This resource accompanies our Rethink Kindergarten Science Matter unit. It includes ideas for use, ways to support exceptional children, ways to extend learning, digital resources and tools, tips for supporting English Language Learners and students with visual and hearing impairments. There are also ideas for offline learning.

This unit was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This unit is aligned to the NC Standards for Kindergarten Science.

During the fall, students and their families are beginning to visit different farms in the area. They go to the Pumpkin Patch to find the perfect pumpkin to turn into a jack-o-lantern! This lesson plan will give students the opportunity to learn the about the life cycle of a pumpkin through investigation and exploration.

In this lesson, students complete a series of activities in order to practice classification skills and learn about the differences between living and nonliving things.

In this lesson, students classify objects that they collect during a scavenger hunt on their school playground according to living and non-living. They will then create real and pictorial graphs that represent their data.

Students use activity cards to match seeds with the fruits from which they grow. They learn that a seed will produce the same type of plant and seeds.

This lesson is the first of a two-part series on the properties and uses of different materials. In Materials 1: Materials and Manufacturing, the familiar tale of The Three Little Pigs is used as an introduction to materials and manufacturing. Students examine the properties, limitations, and durability of a variety of materials, then evaluate which of the materials would be best for building a model house. If used in its entirety, this lesson could take several science class periods.

In this activity, students will explore leaves using inquiry and their senses. The students will go on a leaf walk investigating different leaves. They will bring back a few to the classroom to continue the investigation. The students will then draw and write about one of their leaves and then share with a partner and then the class.

In this virtual resource, students will engage their senses to observe birds in their schoolyard. They will compare different types of birds by color and shape, and evaluate their schoolyard for birds' basic needs.

The wakelet site features videos demonstrating hands-on activities for students to complete at school in small, socially distanced settings. Activities may also be adapted for at-home learning. Most field trips incorporate an outdoor component, acknowledging the need to balance screen time with green time to support mental health. Tips for taking your students outside can be found here: https://education.eol.org/cnc_materials/TipsForTeachingOutside.pdf

The Properties unit explains how shape, color, texture, weight, state of matter, and other properties can be used to identify, describe, and compare matter. The unit also explains that we choose to make things out of materials that have the properties we need or want.

In this lesson, students identify three shapes: circle, square, and triangle. They will bend a pipe cleaner into a shape of their choice and group it with similarly shaped pipe cleaners their classmates have made. They will also be able to identify the colors of their pipe cleaner and group them with similarly colored pipe cleaners.

In this lesson, students will predict and test everyday objects as to whether they sink or float. They will test four of the same size cubes of wood, clear plastic, milky plastic and aluminum, and find that two sink and two float. Students will then test the same four types of cubes but in smaller sizes. They will find that the smaller samples sink or float as their larger samples did.

This web page provides descriptions of several simple activities that give young students opportunity to practice sorting things by their observable physcial properties.

In this lesson, students use simple tools to observe leaves that have fallen and those that are still growing on trees. Then they will sort leaves by a variety of attributes.

Students categorize photos and other representations of organisms as plants, invertebrates, fish, birds, reptiles, mammals, or amphibians. Then they use a diagram of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem to identify species that live in the Gulf of Mexico and categorize them.

In this lesson, students will rub a crayon over a piece of paper covering a texture, allowing the texture to show on the paper.

In this activity, students explore the physical properties of various objects by touching them while blindfolded.

In this lesson, students will read the book The Bears' Picnic by Stan and Jan Berenstain. As the book is read, a list should be compiled of the things the bears took on the picnic. The items on the list can then be grouped according to physical characteristics.

This activity will help students to recognize characteristics of living and nonliving within an environment.

In this lesson, students will determine what an animal is covered in and classify them based in the covering.