While it may seem simple, a walk through nature provides nursery school students with opportunities to explore science. On your walk, examine trees, plants, clouds and anything else you come into contact with. Encourage children to touch dirt and to take a close look at leaves. Invite them to ask questions and provide answers for these questions. Take bags and allow children to collect items they find on their nature walk. Upon returning to the classroom, provide children with magnifying glasses and allow them to examine the items they have collected. Let them glue the items onto paper to create nature collages.
Explore how primary colors mix to create secondary colors. Set out bowls of red, yellow and blue paint and ask children to identify the colors. Ask children what they think will happen when two colors are combined--red and yellow, for example. Instruct them to use a spoon to place red and yellow paint in an empty bowl and mix them together. Have them do the same with blue and yellow paint and red and blue paint. Discuss the results and explain that red, yellow and blue are primary colors and that while they can be combined to create other colors, they can't be created by combining other colors. Allow children to use the paints to make pictures.
Provide nursery school students with a hands-on activity that allows them to see the process of absorption. Set out a variety of different materials that will and won't absorb water--tin foil, plastic wrap, cotton and a sponge, for example. Ask children to predict which items will absorb water and which items won't. Provide them with eye droppers and invite them to test their hypothesis by placing drops of water on each item. Discuss the results.
Cooking is a fun hands-on science-related activity, as it allows children to see how heat changes things. Show children uncooked eggs still in the shell; allow them to feel the eggs and examine them with magnifying glasses. Invite them to crack the eggs open, place the contents in a bowl and look closely at the eggs. Let each child have a turn beating the eggs and discuss how they change appearance as they are stirred. Cook the eggs and talk about how they change again when exposed to heat. Serve the cooked eggs as a healthy snack.