is the desire to make the most of natural opportunities, as they present themselves. Believe me, they DO abound, all through the year, so you will never be short of material. Do bear in mind that not everything will grab the attention of your child/ren and you equally. Sometimes I get enthusiastic about something and they don't. That's fine. There is so much in the world to explore and there is no rule that says everybody must know everything. What matters most is to encourage observation, awe, wonder adn with them appreciation. With these things a child will be well equipped to be guardians of our world into the future.
Not every family needs ideas to get started, or resources to help, but if you would like them and find them useful, we have some home-learning packs that are free or can be purchased for a small price from TES.
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Bringing you our selection of the best books we can find to help you deliver the Science National Curriculum in spring, using the local environment.
Words in italics are from the publishers.
Books about chickens and eggs
Books about the lifecycle of a frog
Books about the life-cycle of a butterfly
Books about growing plants
Is something wrong with the way KS1 Science is taught? Yes! For we have raised several generations of adults who do not have any sense of the interconnectedness of themselves and the natural world. This has led to an abuse of our world, to the detriment of all living things, including ourselves. Look around you and you will find plenty of evidence that something is wrong. For the most part, the KS1 Science curriculum is learning about the world around us: living things and natural/man-made materials. This should provide children with the bedrock of understanding that can be built upon in future years. It should not seek to educate, but fill with awe, wonder and a love of the natural world - not just for the sake of knowing something, but as a necessary ingredient for living life to the full. Mere 'education' will breed disinterested adults, while the former will breed adults who love the natural world and want to care for it. KS1 is too early to focus on raising mini scientists, but needs to focus on producing responsible adults, who know the art and necessity of observing nature and making careful observations about cause and effect, who aim to work with nature, not against it, not merely satisfying their own personal agendas. KS1 should be a time for developing curiosity, intrigue and excitement, as children look, wonder, ask and explore.KS1 children learn best through doing: touching, moving around and experiencing first hand. Learning Maths and English is enough time spent sitting down. After those lessons are completed, it is time for the young child to be set free - to be stimulated to find out about the exciting world around - though story, song, creative activities, physical activities and by going out into the world to see what there is to find and learn about - obviously with an enthusiastic teacher who is ready to listen to the children and lead them on in their understanding - who has at his/her fingertips the ability to make the most of any learning opportunity that arises. KS1 children do not learn about plants or animals from a worksheet.This form of study may be appropriate in later years, but it is meaningless to a KS1 child unless s/he has first hand experience of the thing being studied. There may be the few - and there always will be, who learn something that lasts from this method, but our aim as teachers should not be to just educate 'the few', but 'the mass'. In fact - desk work as a vehicle for teaching science in KS1, with its implied contrived 'experiments' and the teaching of 'scientific skills' as teachers desperately try and prove that they have covered the necessary programme of study, is about as effective as a plastic surgeon: changing the exterior to make it look supposedly beautiful, while leaving the inner life totally unchanged. We all know (or should) that how we are on the inside will shape our face on the outside and no amount of plastic surgery can change our hearts. In the same way, externally, children can be taught to do amazing things to impress inspectors, but internally, the subject has become stone dead in the hearts of the children - they learn to hate it rather than to love it. If a lesson, on say flowers, is made odious to the children through artificial lessons, then flowers will become odious to children.Ask the RSPB or the British Wildlife Trust how many children are interested in nature. Judging by the quality of their publications I guess they must be struggling, as they teach about comic strip animal characters that bear little resemblance to real life, in a desperate attempt to attract youngsters. Sometimes the very young are caught - but their interest soon fades away as technological attractions take their attention. Why do children love technology rather than the natural world? Because children consider nature irrelevant. Nobody has taken the time to teach them to love it, to take them outside and learn to look and to revel in the feeling of pleasure of being one with nature.Why has science gone wrong in KS1?We have focused so hard on teaching 'science' that we have forgotten what our science is supposed to teach us. More so, our 'science' has become a threat to our world. We now consider ourselves so far advanced, that we think we are superior to nature. Because we are so ignorant about the natural world, we do not even know that there are natural rules that cannot be broken. Modern man breaks the rules with impunity, upsetting the fine balance that exists in nature, and wonders why nature goes wrong. Further still, had we have studied nature and learnt the rules, we would know that breaking the rules leads to death and destruction. We are only just beginning to find out from first hand experience the destruction that is caused by tampering with the natural world for our own end. We have tried to use science to rise above the natural world and prove our superiority, and are only just realising our folly, but I'm not sure we quite realise the extent of the damage to our minds, bodies and souls. What can we do?There are no quick, easy fixes. We all need to do some serious learning - but not in artificial settings. We need to stand outside our front doors and learn to listen, look and feel. We need to learn from the beasts and herbs of the field. We need to be humbled from our false, lofty, superior position as rulers of