Anyone One Have Any Ideas for Science Project for a First Grader???

You can make rain in a bottle. Heat up a glass jar that is cold. Condensation! Or you can also make a cloud in a jar. Do a google!

My daughter is at a Science Magnet. Her Kindergarten Science project was: Can you complete the rainbow with just three colors (Red, Blue and Yellow). She thought no, but the answer was yes.

First grad projec was making crystals. It was not easy and others who did it had better luck, but you can read up on it and try.

Good luck

Get 5 or 6 little pots, and plant something easy to grow, like a sunflower, in each. Give one optimum conditions - light, regular watering, etc. - and give the rest other conditions. You might put one in a closet so it gets no light, but give it regular water. You might give another only soda instead of water. One might go in the fridge. Have him speculate about what each condition will cause, then document what happens (ideally with photos.)

Another good project is battery comparisons. Get dollar store flashlights and several brands of batteries, and see which lasts longest (and how cost compares.) Don't forget the hypothesis - have him predict what he thinks will happen. (Will the expensive batteries be best?)

As a former teacher, my Mom has all these books and I think I've got the top 3. Just google it like the previous poster said...it's just got to be fun and exicting for him. The volcano is more like 3rd/4th grade!! Good Luck and don't forget to have fun and make a mess.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw_2_12?url=search-alia...

I have two recommendations: Google and find usborne books.....they have a couple of great home science experiment books and the old tv show Beakman's World. You can get them on DVD.

Hope you have a great time doing this with your child!

I have a good and simple idea. Although it may have been done, it's called ooblik. There are other spellings for it. But I think that one will get you to the right page. It also has a scientific name, but I can't think of it right now. Anyway, it is basically cornstarch and water, it is thick and milky looking, when you put it in your hand, it runs slowly, then when you squeeze it, it is hard. We brought some to my sons first grade class, and the kids went nuts. It was real messy too, I think that's why they liked it so much. Oh ya, non-newtonian fluid is it's real name. I like Ooblik. Look it up. it will amaze you I promise. Even if you don't do it as a science project, do it with you son, he will love you.

Hope that helps...

I've made 3D figures using gumdrops and toothpicks (cube, prism, pyramid)with my students. We tied a string to the shape and dipped it into bubble solution. Before doing so we predicted where the bubble "walls" would form. Interestingly enough the bubble walls do not form along the toothpicks as all my students predicted. Instead they form inside the shape. We then used the bubble shapes to blow bubbles and observed that even if the bubble shape is a square the bubbles will not square but round. Good luck

how about growing some sugar or salt crystals. I have no ifdea how to go about doing that. But, it has to be easy.

I did a project related to apples turning brown when sliced. The hypothesis stated how you can prevent it from happening. You can do some quick research on the net to understand the problem and find possible solutions and why they work. A digital camera is great to use to photo apples when first sliced and then what they look like in a few minutes. Other photos that show them not brown when you take the steps to prevent it (per the internet research).

Hi Tina, you are right will be vocanos. You can have him do the egg in the baby booty, if you put an raw egg in a baby booty and drop it from like an up stairs to a down stairs it will break, but if you put a raw egg in a baby booty and make a little parachute on it, it will slow the egg and the botty down and it wont break, he can demostrate the both to imphazie on how the parachute slows it down. They probably wont have an up stairs/down stairs but it should work if he stands on a chair or table, with somone close by of course. this isn't messy and doesn't take much supplies to do it. J. L.

My son just did "which dissolves better in water, salt or baking soda?" His class had to be able to demonstrate their projects in class, so that was a good one. Last year he did "how much salt does it take to float an egg?". That was pretty cool because he got to add salt to the water one tablespoon at a time, stirring each time, until the egg floated (we used a hard boiled egg because again, he had to demonstrate in class and the idea of sending a kindergartener to school with a raw egg seemed crazy!). I saw some people mentioned crystal-growing and I have to say from experience with my older son that it is tricky and needs a lot of parent participation. (The sugar solution has to be boiled, so it is obviously unsafe for young kids to deal with the solution when it is really hot.) I'd save that one for when he's older. Good luck and have fun with it!

