Back to School Beginning of the Year Activities Science Edition

These back to school and first week of school activities were designed with community, teamwork, and relationship-building in mind so that students can get to know each other while performing fun math activities in upper elementary and middle school.

Also included in these bundles:

• This product is part of my Back to School Activities: HUGE BUNDLE
• This resource is part of my Back to School Activities: Math and Science Bundle

This resource includes:

• 30+ science activities for the first weeks of school.
• All pintables, resources, and examples included.
• Black and white versions available for easy printing

Hi teacher friends,

I created this pack after my first year of teaching when I learned (the hard way) just how vital the first few weeks of school are.

I realized I needed to really get to know my students, but I also learned I wanted to use the time in the first few weeks to allow my students to explore and learn important concepts in all subjects. There are a variety of great activities to do in the first few weeks, but science activities just might be my favorites.

With that in mind, I created this pack. I didn’t want to create a bunch of time-fillers either. I used my beliefs of a constructivism approach, based on the research of Piaget and used David Jerner Martin’s book, Elementary Science Methods: A Constructivist Approach, to develop activities that are based on the 12 processes of science: Observing, communicating, classifying, measuring, predicting, inferring, identifying and controlling variables, formulating and testing hypotheses, interpreting data, defining operationally, experimenting, and constructing models.

All activities are designed for you to get to know your students, but also to allow them to see how science should look. With a constructivist approach, students will learn that science is fun, that they are responsible for their learning and constructing their own knowledge, and that science will look different for each and every one of them.

The following activities are found in this pack

1. Science goals

2. Science class attitude survey

3. What makes a good scientist?

4. Portraying scientists and science

5. How many pennies?

6. Scientific reasoning

7. S’mores solar ovens

8. Sink or float?

9. Which item is better?

10. Mystery box

11. Shadows and light

12. Tower topple team building

13. Making observations like scientists

14. Using sense of smell

15. Classifying collections

16. Fingerprints

17. Communications in science

18. Measurement and time

19. Measuring temperature

20. Which gets hotter?

21. Salt or sugar?

22. Paper chromatography

23. How long can you keep an ice cube frozen

24. Falling balls

25. Making raisins dance

26. Camouflage

27. Melting chocolate

28. Raw or boiled?

29. Do oranges float or sink?

30. Will an egg float or sink?