Science With a Young Child and an Older Child Together

If you look after children of different ages, you’ve probably wondered how to do science with both at once. The good news is that you don’t need two plans. You need one activity and a few different jobs and questions.

One activity, many levels

Good science activities are open-ended. A simple test like “Which paper plane flies farthest?” can be enjoyed by a five-year-old who loves throwing and a twelve-year-old who wants to measure and graph.

The trick is to match the job and the question to the child.

Different jobs

Give each child a role that suits them. Then swap now and then so no one is stuck being “the little one”.

Younger child (about 4 to 7):

Handles materials, pours, stirs and releases.
Describes what they see in their own words.
Draws the result.
Sorts or counts items.

Middle child (about 8 to 10):

Measures with a ruler, tape or timer.
Writes down the results.
Keeps the test fair.

Older child (about 11 and up):

Plans the test and decides what to change.
Spots and controls variables.
Draws a simple graph or table.
Explains the result and suggests improvements.

An older child can be a helper without becoming a teacher. Ask them to “check that it’s fair”, not “show them how”.

Different questions

Using the same experiment, ask each child a different question. Take a ball-ramp test as an example:

Younger child: “What did the ball do? Which went fastest?”
Middle child: “How far did it roll? Can you measure it?”
Older child: “What do you think would change the result? How could we be sure?”

Our post on questions to ask during science experiments has lots more.

Activities that work well for mixed ages

Paper plane test. Everyone builds, and each child gets a role. See What Makes a Paper Plane Fly Farthest?
Egg drop challenge. Younger children design a cushion, and older children think about why it works. Try Can You Drop an Egg Without Breaking It?
Ice melting. Place ice in different spots, then time and compare.
Shadow tracing. Young children trace, older ones measure and compare lengths.
Seed growing. Younger children water and draw. Older ones record height each day and make a graph.

Keep safety in mind

An adult stays in charge of anything hot, sharp or with small parts.
Make sure small parts stay away from very young children.
Agree that nothing from the experiment goes in mouths.
Keep younger children in sight while older ones work on a more complicated step.

Handling the tricky moments

The older child takes over. Pause and say, “Let’s swap. It’s your turn to hold the timer.”
The younger child loses interest. Let them go. They often drift back when things get exciting.
The older child feels it’s too babyish. Add a challenge, such as predicting a number, controlling a variable or explaining a result in a sentence.
Arguments about who’s right. Turn it into a test: “How could we find out?”

Keep the notebook shared

One shared notebook can hold everything. Younger children can add drawings, and older children can add data or a sentence. Over time it becomes a record of how each child grew. For ideas see science notebooks.

A tip for the adults at home

Don’t worry about perfect fairness in who gets the “best” job. Over a few sessions everyone will have had their turn. What matters is that every child has something real to do and something real to think about.

Where to start

Read our home education page for how families teach several ages together, and see a 20-minute weekly science routine for families.