How about the one with 2 potatoes and the conduction of electricity

Hi,

I love this project.... buy two identical looking small house plants... water one with fresh spring water, and the other with microwaved (then cooled) water. Take pictures to document changes over time. Discuss the effects of microwaves... etc....The results are very interesting! I will do this project with my kids when they are your son's age. It is very simple for a 6 year old and will teach them responsibility if you make watering the plant their job. Look online for more details of projects like this one. Good Luck!

Sincerely,
K. Rich

You can make your own litmus paper (soak paper in red cabage water) and test it with bases and acids.
Or take 2 products and servey them to see which one people like better (my brother did that when he was younger to see if people liked girl scout cookies or their knock-offs better).
Or you can make a toy car and buy a couple like hotwheels and see which one will win in a race...
I am sure that you can also search the internet and come up with something fun.

one of my favorite projects was making crystals (rock candy in reality! lol) I was in the fourth grade though. Not sure what a 1st grader would do. good luck to you!

here's a great webpage http://chemistry.about.com/od/sciencefairprojects/u/scien...
Good Luck and have fun!

Magnets are great with this age. He can "hypothesize" about what kinds of materials will and won't stick to the large magnet, and leave examples out on the display table to interact with .

He can create a magnate with copper wire and a nine-volt battery:

http://www.ehow.com/how_###-###-####_make-magnet-battery-...

go to your bookstore they usuaally have kits or books.I saw a book in our bookstore yesterday.I think it was titled science projects at dockside bookstore in st thomas vi.good luck

Hi Tina, here something simple. Ask your dentist to save you some teeth. Then put the teeth in different solutions and record if and when they begin to change colors. Try things like milk, sugared creamers, soda, punch and so on. Let your child be creative about what he wants to use.

Hi Tinapaulo,

First of all, I must say -- you have a very unusual (at least for around here) and beautiful name!

Anyway, I tried to respond yesterday but the links were broken. As a scientist and a regular judge for the LA County Science Fair (and the mom of a 2X Science Fair and American Statistical Society award winner -- sorry about the bragging!), my feeling is that the value of the project is in learning the scientific process more than the complexity of the experiment itself. This starts with a question: What happens if ...; Why is it that ...; Which is better -- item 1 or item 2, and why?

First graders have a wonderful sense of inate curiousity about the world around them. What interests your son? What does he ask questions about, with respect to the natural and physical world? Does he wonder why some plants grow faster than others? Why ants always crawl in a line once they've found food for the nest? Why it gets cold in winter? How airplanes stay up? Why some rocks are hard and some crumble? All of these and so many more make great questions for science exploration and a science fair.

Once your son has a question, the next question to him is "can you think of a plausible answer to explain your question? What do you think is going on?" This is called hypothesis formation in the scientific world.

Step 3 is to think of an easy way to test the hypothesis (potential answer to the question) to see if it makes sense or not. This is the experimental part. Repetition and replication are very important to this process

Step 4 is to collect data and record it carefully.

Step 5 is to interpret the results. Mathematics and graphing are usually involved in this, but don't let that freak you out!

Now, I know that this sounds daunting for a 6 yr old, but look at this as an example:

Question: When you put different types of seeds in water will some of them start growing faster than others?

Hypothesis: Some types of seeds will grow faster than others.

Experiment: Buy packages of 3 or 4 kinds of seeds (If you want to "stack the deck", buy seeds that state different germination rates, such as raddish, bean, corn, and tomato). Fill a glass or clear plastic cup with cotton wool (cotton balls) and line the inside of the glass with black construction paper. Cut a ring of black construction paper and make a tube to cover each glass. Have one glass for each type of seed (Label them clearly). Place several seeds of a single type (spaced apart) between the glass and the paper, about 1/2" to 1" from the top of the paper. Use the same number of seeds for each type. Number the seeds (magic marker on the glass) so you can tell them apart. Water the cotton wool enough so that it holds water and the water is sucked up into the construction paper. Cover the glass with the tube of construction paper. (This simulates planting a seed in earth). Add enough water to the glass each day to keep the paper moist. If you want to be REALLY scientific about this, add the exact same amount of water to each glass at the beginning and on each day.

Data collection: Slide off the black tube once per day, always at the same time, and look at the seeds. Make a chart. Note on it seed type, seed number, and experiment day, then if there is any change to the seed, such as size, shape, if a root has appeared, if a hypocotl or cotyledon has appeared (look up big words!), etc. Use a ruler to measure the seeds, roots, shoots, etc. (In fact, the seeds should be measured before adding water at the very beginning).

