• White Plains Science Curriculum Grades K-5

    Children are naturally curious. The White Plains Elementary Science Curriculum fosters this curiosity by providing students with opportunities to have direct experience with common objects, materials and living things in their environment. Emphasis is placed on understanding important relationships, mechanisms and processes and on applying concepts in science, rather than on the memorization of specialized terminology or technical details. Much of the content in science is explored while fostering literacy skills through nonfiction content reading, as well as children's literature that incorporates accurate science concepts within fictional reading selections. For this reason, the science curriculum units outlined in the attached documents are designed to provide instruction in science every other day. The balance of the expectation of daily science instruction set forth by the State is provided through interdisciplinary units linking science with the literacy and mathematics curricula.

    Each grade level has four or five science curriculum units. The units may be implemented in different sequences by different teachers.The units are designied to be taught in any order, so while the skills of science build upon previous experience throughout the school year, the content of one unit is not dependent upon the previous introduction ofanother unit in the same grade. The following chart gives an outline of the curriculum units taught at each grade level.*

    Kindergarten

    Variety of Senses

    Variety of Living Things

    Variety of Materials

    Variety of Weather Conditions and Seasons

    Sand and Water Play

    First Grade

    Properties of Plants and Animals in Woodland and Pond Habitats

    Properties and Changes in Solids and Liquids

    Comparing and Measuring

    Properties of Air and Weather

    Second Grade

    Changes in Plants (Life Cycles)

    Changes in Animals (Life Cycles)

    Changes in Things that Sink or Float

    Changes in Balance and Motion

    Third Grade

    Soils, Sand and Clay: Planting Variables

    Animal Adaptations and Behavior

    Metric Measurement

    Interactions in the Human Body

    Fourth Grade

    Buoyant Systems

    Plant Growth and Development

    Models and Designs

    Electric and Magnetic Systems

    NYS Elementary-Level Science Test Review

    Fifth Grade

    Chemical Interactions

    Energy Interactions

    Microscopic Interactions

    Variables Affecting Motion

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    *Units are not sequential and may be taught in a different order by individual teachers.