Curiosity Box
Series
This series of books for little scientists is designed to develop early science skills through observing, photographing, and collecting items to put inside a real curiosity box. Have a look at the additional information and Peter’s video at the end of this section.
Curiosity Box
Series
This series of books for little scientists is designed to develop early science skills through observing, photographing, and collecting items to put inside a real curiosity box. Have a look at the additional information and Peter’s video at the end of this section.
In Key Stage 1 (KS1) of the National Curriculum children are taught to experience and observe phenomena in the natural and human-constructed world. A way to encourage children to do this is for them to take part in an activity making and decorating a curiosity box into which they can put any interesting objects that they find.
Young children are well known for making collections of things they find curious such as pebbles, fossils, crystals. These are the kind of items that eventually find themselves on bedroom window sills. The Curiosity Box activity is designed to re-examine them in a scientific way and build up an even larger database.
Curiosity is a precursor of scientific thought and this section of the site is designed to help children think like a scientist. Creating a curiosity box builds on their natural curiosity and helps them develop their scientific skills of observing and researching and their general skills of communication as they make their presentations about the contents of their boxes.
How to make a curiosity box
Take a shoe box or one of a similar size and decorate it with pictures, question marks and exclamation marks. Do not draw pictures of the things inside as this will spoil the surprises in your presentation.
Further Activities
Put ten or more objects on top of the box. Let your friends look at them for a minute. Cover up the objects and see how many your friends can remember.
See if they can remember some facts about each object.
If you find something interesting, send it to me at peter@peterdriley.com and I’ll feature it in the Natural World Photo Gallery on my blog!
Step into Science
Series
The Step into Science series takes young readers on a journey of scientific discovery through simple explanations, as well as activities and questions to help them think further about science. Two colourful friendly guides join the readers on their way to help them along the way.
Step into Science
Series
The Step into Science series takes young readers on a journey of scientific discovery through simple explanations, as well as activities and questions to help them think further about science. Two colourful friendly guides join the readers on their way to help them along the way.
Teaching Primary Science
There are two dedications at the front of this book. The first is to a primary school in the North of England, which was attended by two of my granddaughters. Over the years they were there, I made many voluntary visits to give lessons in primary science with the teachers from Reception to Year 6.
Here I am with my granddaughter Tabitha in Year 5, studying food chains by dissecting owl pellets.
The second dedication is to a university in the Netherlands, where the first edition of this book was used as the textbook for students taking the science elective of the International Teacher Education for Primary Schools (ITEPS) degree.
Back in 2021, I was invited to Skype with the class taking this elective to talk about the book and primary science in general. Over the years, this has evolved into a regular Skype visit, along with email mentoring, to help the students with their course projects. In 2023, I visited the university to give a couple of talks, a workshop, and in-person mentoring.
With the class of 2023 outside the university’s Fab Lab.
My involvement with the university generated ideas that I have incorporated into this new edition. These include The Outdoor Scientist’s Backpack, Biodiversity, STEM and STEAM, The Science Star, and how the book can contribute to international primary science, following this website banner: Taking Science Education Across the World.
This new edition is now the recommended textbook for students on the ITEPS degree course, and I continue to visit via Skype and provide email mentoring.
Ways into Science
Series
The Ways into Science series was first published in 2001 as a set of eight books. Due to its popularity, I doubled the size of the series in 2003, and in the United States, it was released under the title Everyday Science. Following its success, I produced these videos to support the first eight books. Although originally planned for use in Key Stage 1 science, I have also found that they can be successfully used in some Key Stage 2 science lessons.
Each video is accompanied by a ZIP file of PDF resources, including a “Stop and Chat” sheet for the video, a science quiz with an answer sheet, and an experiment report sheet. Find out more about “Stop and Chat” below.
Ways into Science
Series
The Ways into Science series was first published in 2001 as a set of eight books. Due to its popularity, I doubled the size of the series in 2003, and in the United States, it was released under the title Everyday Science. Following its success, I produced these videos to support the first eight books. Although originally planned for use in Key Stage 1 science, I have also found that they can be successfully used in some Key Stage 2 science lessons.
Each video is accompanied by a ZIP file of PDF resources, including a “Stop and Chat” sheet for the video, a science quiz with an answer sheet, and an experiment report sheet. Find out more about “Stop and Chat” below.
Stop and Chat
The aim of Stop and Chat is to use the video and the sheet together to encourage children to interact with what they see and hear, and with you in discussion. This allows the children to develop their communication skills, especially in the context of science, leading to greater scientific literacy. Although it may seem difficult, it isn’t. Just follow the steps below and enjoy watching and talking about the video with your children.
- Download the ZIP file and print off the Stop and Chat sheet.
- Sit with your child at the computer, have your Stop and Chat sheet ready, and play the video.
- You may like to run through the film with your child without the Stop and Chat sheet so both of you can see how the topic is presented.
- Play the film again but this time stop it at the times shown on the sheet and use the notes to ask your child about the topic or perform an activity. The stop and chat sheet has times at which you should stop the film and just … chat. Try it.
- You may find that the notes suggest activities which you can do with your children and they can write them up on the report sheet downloaded from the zip file to keep a record of their developing science knowledge in a science file.
Please have a go and let me know how you got on by writing to peter@peterdriley.com
