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Whether you're a parent of a teacher, you'll enjoy this collection of awesome electricity science projects and experiments that introduce kids to the power of electricity!
Kids will learn about how static electricity works, how current electricity flows, and what is actually happening when they flip a switch. Science is so cool!

Many of these ideas would make great science fair projects. You can easily add a variable component to the project to make it a true experiment. For example, kids can test whether there is as much static electricity on a dry day as on a humid day. Kids can test different materials to see what conducts electricity, etc.
Static Electricity
Learn about positive and negative electrical charges with these simple static electricity science experiments.

"Magically" Separate Pepper from Salt: Kids will lift the pepper from the salt without touching it! The static electricity will do the lifting.

Make Water Bend: Did you know that you can keep water from flowing straight down? Make a stream of water bend through the power of positive and negative electrical charges.

Make the Butterfly's Wings Move from I Heart Crafty Things. Use an electrically charged balloon to raise and lower the wings.

Jumping Goop! Static Electricity Demonstration: Kids will make a mixture of cornstarch and water "jump" from the spoon through the power of positive and negative electrical charges. Then try it again with oil and see why water is easily charged.
Circuits and Current Electricity
Build a Circuit - It's so easy to build a complete circuit, and kids will love it. Find out which materials conduct electricity. Demonstrate how a switch works too.

Build Play Dough Circuits from Science Sparks. Did you know that play dough could conduct electricity? It's the salt content. How cool is this!

What Conducts Electricity? from Carrots are Orange. Test different materials to see if they conduct a charge in this electricity science experiment.
Electricity and Magnetism
Build an Electromagnet - Use copper wire and a battery to turn a nail into a magnet. Everyone should try this at least once!

Build a Homopolar Motor - This simple motor really spins. The post has an idea for making it into an optical illusion.

Build a Simple Electromagnetic "Train" - pictured below. This is a pretty neat contraption! Build a train engine out of a battery and some neodymium magnets. Makes a great science fair project.
Have fun exploring electricity!

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10 Awesome Electricity Science Experiments for Kids - Frugal Fun For Boys and Girls

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Whether you're a parent of a teacher, you'll enjoy this collection of awesome electricity science projects and experiments that introduce kids to the power of electricity! Kids will learn about how static electricity works, how current electricity flows, and what is actually happening when they flip a switch. Science is so cool!

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You have come to the right place if you are looking for fun, engaging and exciting Nutrition themed activities to do with toddlers, preschoolers and kindergartners. Our activities are widely used by teachers, moms, dads, child care providers and more!

All our activities are available at no cost and are free to print and share. Select below to get started.

Paper Plate Meals
Have the children look through magazines to find pictures of different kinds of foods. Then have them cut out the pictures and glue them onto paper plates to make 'breakfasts', 'lunches' or 'dinners'.

Food Art
Baking sheet
Flour or salt
Sprinkle flour or salt over a baking sheet. Show your child you can draw in the flour with your finger. Draw letters, numbers, shapes.
Play hangman or other common games in the flour.
Draw initials of favorite videos or movies and have child guess them.

Pudding Paint
Pudding
Adult prepares pudding ahead of time or has children help make if instant. Allow child to finger paint with the pudding on a plastic lined paper or waxed paper. Clean up is fun because it is edible.

Salt Clay
One of our most natural resources, salt also makes for fun art!
Mix: 1 1/2 cups of salt
4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups water
When dough forms a ball around the spoon. knead the dough well, adding water if it is to crumbly. Set the oven at 150 degrees Celsius and bake until hard (keep an eye on it in the oven).
This can be painted with paint and decorated if wanted (allow to cool first).

Jumbo Toothbrush
Help children make over-sized toothbrushes. Use as a bulletin board titled "Healthy Habits".
Fold a 9×12 piece of white const. paper in half.
Draw lines and have children cut up the lines and make bristles for your tooth brush.
Make a brush handle out of colored const. paper.
Put child's name on the handle.
Glue brush onto handle.

Separating Solids
Mix one cup of beans, one cup of salt and one cup of rice together in a bowl. Provide the children with a strainer and a colander and tell them to separate the items in the bowl into three separate bowls-one with beans, one with salt and one with rice.

After the children are successful, ask them if they can think of another way to accomplish the task.

Fishing for Good Foods
Children can cut pictures from magazines (or for the little ones have them already cut) from the five basic food groups. Have the children glue these pictures onto a fish shape cut from construction paper. Slip a paper clip onto the front of each fish.