Analyze the results. The simplest way to do this is to create a bar graph. Using graph paper, color in squares to show how much each seed has grown. Decide what makes sense for the amount of units/square (e.g., 1/4", 1/2 cm, whatever) and use this consistantly for every seed and seed type. Try to see if you can figure out what makes the most sense in terms of what you use for the x and y axes. Are you looking at number germinated/day? Size of seed/day? Root length/day? Shoot length/day? Overall growth/day? Once you have everything graphed, look for patterns in the bars. Are all the bars identical for a single type of seed? (Probably not, but should be close) Is there a clear difference in the set of bars for one type of seed versus another? If you want to get fancy, you can teach your son how to plug his data into Microsoft Office Excel and generate a graph, but at his age I think the connection will be much clearer if he creates his graphs by hand.

Once you have this data, decide on whether or not your hypothesis was correct. (Yes, the seeds grew at different rates or no they didn't). State why you proved or disproved your hypothesis. Then, see if you can think of more questions to ask that would let you carry your "research" further if you were going to press on.

If you want some good examples of what kids your child's age have done, take a look at the poster award winners at http://amstat.org/education/posterprojects/2008postersk3.cfm

Most important of all -- HAVE FUN! Science should be exciting and mind expanding, not numbingly boring and tedious (as it is often taught by people who don't understand it well.

If your son comes up with a question and the two of you can't come up with a way of testing it, feel free to drop me an email through mamasource. I'll send you back my phone number and we can chat directly.

I knew someone who did this project: they had about 4 brand new plants in cups, and watered each one with different liquids: water, diet coke, lemonade, etc. The one watered with diet coke became the largest!

These were mentioned by other moms' posts and are definitely worth checking out.
www.sciencebuddies.org
(We just used it to find a great project about baseball for my 5th grader for his science fair, and he won 1st place!)

And...
The Usborne Book of Science Activities
(they have different volumes, with very simple experiments and good explanations for younger kids)
I bought mine from www.sonlight.com when we were homeschooling, but I have also seen it at science stores (the one in the CA Science Museum in downtown LA), and even the library might have it.

Here are a few websites:

http://educationaltoyfactory.com/1st_grade_science_projec...
http://educationaltoyfactory.com/1st_grade_science_projec...
http://www.scienceprojectlab.com/1st-grade-science-fair-p...

Good luck and have fun!

P.S. I just Googled "interesting 1st grade science projects"

Google 'elementary school science fair projects'!! You will be surprised, I have done this with my daughter for 4 years now, most sites do not give you the answers, you will find ideas, and suggestions on how to go about each project. There are so many sites to choose from. Good luck, and remember to let your son pick from a list that you have deemed age appropriate, will spark his interest, and that he can do the majority of the project on his own. This is HIS school assignment not yours. I am sure that the teachers can tell who does these projects, my daughter has won 1st and 2nd place for some of her science projects and I did not help her with them and there was ALOT of them that were far better then hers, but apparent that a thrid grader did not do them.

Hi!

I used to run the Science fair for our school and I taught first grade for many years. A fun, easy thing to do is to ask the question, "will soap float or sink?" and then have a list of all different kinds of soaps and have your son hypothesize which ones will float and which ones will sink, or he might think they'll all float or sink. Then try them one by one and have him record the results. Make sure you get some Ivory soap, because it floats due to air whipped into the soap. To demonstrate that, you can put ivory soap in the microwave for a short time and it expands to huge proportions kind of like a marshmallow. So cool and fun!! Remember, things can be very simple at this age. Any science question he has is good. The judges will be more impressed by his work than anything fancy you do. Have fun!

I love Steve Spangler's site (he's the science guy who is on Ellen sometimes) for experiment ideas and videos. He might have the video up there of the soap expanding.
http://www.stevespangler.com/experiments/

Here is a good website for you to explore... http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/scien...

or

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/proje...

Just copy and paste to your browser address or type in "Earthquake Science Project" or Science Projects" There are so many great ideas. I always wondered if earthworms could hear. I wondered if they could be trained, by ringing a bell or other type of signal when you were about to feed them. The cost of the project would be close to nothing.