the universe and become learners from the natural world. We need to learn to fall back in line with nature, and realise that we cannot separate ourselves from it, without it leading to death and destruction. KS1 teachers are in a privileged position Day after day, we KS1 teachers have the wonderful opportunity to influence the next generation. How can we do that? By turning our teaching around. By learning to learn with our pupils. By learning, that in KS1, our aim must not be to teach science, but to teach children to listen to the science that is around them: to help them tune in to this wonderful world in which we live and feel a part of it, rather than detached from it: to learn from the birds, the flowers and trees and animals. We will learn to love, we will learn to respect, we will learn the rules and use them to good effect in our own lives and, slowly, we will halt the destruction. This will not merely educate the brain, but will bring health to the body, mind and soul, for we a part of it and must not forget so. This means, starting with what is there to be studied, rather than working out how to teach a target and planning a lesson around it. Go out and look for the insects, birds, flowers, trees and wild animals, and study them where they are. Young children must start with what is familiar to them, having concrete experiences. Teaching KS1 children about animals in other countries when they have little idea what is in their playground is just not good early years practice. It fulfils no purpose. There is time enough for that later. There is a growing movement that at least recognises the benefits of time outside for children's well-being: Forest Schools are a welcome addition to the curriculum. But they are not enough, as mean while the science lesson undercuts what is learned outside with dreary artificial lessons. It's time we made regular, first-hand experiences of nature our Science Programme of Study. Don't worry - the children's observational, questioning and recording skills will be far better for it, and they will really engage with the subject. Will you begin today?Few will. Few actually truly care about the problem enough to change the things that really matter, or are prepared to search for real answers, for all of the hype. The hype will soon pass, and our children will grow up. What legacy will you pass to the next generation?: children impoverished for their disconnected to life, or children enriched by the world around them? The choice is ours to make. Each precious child you educate is valuable. Each one that you can teach to love nature will be an arrow in the shaft. They wont all become scientists, but aim that they will all love nature and do nothing to put them off.. Start by becoming enthused yourself. Your enjoyment, excitement and pleasure will be infectious. We have nothing to lose, and everything to gain and maybe, you yourself will begin to change as well as you study the great matters of the universe. We hope that you will find the growing collection of materials on our website, helpful for this incredible work. Most are free and if not free, very low priced. It is our mission to give you the best resources, which reflect the beauty of the world around, to inspire the next generation to love nature. Have you seen our FREE Nature hunt sheet? This post is contained in a Free PDF download for staff training purposes. Click the picture.
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Anna Botford Comstock wrote the above back in the early 1900's, long before technology took over our lives. I would suggest that unless a child has been so trained from an early age, initially it will be hard to convince the child of the benefit of nature study: the motto being - catch them young! Although some modern children will keenly look with little encouragement, many will not. So many youngsters are used to fast paced images flashing accross a screen that they will need patient introducing to nature, which they may at first consider to be boring and irrelevant. Such is the damage that has been caused by neglecting nature study for so long. But do not despair. Young children are not set in their ways and an enthusiastic teacher can do much. This brings us to the first requisite for helping children to see the nature around them, that Anna Botford Comstock describes so aptly in the above quote; a teacher who loves his/her subject - in this case, nature! A well prepared teacher is the second requisite for teaching children to see what is around them. Nature study in practice
So you have your class ready to go out into the playground and they are all excited at being allowed free from the shackles of the classroom. You take them to a tree in the winter playground and ask them to look at it and tell you what they can see. The children appear to look, and say 'a trunk', or 'branches' but little more. The unprepared teacher can't think of anything else to add other than a 'bark'. The children begin to get restless, so the teacher hurries them back indoors to the safety of a formal lesson with books and worksheets.
Now we shall see how the preparded teacher approaches the same scenario. This time, as the children stand by the tree, the prepared teacher draws their attention to the twigs and more particularly to the buds on them. S/he asks them what they are, what shape they are, what colour they are. If there was another tree in the playground, they would move on to look at that one, and compare the buds with the former. S/he may then challenge the children to look for different kinds of buds on trees that they see on their way home, or in their garden, or while out and about. This gives children something purposeful to do - far better than homework - out of school time. Back in class, the children could use a simple book to identify the trees that they looked at by the kind of buds they had. The teacher could ask the children to sketch some twigs that she had carefully snipped from the tree. The teacher could then give a final challenge to the children to let her know when the buds change. This encourages the children to keep looking for themselves, and provides them with something to report back to the teacher, furnishing another nature study lesson to 'go and look at what's happening to the buds'. What is the difference between the two situations? Telling the children to simply 'Look at the tree' is too vague. Children need to be directed at something specific to look at and to be drawn into looking. This is successfully done in the second scenario.