Make a fishing pole from a dowel and tie a magnet onto the end of the string. Label five small buckets with the name/picture of each food group. Have the children try to catch a fish and encourage them to decide which group the food belongs to and then put the fish in the correct bucket.

Vegetables
Questioning: I want to eat this vegetable.
What do you think I should do to prepare it?
If I want to cut it, what should I use?

(hide the pepper)
Do you remember what color the pepper is?
What parts of the pepper do you think we can eat?
What parts can't we eat?
Can you think of any vegetables with seeds we can eat?
Can you think of any vegetables with skins we can't eat?
If we all wanted to taste a piece, how many pieces would we need?
How is this pepper (red) different from this pepper (green)?
How is this pepper different from a carrot/potato?
How does it taste?
What are some of the ways we can eat peppers? (use other kinds of foods)

Taste Testing
Various food items
Blindfold
Cut up and clean various food items. Blindfold your child and have him/her taste and smell different foods. Have him/her describe the various tastes, smells and textures before they guess what it is.

Root-Top Garden
Any raw root vegetable (carrot, turnip, parsnip, beet)
Knife
Large dish or shallow platter
Clean pebbles
If the vegetable has leaves trim them. Leave about 1/4 inch stem. Slice off about 1 inch from the base of the stem. Put root tops in platter with enough water to just cover the bottom, not over the top. Fill the spaces with clean pebbles.

Put in a sunny windowsill and in two or three weeks you should have a leafy garden. Keep it well watered.

Hanging Carrot Garden
Large carrot
Knife
Absorbent cotton
Water Dish
Wooden skewer
Potato peeler
Thread
Cut a section about 2 inches from the top of the carrot. Leave any leaves or stalks attached. Stand the cut end in a dish of water on top of the absorbent cotton.

Once shoots have sprouted, remove and scoop a hollow bowl into the end of the carrot using a potato peeler. Push the wooden skewer through the top half of the carrot. Tie the same size length of thread for each side of the skewer.

Hang the carrot up in a sunny window and fill the inside "bowl" with water. The shoots will grow up to the light, and you will soon have a hanging garden!

Good Food Collage
Make a "good food for their body" collage out of pictures from magazines. They might even want to hang them on their own refrigerator to remind them which foods are healthy.

Potato Hop
Materials:
Brown construction paper
What to Do:
Cut ten large potato shapes brown construction paper and number them from 1 to 10.Tape the shapes to the floor in the proper sequence. Then let the children take turns hopping one potato to the other as everyone recites the rhyme.
One potato, two potato,
Three potato, four
Five potato, six potato,
Seven potato, more.
Eight potato, nine potato, Here is ten.
Now let's start all over again.

Fruit Plate (lunch or snack)
Give each child a paper plate and sliced fruit. Ask them to create themselves using the slices of fruit. Example grapes for eyes, sliced apple for eye brows, banana sliced lengthwise for a mouth and a kiwi slice for a nose.

This presents an ideal time to discuss the importance of eating well to maintain healthy bodies. When their creation is finished they may eat the fruit plate for snack!

Melon Bowl
Watermelon & Various other melons
Knife Melon ball scoop or small ice cream scoop
Adult cuts a watermelon in half. Have kids scoop out the inside using an ice cream scoop or melon baller.

Cut open other melons and have kids make balls with the melon ball scoop from the other melons. Fill the watermelon with balls from the various melons. This makes a great summer snack or dessert.

Encourage kids to be creative and eat what they create.

The Shape-Up Song
Sung to 'Farmer in the Dell'
We're jumping up and down
We're jumping up and down
We're getting lots of exercise
We're jumping up and down.

We bend and touch our toes.....
We kick our legs up high......
We jog around the room.......
We wiggle our whole body....
We stretch up to the sky.......

Basic Food Groups
Here are the food groups:
Dairy, bread, and meat
And don't forest that vegetables
Are important for you to eat.
Have a food from each food group
Each and every day,
And you'll grow strong and healthy -
Good nutrition is the way!

Vegetable Soup game like London Bridges
We are making vegetable soup
Vegetable soup, Vegetable soup
We are making vegetable soup
Now put in the (vegetable of choice).
Take the ________and stir it up,
Stir it up, stir it up,
Take the ________and stir it up
While making vegetable soup.

Meet the Veggies
Tomato: I'm round and red
And juicy too.
Chop me for a salad,
Or dump me in your stew!