K.

do a project that shows the damage of soda to teeth. Get 3 eggs, put a pin hole in each one and blow out the egg, put one egg each in a glass and fill one with Name brand dark soda, one with a clear soda and one with a natural soda (like Hansens). document the staining and deterioration of them for 5 days, take pictures, etc. We did this one year under "consumer awareness" science project. It is easy for your child to do.

Tinapaulo,

This is my favorite site for science gadgets: http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/

Two of my current favorites involve hydrogel. You can get it in crystals: http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/1676 in color
or plain: http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/1283

or powder: http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/1448

Hydrogel is basically a man made polymer (long chain of molecules) that can hold up to 500 times its own weight in water. It is the gel stuff you find in baby diapers. It is used in water conservation and to prevent water run off in agricultural lands. It is incredibly cool to play with. We did an "experiment" where we mixed it with water, vinegar, lemon juice, pepsi, salt water and a couple of other things to see how the differences in PH would effect its ability to gel.

I like to use both the powder and the crystals for the visual effect but I did all of the "experiment" stuff with the powder because it puffs up much quicker - the crystals have to sit a while and you lose the visual punch.

If you don't like hydrogel, I'm sure you can find something else cool on this site. they have all sorts of kid friendly fun stuff. One of the kids did an experiment for our local fair using different disposable diapers to see which ones held the most water (the Kirkland/CostCo brand if you are curious).

Another cool one is "gloop" - which is basically making silly putty. You mix borax (find it in the laundry aisle) and mix some with water then pour in white school glue (like elmers). Stir, stir, stir and you get a rubber compound like silly putty. If you want it to be a color, add food coloring to the water before you pour in the glue.

Oobleck is also cool. You get a big pile of corn starch (maybe a cup) and slowly mix in water. Once it is thick and well mixed if you put your finger into it slowly, your finger will go in like a liquid but if you jam your finger into it, your finger will bounce off. It is called a "non-Newtonian fluid" because it has properties of both solids and liquids. You can see the experiement if you look on utube.

I could probably come up with some other cool ideas if you need them. I work with 4-H in after school programs and we do lots of science stuff. It is all hands on, fun and messy. LOL

Making butter is fun too. You just get heavy cream, stick it in a jar with a tight fitting lid and you shake it, shake it and shake it some more.

Good luck,

T.

Hello,

Check out this website: www.sciencebuddies.org

I have used this website for the last couple of years for my sons science fair projects and it is great. They have several ideas for each grade and/or age. It even provides instructions for most of the projects. Good luck!!

Well my son is in 1st grade also. He did the popcorn challenge. You buy 3 diffrent kind's of popcorn brands. Pop each one, make sure you empty each one into a bowl w/the name brand on top. Once you pop all 3. You will take out the popcorn and count the kernels. This is to see which brand pop's more and leaves less kernels. Or you could also do the bubble gum challing. Buy 3 diffrent kinds and of course have him chew the gum to see which gum makes the biggest bubble and flavor last's the longest I hope this helps.

How about making play-doh? There are several books in the library and often some of the craft books could also be science fair projects... or what about a "green" project... something to do with recycling?

There's some great ideas in relation to the environment. Try googling children's science projects- environment. you'll build awareness for the whole class

how about - when things start to decay? Putting bread or grapes or something else and how long it takes to grow mold?

you can google "first grade science projects" & it will give you some good links. that's what we do every yr! :-)

How about the celery and red dye project? Super simple and inexpensive. Two glasses of water, a piece of celery in each one, add red food coloring to one. The red dye will travel up the veins of the celery to the leaves, showing how plants take in water and nutrients. Easy! Have fun!

My favorite when I was little- I had two zebra fish (can't remember the names, they were little black/white fish) and my question was "do zebra fish change color to match their environments?" (or something like that!) and my hypothesis was they do. I then took one fish in a small bowl and covered it with black construction paper and the other fish/bowl with white. The black bowl- the fish did turn darker and the white bowl's fish was lighter. Pretty easy, then I got to keep the fish!

good luck- my kiddos are 2 and 3 so I have a few years to come up with these projects!

My son is also in first grade and participating in his school's science fair. We are building a catapult. He then will write two pages on how it works incorporating the terms load, effort and fulcrum. The other idea he had was dissolving lollipops in various liquids (eg: water, juice and soda) to see how long it would take for each. Of course building something that can send a projectile across the room was a whole lot more interesting so a catapult it is for us. Good luck