The second scene was also better because it not only directed children's looking in that instant, but encouraged them to look for certain things themselves, either at playtime, or out of school hours - and this is when the most important nature work will be done: by the child, by him/herself, as it is then that the child will really take ownership of his/her learning and the greater amount of learning will take place.
These explorations by the children themselves need not be elaborate and are not beyond the scope of all children and may be as simple as lifting a stone to look for insects, or looking along the base of a wall for the same. However, again, they should be directed and suggested by the teacher, who will be eager to hear of the children's discoveries back in class in subsequent days.
When the children come into school with their reports, the prepared teacher will be ready to use them as a means of further extending their lines of enquiry and observation.
The reports will be heard, discussed, shared with the class, and then enriched by stories, interesting anecdotes, poems, or with the help of good picture books. The observations could be extended away from the child's immediate realm to a wider one. For example, observations about cats can lead to discussions about lions and tigers, and so working from the known to the unknown which is so important with young children. Occasional trips to more distant places can be used to supplement the children's own work. Therefore - in order to best stimulate the children to look and enquire, the prepared teacher needs to know what is around the school to be seen and what is likely to be seen at that particular time of the year and more importantly - knows it is there to be seen so that children are not asked to do something that will disappoint. We hope you find our resources helpful to you.
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Draw a plan of the school's area
Having first established a need for a return to the nature study method when teaching about living things in the science curriculum, the question must then be asked, 'What can we do?' and 'Where can we study nature?'
First, it will be necessary for the teachers in a school to survey the opportunities around the local area of their school. For schools in rural areas this may be easier - though not necessarily so. For this, it is not necessary to think of large places to visit. This fact makes nature study accessible to all, for even those in towns and cities will have some small places to study. Also, it is worth remembering that even a very little first-hand observation is better than many 'lessons', for this is remembered when the other has been forgotten. It would be good to draw up a plan of the school's local area so that the nature possibilities can be marked on it. Start with the ground around the school: maybe there is a 'nature' area - perhaps with a pond, or some trees/bushes/walls/areas for birds to nest. Then move into the surrounding area within walking distance. This could include such places as: parks, woods, a canal/river/stream, as well as streets/areas with front gardens and hedges/trees (note which kind), buildings/bridges with ledges where birds can perch/roost/nest, walls where insects can be found in crevices, patches of wild land, etc... Then it is worth being aware of which children in the class have access to a garden, and what is grown (if anything) in it, and/or have pets. Whatever the possibilities, remember that there are always spiders, flies, possibly beetles, daddy-long-legs, gnats as well as other insects in homes throughout the year. Do any of the town/city children get taken out to the countryside at all, or do any visit the seaside? Having drawn up the plan, the teacher will then have a good idea of what is available, though more may well be found as time goes on. Bear in mind that KS1 children will be content with small things. They are low to the ground themselves and still have a great curiosity of and fascination for any living things that they find. Making further opportunities on the school site
No school will have access to everything that is needed and so all teachers will need to see what opportunities they have to supplement the experiences available in the neighbourhood.
Flowers can be grown in boxes in the playground, or in pots in the classroom. Nesting boxes can be hung up on the school site, out of the reach of cats, the children having made them in practical lessons. In winter, a bird feeding station could be set up and would probably be the centre of attraction. A school could have an aquarium, or vivarium. Think creatively! Sometimes, twigs in bud can be brought into the classroom, or a bunch of flowers, but do remember, never to pick wild flowers, as for many species it is illegal. If you have tadpoles temporarily, then put them back where they came from. Draw up a programme
Then it would be good if a programme could be drawn up for the year. This will only be a provisional one, as so much will depend upon, for example, the weather, discoveries and the reports children bring in from their outings. In other words, it is there to give a framework to fall back on, but also ready to be altered according to circumstances. For example, I can tell you to look for bluebells in April, but they may not be out in your part of the country yet.
