Science Activities for Grandparents and Visiting Grandchildren

You don’t need to be a scientist to share science with a grandchild. What you have is time, patience and a lifetime of noticing things, which is exactly what science needs. These ideas take little preparation and fit naturally into a visit.

Keep it simple and short

Visits are about being together, so choose activities that feel like play. A good rule is one small activity at a time, around 15 to 30 minutes, with plenty of room for the child to wander off and come back. If the child is more interested in something you didn’t plan, follow it.

Kitchen ideas

The kitchen is full of science, and most children love being allowed to help.

Sink or float. Gather spoons, a grape, a coin, a cork, a lemon and a leaf. Guess first, then test in a bowl of water.
Melting race. Put an ice cube on a plate, in a bowl of warm tap water and wrapped in a tea towel. Which melts first? (An adult should handle anything hot.)
Dissolving. Stir sugar, salt and sand into separate cups of water. Look at what vanishes and what stays. Nothing from the experiment is tasted.
Bread or dough. Making dough shows how ingredients change when mixed and left to rise.
Oobleck. Cornflour and water make a goo that acts like a solid and a liquid. Try Is Oobleck a Solid or a Liquid? It’s messy, so do it over a tray.

Garden and window-sill ideas

Grow a seed in a clear cup. Put a bean seed between a damp paper towel and the glass and watch roots and shoots appear.
Minibeast hunt. Turn over a pot or lift a leaf, look gently, draw what you see and put it back. Wash hands afterwards.
Soil check. Dig a small handful and look for roots, stones, tiny creatures and bits of leaf.
Plant watching. Choose one plant and measure it with a ruler each visit.

Walk ideas

Colour hunt. Find five greens that are all different.
Shadow measure. Measure a shadow with footsteps in the morning and in the afternoon.
Sound map. Stop, close your eyes for one minute and count the different sounds.
Weather watch. Look at the clouds and guess what the weather will do next. Check later.
Leaf sort. Collect fallen leaves and sort them any way the child chooses.

On any walk, stay together near roads, water and anything with sharp edges, and don’t touch plants or fungi you can’t identify.

Using the same ideas at a distance

If you live far from your grandchild, science can still be a regular thing.

Start a shared notebook. Each of you gets a copy of the same notebook, or you take turns posting pages by mail or photo.
Pick one thing to observe for a month. For example, the Moon, a plant, or the weather at each home.
Swap drawings. “Here’s the tree outside my window. What does yours look like?”
Do the same simple test in both places on a video call, such as which paper plane flies farthest, and compare notes.
Send a question. “I wonder why puddles disappear. What do you think?” Then wait for an answer.

The adults at home can help by taking photos and setting up a regular time.

How to talk about science with a grandchild

Ask more than you tell. “What do you notice?” “What do you think will happen?”
Share your own memories of nature or how things used to be done. Old ways of preserving food or telling weather are rich topics.
Say “I don’t know” when you don’t, and look it up together.
Respect the family’s rules about food, allergies and safety. Ask the adults at home what’s fine for materials and mess.

A little prep list

Keep a small bag at your home with a magnifying glass, a notebook, a few pencils, a ruler, some zip bags and a couple of plastic cups. It takes a minute to set out, and it tells a child that science is a normal thing that happens at your house.

More ideas

Browse the Kitchen Chemistry unit, read our parents page, or have a look at summer science activities for kids in the backyard.