Last week, at one Milestones centre, the water table caused a genuine scientific dispute. Two children were convinced their leaf-boats would float. A third wasn’t so sure. What followed was ten minutes of testing, re-testing, and fairly serious debate about whose boat was "winning."
Nobody called it science. It just was.
That’s the real story of National Science Week (15-23 August) as far as we’re concerned. The rockets and lab coats are fun, but the scientific thinking that matters most is already happening, in sandpits, water tables and kitchen benches, in every centre, every day.
Try This Tonight
Before we get into the why, here’s something to try with your child this week, no equipment required.
Sink or float. Gather a handful of things from around the house - a spoon, a cork, a toy, a leaf. Before each one goes in the water, ask your child to guess what will happen, and why. The guessing is the important part, not the answer.
Science Starts Earlier Than You Think
Long before children can say the word "science," they’re doing it. Watching, testing, comparing, wondering why.
Raising Children Network points to this kind of hands-on exploration as one of the ways young children build early thinking and problem-solving skills, the instincts that underpin scientific reasoning later on. It’s less about facts, more about a way of approaching the world.
How We Plan for It
This is exactly why our approach to learning doesn’t leave curiosity to chance.
Every Milestones centre plans its program against the national Early Years Learning Framework, which sets out the outcomes we’re working toward for every child, things like confident, involved learning and effective communication. Our own curriculum takes those outcomes and turns them into the everyday moments you’d actually recognise: a follow-up question at the water table, a new material added to the sandpit, a "let’s try it again" when the first tower falls over.
It’s not about rushing children toward answers. It’s a deliberate, day-to-day thread through everything they do here, not a special event we roll out once a year. One practical example families sometimes ask about is our Big Thinkers STEM programme, which brings a bit more structure to this - simple engineering challenges, nature investigations, experiments scaled right down to little hands - but it’s one expression of something much bigger happening in every room, every day.
More to Try at Home
Two more for the rest of National Science Week:
- Rainbow milk - a drop of food colouring in a shallow dish of milk, then a dot of dishwashing liquid. Watch what happens, then ask your child why they think it’s swirling.
- Shadow tracking - trace your child’s shadow at two points in the day, wherever you are, and talk about what changed.
The activity matters far less than the conversation around it.
Why It Matters
National Science Week is a nice prompt, but this thinking is being built every day at Milestones, in the questions your child asks, the small disputes they have over floating leaf-boats, and the educators sitting right there with them, genuinely curious about the answer too.
Want to see it for yourself? Find your nearest Milestones centre and get in touch to arrange a tour.