Kindergarten science

Kindergarten science is noticing things out loud. Sorting by color and texture, watching the sky, naming what a plant needs to stay alive. The Sun turns up as the thing that makes the day warm and bright. Nearly none of this needs a purchased program. It needs a jar, a window, and an adult willing to ask what do you notice and then wait for the answer.

• K
• 1st
• 2nd
• 3rd
• 4th
• 5th

What to aim for this year

By the end of kindergarten, a child working at grade level can usually do these.

• Answer a question about the world by looking, listening, touching and smelling, then say out loud what was noticed.
• Sort a pile of objects by one observable property, then mix them up and sort the same pile by a different one.
• Describe today's weather in plain words and keep a simple daily record for two or three weeks.
• Name the Sun as the source of daytime heat and light, and describe what changes between day and night.
• List what a plant needs to live and what an animal needs to live, and say where the two lists differ.
• Point to the parts of a plant and say what each part does for the plant.
• Show that a push or a pull can start, stop, speed up or turn an object.
• Identify rock, soil and water as things that come from the earth and get used every day.
• Pick up a hand lens, a measuring cup or a balance without being told which one the job needs.
• Follow basic safety rules and put materials back where they came from.

Free, and legal to use

Every one of these costs nothing. The license tag says what you may actually do with it, which is not the same question as whether it is free to read.

• NASA Space Place Free See terms

  NASA's site for the K-4 band. Short articles and printable activities on the Sun, the Moon, day and night, clouds and weather, most of them readable aloud in about five minutes. The reading level is genuinely aimed at this age rather than dumbed down from an adult page.

  License: NASA states its content is generally not protected by copyright, so you may copy, print and adapt it. Three limits: images NASA hosts under permission from outside photographers are excluded, the NASA insignia may not go on anything you sell, and nothing you make may imply NASA endorses it.

• USDA Forest Service learning materials for kids Free Public domain

  Smokey Bear fire safety, Woodsy Owl on recycling, coloring pages, kids' videos, and Junior Ranger material for forests and snow. Honest scope: this is mascot-and-coloring territory, which is exactly right for five and six year olds. The Natural Inquirer science journal it links to reads well above this grade, so save that for later.

  License: Public domain as a work of the United States government. Read the credit line under any photograph, since a few come from partner groups or outside photographers and are not covered.

• Smithsonian Open Access Free Public domain Not confirmed

  Millions of images and 3D scans from the Smithsonian's museums, including plant and animal specimens, minerals and full dinosaur skeletons. For a five year old this is a free picture library you can print, cut apart and sort on the living room floor, which is the actual kindergarten skill.

  License: Smithsonian releases designated Open Access items under CC0, a public domain dedication with no attribution required. It covers only items flagged Open Access. Other material on Smithsonian sites sits outside that release and stays restricted, so check the individual item record rather than assuming the whole domain is open. I could not load the terms page on the day I wrote this, so confirm before you build anything on it.

• Exploratorium Science Snacks Free Creative Commons Not confirmed

  Several hundred single-concept demonstrations from the San Francisco science museum, each with a materials list, steps, and the explanation behind it. The light and shadow ones fit kindergarten's Sun-gives-heat-and-light work and carry straight into first grade, where light and shadow is formally taught. Search their site for Science Snacks.

  License: Check the license. Snack pages have carried a Creative Commons notice including NonCommercial and ShareAlike terms, but the museum's site blocked automated checking when I tried, so I could not confirm the current version. Read the notice at the foot of the specific Snack before you copy or adapt it. If a ShareAlike term applies, anything you build from it inherits the same condition.

• PBS LearningMedia Free Free to use Not confirmed

  A free account opens tens of thousands of short classroom videos and activities sorted by grade and topic. The K-2 life science and weather clips run short enough to hold a five year old. Note that the site routes you to your regional station, so a Texas family lands on the Houston Public Media instance.

  License: Free to use with a free account and fully copyrighted. Educational, non-commercial use with attribution, and no redistribution. I confirmed the site is live but did not read the current terms page, so read it before you build anything on top of it.

Paid programs, honestly

Nothing here is required. These are the programs families most often ask about, with the real drawback of each one named rather than skipped.