Learn to see opportunities yourself
Practice being aware yourself of the nature around you. Turn up stones, learn to marvel at the changes in the weather, or the bird song around you, notice when you saw the first flower of spring, or saw catkins and so on. Awaken your senses! Develop an ENQUIRING MIND: 'What is this? How does it move? What does it eat? Where does it live? Learn to LOOK. Learn to THINK and REFLECT on what you see. These are the skills that you will want to be encouraging in your pupils and so you must learn them at least with them, if not beforehand. Life will start to slow dow, you will find pleasure in things before ignored and your mind will begin to stretch. The best teachers are learners with their pupils. The most favoured way of teaching science in KS1 is to decide on a topic, look for the knowledge that is required by the National Curriculum, make a list of aims and objectives for the lesson and then present the lesson to the pupils, with accompanying books and worksheets and maybe photos and the odd real-life specimen. 'Today we are going to learn about (for example) the parts of a flower', the teacher may say. The children will then be shown the pictures (or real plant if fortunate) and then maybe given a diagram of a flowering plant to label. For many, they will have to write the lesson objective at the top of the paper before they begin, as if that in some way helps. The trouble with this is that for most of these children, the lesson will be meaningless. It may tick a box: yes, the teacher has covered the curriculum, and maybe the children will have been involved in some 'scientific' behaviour. But I can assure you, that your breath could have been spared, as few will remember anything they have learned much beyond a week, if that - and nor would many adults fare an better. It doesn't matter if it's the life-cycle of a butterfly, or the life of a fox - for taught as such in a science 'lesson', it is unlikely to be remembered for long. Why is it so difficult to remember? Maybe it's because we don't think it matters that we remember. After all - we can enjoy looking at wild flowers without knowing their names - regardless of whether we had a lesson about them at school - perhaps more so. Contrast this with our response when a real life story is told to us. Maybe its the caretaker who has discovered some mice nesting, or a gardener telling of the inner secrets of the soil. These are different - they have relevance to us and we listen - attentively. When those that are working with nature the whole time talk of their experiences - be it gardener, fisherman, nature reserve warden or farmer - we listen because they have seen, and they know, and have faced the tremendous importance to man's life of knowing how to deal with certain facts of nature. We all respond best to first hand observations, for it is then that we take ownership of the subject.
The child wants to seeAnd so the secret is to make nature study so relevant that the child feels part of what is being studied. But how? Can we learn the story of a conker in a half hour's lesson? To gain even a bit of this knowledge would mean a whole year of sitting watching! Can the most vivid description, illustrated with beautiful photos, tell what someone else has seen, equal in value to a quarter of an hour spent by a child, hidden from view, actually watching a bird, or a rabbit? Unless children grow a plant for themselves, does it matter if they are told that aphides and caterpillars suck the juices and devour the leaves? But when a child owns a plant for him/herself, then it is a matter of great importance as to how to deal with these enemies. Therefore, as much as is possible, science in KS1, that is concerned with living things, should be undertaken as much as is practicably possible, outside - so giving children their own first-hand experiences. These experiences will mostly take into account the passing of the seasons. Maybe it will be frequent visits to a tree in the playground or locality of the school, to see how the tree changes from one season to the next - delighting in examining the blossom, and then the new leaf buds. Maybe it will be pond dipping. Anything that provides the child with his/her own story to tell. Alongside this will be the encouraging of independent study out of school. Not through the giving of homework - but by the giving of ideas of things to look for as they walk home from school or play outside. Take your children on a year long discovery with nature. Watch them become experts before your eyes. Inspectors will be impressed with their engagement with their subject. Above all, you will be enriching your children's lives - maybe into adulthood. now that's education! This post is available as a free download for staff training. Click the picture. Here at KS1 Nature we are endeavouring to help you teach the nature components of the National Currciulum in a way that engages children with their environment and truly helps them to connect with it and to realise the interdependence of all living things on each other: not just to tick an assessment box, or to say you have 'covered the curriculum', but with a much more lasting aim - that of for equipping all children for LIFE! Only people so educated will truly understand what is necessary to put right the damage we have done to our planet and will be careful to make sure that what is done in future ensures that the situation does not get worse. It will take more than reducing our use of plastic, and CO2 emissions, as the way we live needs to fundamentally change. We have lost the concept that humans depend on the rest of the living world We think that out technology has set us apart. Our current way of living is unsustainable - costing us our health, both physical and mental, in more ways than we realise. (KS1 Nature) Sadly, although in days gone by, teachers placed a high priority on teaching nature study - right through to secondary level, it has been reduced to a few targets for KS1 children and seen as work for the young, and therefore not for serious consideration. The science curriculum has done away with 'nature study', re-naming it 'plants' and 'animals' and making nature study look unscientific, It has done great harm. We are more disconnected from nature than ever before. Not only this, but this little bit of content has been reduced to a tick-boxing exercise as teachers say 'Yes, I have covered that and little Tommy knew it five seconds after I told him' and not seeing the full scope of the subject. Nature study cannot be taught in one, or even two or three lessons. It builds subtly from birth upwards to adulthood, as our awareness of the world grows from one year to the next. It is formed through repeated exposures to nature - not isolated lessons in a classroom. It is formed as children have time to ponder, reflect and wonder. |
Welcome Hello, I am Lilibette (B.Ed Hons Early Years, Studies in the Environment Specialism Course), here to encourage the next generation to love the natural world, and thereby learn the necessary skills and knowledge to look after it in the years ahead. Read more... Categories
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