For catalogs listing other free or inexpensive nutrition education materials available from the Meat Board of Illinois (including free Food Pyramid chart) call 1-800-368-3138 (outside Illinois
312-670-9440 or 312-670-9441 (within Illinois)
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Nutrition Activities & Fun Ideas for Kids | ChildFun

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You have come to the right place if you are looking for fun, engaging and exciting Nutrition themed activities to do with toddlers, preschoolers and kindergartners. Our activities are widely used by teachers, moms, dads, child care providers and more! All our activities are available at no cost and are free to print and share.

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State Of Matter Activities & Worksheets | Teachers Pay Teachers

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Browse state of matter activities resources on Teachers Pay Teachers, a marketplace trusted by millions of teachers for original educational resources.

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Weather Patterns: Lesson for Kids - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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When it is raining or sunny for days at a time, it is called a weather pattern. Learn all about hot and dry, cold, and rainy weather patterns,...

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Tell the class the definition of work used in science may differ from what most people think of as work. Work can be defined as force times distance (Work = Force x Distance). Ask a student to move a book from one desk to another. Ask: Is this work by the scientific definition? (Yes, this is work.) You are applying force for a certain distance. Ask: Is doing homework work by this definition? (No, homework is not work.) Pushing a book across a desk is work because you are applying a force (a push) on a book for a certain distance (the length of the desk). You are not pushing homework anywhere.

Imagine that you want the same amount of work to get done using less force. In this example, this means you still want the book to move from one side of the desk to the other, but you don't want to push as hard. If you use half as much force to push the book, then you will have to push the book twice as far to do the same amount of work. Or, you could use a simple machine to make up the difference in the force you are applying. Explain that people often use simple machines to make work easier.

Introduce the class to the names of various simple machines and show them a picture of each from the Simple Machines photo gallery: levers, the wheel and axle, pulleys, screws, and inclined planes. Tell the class simple machines make work easier by increasing mechanical advantage. Tell students that an example of mechanical advantage is using the claw of a hammer to remove a nail. A small force applied to the handle of the hammer produces a greater force at the claw end of the hammer, allowing for the removal of stubborn nails.

Explain that complicated machines, such as robots and cars, are made up of combinations of simple machines and other parts. Robots are complex machines that contain many simple machines. Some examples of simple machines that are used in robot construction are wheels and axles for mobility, allowing robots to move from place to place, and robot arms, which are levers, enable them to manipulate objects.

Explain that students are going to try simple experiments with simple machines, and then use those simple machines to solve challenges.
2. Demonstrate how levers work.
Construct a lever by taping a marker parallel to the edge of the table. Tear off a piece of masking tape, loop it, and attach it to the end of the ruler. Place the ruler on the marker at the center point, like a seesaw, and then press a tennis ball firmly to the tape. Invite a student volunteer to demonstrate the lever; first, have the student gently lift the ball by applying force to the end of the lever (ruler) opposite the ball. Second, instruct the student to reposition the lever (ruler) so the ball is as close to the fulcrum (marker) as possible. Have the student press the lever again to lift the ball. Lastly, reposition the lever (ruler) so the ball is as far away from the fulcrum (marker) as possible while still leaving a portion of the lever (ruler) to be pressed down. Have the student press the lever to lift the ball again. A photo of each lever situation is available in the Simple Machines Demonstrations photo gallery.

Discuss what the class saw and what the volunteer observed. Ask: Which lever configuration made the ball easiest to lift? Which lever configuration made it the most difficult to lift the ball? Which lever configuration moved the ball the farthest from its starting position? How does the lever provide a mechanical advantage when moving the ball?
3. Students complete a challenge using levers.
Introduce the lever challenge. Explain that each group will attempt to move a tennis ball from the table to the center of a roll of masking tape at varying distances. Introduce the rules. Hands may not be used to move the ball to the goal, but hands may be used to place the ball on the lever and to operate the lever. Nothing may be used to secure the ball to the lever. The marker may not be moved from the edge of the table. The masking tape roll may not be moved unless the teacher instructs it. The winner will be the group that moves the ball to the center of the masking tape roll from three different distances with the least amount of attempts.

Separate the class into groups of 2-4. Distribute the following items to each group: a tennis ball, a rigid ruler, a cylindrical marker, and a roll of masking tape. Instruct students to tape the marker parallel to the edge of a desk or table, as was demonstrated earlier by the teacher. Now, instruct groups to measure 24 cm (9.5 in) out from the marker and place the edge of the masking tape roll, flat on its side, at this point.