• Mystery Science Paid Homeschool membership listed at $199, discounted to $179 when I checked in August 2026. A science and writing bundle was $259. Membership runs through June 30, 2027 rather than a rolling twelve months, so read the end date before you compare it to an annual price.

  Good at: Open and go. Each lesson starts from a question a child would actually ask, runs a short video, then does one hands-on activity with cheap household supplies. Almost no prep. Because it spans K-5, one membership serves several children at once.

  Drawback: Video first and hands second, and the hands-on portion is short enough that a busy family quietly skips it and calls the video the lesson. It is a subscription, so year six costs the same as year one, and access closes when you stop paying.

  Suits: A parent who dreads planning and wants a full year decided for them.

• Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding, Volume I (Grades K-2), Bernard J. Nebel Paid Commonly sold in the $30 to $40 range in paperback, less as an ebook. I could not confirm a current price from the publisher, so check before ordering.

  Good at: Unusually careful conceptual sequencing. Nebel runs four threads through the early grades and tells you which lesson has to come before which, so the child finishes with a structure instead of a pile of unrelated topics. One-time purchase.

  Drawback: Written to the teacher, not the student. No worksheets, no scripts, few pictures, dense prose, and a prerequisite flowchart you have to hold in your head. Parents who want to open to page one and start tend to bounce off it inside a month.

  Suits: A parent who is comfortable reading ahead and wants sequencing rather than a script.

• Apologia elementary science (Botany, or Zoology 1: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day) Paid Build-your-own sets listed at $94.00, on sale at $70.50 in August 2026. Apologia discounts sitewide often, so the list price is rarely what you pay.

  Good at: Warm conversational read-aloud that a kindergartner and a fourth grader can sit through together, with notebooking journals at two writing levels. Families who start it tend to finish it, which is not true of most elementary science.

  Drawback: Explicitly Christian and creation-based, which is a firm no for a secular family and should be known before any money changes hands. Each book covers one narrow field for a whole year, so a year on flying creatures leaves the year's matter, force and earth science work untouched. The reading level also runs above a kindergartner working alone.

  Suits: A Christian family that wants one book to read on the couch all year.

• Elemental Science, Biology for the Grammar Stage Paid Ebook $22.50, student workbook $19.99, teacher guide $23.99, optional experiment kit $54.99, bundles from $84.99, checked August 2026. Outside reference books are extra.

  Good at: Classical, secular, thirty-six weeks laid out with scripted demonstrations and notebooking pages. Cheap as an ebook, and it hands you a weekly schedule you can follow without deciding anything.

  Drawback: The plan routes you to specific outside encyclopedias you have to buy or borrow separately, so the real first-year cost lands well above the sticker price. Notebooking is heavy for a child who cannot yet write. Editions change and the required book list changes with them, which strands anyone buying used.

  Suits: A secular family that wants a printed weekly schedule and will do the notebooking.

Prices are approximate and change often. Check with the publisher before you buy. We describe and link to these programs; none of their material is hosted here.

What a week looks like

1. Monday. Ten minutes outside, then come back in and say three things you noticed. Write them down for your child. That is the whole lesson.
2. Tuesday. Sort a bowl of buttons, leaves or rocks by one property. Mix them up. Sort by a different one. Ask which way was easier and why.
3. Wednesday. Read one NASA Space Place article aloud, five minutes, then have your child draw it and tell it back to you.
4. Thursday. Check the weather at the same time of day and add a row to a chart taped to the refrigerator. Two minutes, every week, all year.
5. Friday. One hands-on thing. Plant a bean in a wet paper towel, or chalk around a shadow on the driveway at nine and again at three.

Practice it here, free

These rooms on this site cover part of the year's work. No sign-up, and they work offline.

• know — Five senses, plants, seasons and day and night. Four of this room's eight topics sit squarely inside kindergarten science.
• shadows — Light and shadow. The closest thing on this site to the Sun-and-light work, though it is built as a game rather than a lesson.
• mixing — Watching one thing change when you combine it with another. Observation practice, not a matter unit.
• order — Sorting and sequencing, which is the classify-by-property skill wearing a game costume.
• units — Early measuring vocabulary. Supports the recording habit; does not teach any science content.

The rest of kindergarten