Discovering Nature with Young Children

Let's do real science! Discovering Nature with Young Children is an inquiry-based curriculum that builds on children's natural curiosity about the living world.
The curriculum guide helps you prepare yourself and your classroom for a new approach to science learning. It then assists you in planning open and focused explorations, ranging from indoor terraria to outdoor animal searches and habitat discussions. You will also learn how to better observe, assess, and document the children's learning.

This curriculum is designed to help children learn:

Essential scientific reasoning skills, such as hypothesis, inference, prediction, and estimation
 Important language and literacy skills as they communicate their findings, participate in discussions, and represent their experiences
Crucial math skills as they count, measure, sort, categorize, and compare the many plants and animals in their surroundings

"I've learned to take the children's lead, using their theories as a starting point, then helping them think about how they might test out those theories. And by helping them test their theories, they're able to refine their thinking, and develop new theories that lead to new questions and deeper investigations."
—From Worm City: Excerpts from a Teacher's Journal, Discovering Nature with Young Children.