SciKidz

Each year in March, Scifest Africa comes to Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape – bringing with it a myriad of opportunities for learning about and interacting with science. Ten years ago the Centre for Social Development started to use Scifest as an opportunity and platform for Early Childhood teacher development. This was integrated with a programme for pre-school children to learn through exploration and discovery. 

All activities in SciKids focus on exploration and discovery, and children are invited to actively touch, push, pull, prod, listen, watch, squeeze, balance, feel and taste a multitude of apparatus and manipulative. This year, in conjunction with the theme “Science in motion”, some of the activities were: drumming; using air to blow boats; an obstacle course which involved climbing, bending, hopping and balancing; magnetic snakes; polishing pennies; and Little Kickers where children learnt ball skills in a fun, unthreatening environment.

RESOURCES

At the CECD Conference held in Cape Town in September 2010, Jean Schafer presented a paper on Scikidz. This conference paper is available for download here.

Scikidz - Conference Paper 2010

More information on Scifest Africa can be found on their website. The 2011 Scifest took place from May 4th - 10th.  Please go to our past articles to view posts on the event.

The ever-popular maize and bird seed stall, play dough, electric wire games and reading corner...