Pre-school Science Project

Sink or float? Get a small bucket of water and misc. objects. The kids have to predict whether the object will sink or float (e.g. wood, metal, plastic, aluminum foil, apples, oranges, plastic bottles, toy blocks, paper, bathtub toys, plastic forks, rubber balls, soda-bottle caps, pencils, erasers, and sponges).

Or, baking soda and vinegar compared with baking soda and water. You can blow balloons up with it too.

http://scienceforpreschoolers.com/preschool-science-activ...

find a new preschool. they shouldn't have homework at 3 years old. sigh.........

How blubber works for whales and seals -
Ice water in a bucket
2 rubber gloves
crisco

First have them put their hand in one rubber glove and put it in the ice water. They can feel the cold.
Have them dry off the rubber glove and cover it with crisco.
Then put the other rubber glove over that mess
Have them put their hand in the water now - they won't feel the cold.
LBC

Find some things that make noises. Crumpling up aluminum foil, shaking a closed tupperware container of dried beans or pennies, clapping two wooden blocks together, snapping Duplos together, hitting two spoons together, opening a bag of potato chips. Put them in a box or bag so the class can't see what is in there. Have the kids in the class close their eyes or turn their backs. Your child makes the noises, one at a time, and the kids raise their hands when they know what the sound is, and your child or the teacher can call on them to give their answer. When we can't see or touch something, sometimes it's harder to tell what the sound is. Listening is an important skill to learn! This would be fairly easy to prepare for, even for a 3 year old, I would think.

If you would have started sooner, you could have sprouted a bean with photos.

http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/experiments.html

Sedimentary rock - how it's formed. Illustrate how layers compress to make something new. How? Two pieces of bread, crunchy peanut butter and jam. cut the sandwich in half and viola! You have a sandwich (rock) made of layers you can see and that are now stuck together.

(sunflower seed butter works, too, if you have a nut free pre-school)

Find a sedimentary rock (at the park? in your garden? they are everywhere!) to put beside the sandwich for a special effect - and a picture of one from the internet for extra visuals.

Done!

One of my favorites is disrupting surface tension.

It's a 2 part experiment.

1) Drops of water on a penny to see how surface tension keeps the water on it until it's a giant bubble. (eyedropper, water cup, penny... great for fine motor control and counting)

2) Dropping mentos into coke and watching what happens when you disrupt that surface tension. (coke and mentos... great for really big eyes and squeals)

Part 2 necessitates an outdoor space, as the soda shoots about 20 feet into the air.

A tamer one is different color pens/markers draw a line on a coffee filter an get the tip of the filter wet and watch the rainbows (since the different colors weigh different amounts they disperse differently)

Seriously? Homework for three year olds??? Wow.

I taught a preschool science class at our local rec center. The activity the kids had the most fun with was mixing colors. Fill a snack bag with a color of finger paint on each end (red and blue, yellow and red, yellow and blue, etc.). Close it and then tape it shut, for extra piece of mind. THe children worked the bag to mix the colors. They can watch red and blue turn into purple. Then they could finger paint.

We also made mini volcanoes using playdough. Then we did the vinegar and baking soda to make them errupt. We learned about the life cycle of a butterfly and used pasta to show the phases. Orzo was the egg, spinach noddles were the caterpillars,shell pasta was the chrysalis and bow tie pasta was the butterfly . I divided paper plates into four sections and let them put each phase in a spot. Then they were allowed to paint and decorate them.

Food coloring.
Vinegar
Baking Soda.
Mix the vinegar with food coloring that you want.
Then pour it on the baking soda.
It will bubble and rise and create a "volcano."
Use like 1/2 cup baking soda and like 1 cup vinegar or more.
Or apply more vinegar as you go, to liquify the baking soda.

This is only for 3 year olds.
Does not have to be complex.

Most everyone has these "ingredients" already in their cupboard.
Easy.

lots of good ideas here that are simple/not too messy.

http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/sci/

Monday as in...tomorrow? Eek!

Shouldn't it be something (s)he already knows about? What are they learning about in school right now? Has the teacher provided any information at all?

The reason I ask is that assignments like this are rather pointless if the moms think of them and make them, too. Optimal learning takes place when it starts with a familiar concept that was already presented, not a random one, and the student is the one developing the project, testing the experiment, and making sense of the concept.

That said, I agree w/Sherry...all of life is learning and you can explore these things anytime w/out the pressure of it being called "homework"...