Skill shelf · cause, effect and a first experiment · 1 activity

Simple Science and Cause and Effect

One activity that grows into an experiment: a bean in a jar, then a second jar kept in the cupboard or left dry, to find out which change did what.

Cause and effect is easy to demonstrate and hard to make stick, because most of what a child does answers instantly. This one answers tomorrow. Water it and nothing visible happens until the next morning, and that gap is what makes the connection worth something when it lands.

The results arrive on their own, without being staged. A shoot that goes long, pale and floppy is not damage, it is a plant reaching for light, and turning the jar a half turn each morning bends it back over two days. Kitchen paper that goes mouldy is too much water and not enough air. Each of those is a rule a child can test by doing the same thing again on purpose.

The version that is properly an experiment is the second jar, usually somewhere around six or seven. One on the sill, one in the cupboard, everything else kept the same. That is the whole of how an experiment works, and it is worth saying out loud in those words on the morning she sets it up. The same activity is on Nature and Close Observation for the daily watching, and on Measuring, Time and Money for the paper strips.

The one here

The line gives the age it suits, the setup and what five minutes a morning covers.

• Plant Care and Growth Measuring Your child grows a bean from a dried one in the cupboard, waters it on a schedule that is hers, and cuts a paper strip to its height every morning. 2 min · 5 min a day, for weeks · household only

Dried beans, a jam jar and kitchen paper. The second jar, for the test, is another jam jar.

Five more where doing it again gives the same answer

These are filed under hands, balance and the senses, but each one runs on a rule of the physical world a child can check by repeating it: a shadow is the shape of the thing that made it, a sponge holds exactly so much water, a jug pours at the rate your hand allows, breath down a straw moves a ball, and ten identical pots can still weigh five different amounts.

• Sponge Squeezing Your child soaks a sponge in one bowl, carries it dripping to the other, and squeezes it out with both hands until the first bowl is empty. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
• Water Pouring and Transfer Your child pours water from one small jug into another, and then back again, and again, until the table is wet. 3 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
• Straw Blow Ping Pong Race Your child blows a ping pong ball across the table through a straw, and races it to a strip of tape at the far end. no setup · under 5 min · household only
• Shape Shadow Match Your child stands a solid shape in a beam of light and works out which of the outlines traced on the paper its shadow belongs to. 2 min · 10 to 20 min · household only
• Weighted Pod Sorting Your child picks up two pots that look exactly alike, decides which one is heavier, and keeps going until all ten are in pairs. 15 min, once · 5 to 10 min · household only

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