Allow groups a few minutes to collaborate on different ideas for getting the ball into the goal. Next, allow five minutes of exploration and experimentation. Instruct students to record the distance of 24 cm (9.5 in) in their journal and sketch the lever configuration that worked best at this distance directly beneath the number. Follow the same steps at a distance of 15 cm (6 in) and 5 cm (2 in). Lastly, the teacher will observe as groups demonstrate their lever configurations at the different distances. The group with the lowest total attempts after completing all three distances wins.
4. Students are introduced to the pulley using a demonstration.
Tell the class that pulleys make work easier by reducing the effort needed to lift an object. Instruct a student to lift a milk jug filled with water using only his or her hand. Next, have two additional students hold a broom handle at shoulder level between them. Now, tie a thin rope to the handle of the jug and let it rest on the floor. Instruct the student who earlier lifted the jug to pull the rope over the broomstick and pull down on the end of the rope to lift the jug. Ask the student to describe the difference between the two experiences.Now, untie the rope from the jug and tie one end of the rope to the broomstick. Have the two students continue to hold the broomstick at shoulder level while the other volunteer slips the free end of the rope through the handle of the jug and then back over the broomstick. Have the same student pull the end of the rope to lift the jug. Ask the student to describe the differences in the three experiences. A photo of the second and third situations are available in the Simple Machines Demonstrations photo gallery.
5. Students complete a challenge using pulleys.
Introduce the pulley challenge. Each group will lift metal objects from the floor using a pulley system they design. Introduce the rules. Only materials provided may be used in the design. Hands may not be used to pick up objects. An object lifted to at least 10 cm (4 in) in the air may be removed from the pulley using the hands. At least two spools must be incorporated into the design. No more than 15 cm (6 in) of tape may be used. Part of the pulley system may be taped to a fixed object, such as a desk.

Separate the class into groups of 2-4. Distribute the following items to each group: three plastic spools; a meter (3.2 ft) of string; a 1¼-inch donut magnet; various small metal objects, such as paper clips; masking tape; and three pencils. Allow groups time to collaborate on different ideas for pulley construction. Next, allow five to ten minutes of exploration and experimentation with the materials. Encourage students to make sketches of ideas in their journal. At the conclusion, each group will demonstrate for the teacher the most successful pulley system the group designed.
6. Students are introduced to the wheel and axle.
Tell students the wheel and axle uses rotational movement to make work easier. When effort is applied to the wheel, it produces movement in the axle, and when it is applied to the axle, it produces movement in the wheel. Ask a student to hold the narrow end of a funnel and use it to roll the large end of the funnel along the table. Ask: Is this an example of effort being applied to the axle or the wheel? (Effort applied to the axle.) Next, have a student tape the end of a 1 m (3.2 ft) piece of string to the narrow end of the funnel. Now have the student turn the funnel in a circular motion using the large end of the funnel. Ask: Is this an example of effort being applied to the axle or wheel? (Effort applied to the wheel.)
7. Students apply knowledge of the wheel and axle to complete a challenge.
Introduce the wheel and axle challenge. Each group will attempt to move a tennis ball 3 meters (roughly 10 ft) using a design incorporating the wheel and axle. Introduce the rules. Only materials provided may be used. The ball may not be touched after it begins to move. The wheel and axle must be the primary mechanism by which movement of the ball is achieved.

Separate the class into groups of 2-4. Distribute the following items to each group: two pieces of cardstock paper, approximately 57 g (2 oz) of modeling clay, two drinking straws, 30 cm (12 in) of masking tape, and 30 cm (12 in) of string. Allow groups time to collaborate on different ideas for moving the ball. Next, allow ten minutes of exploration and experimentation. Encourage students to make sketches of ideas in their journals. When all groups are ready, they will compete to determine which design can move the ball the greatest distance. Give groups five minutes to reengineer or repair their vehicles after the first test, and test a second time.
8. Students use simple machines to design a robot on paper.
Ask the class to imagine how the simple machines they experimented with could be used to construct various working parts of a robot. Ask the following questions: How could a lever be used? (Perhaps as part of the arm or leg.) How about a pulley? (It could be used to operate the gripper on a robot's arm.) What about the wheel and axle? (It could be used as part of the mobility unit.) Instruct students to create drawings of their own robots incorporating all of the simple machines they experimented with in class.

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Tell the class the definition of work used in science may differ from what most people think of as work. Work can be defined as force times distance (Work = Force x Distance). Ask a student to move a book from one desk to another. Ask: Is this work by the scientific definition?