Easy Dr. Seuss Science Activities for Early Childhood
Looking for fun ways to incorporate science activities for young children to go along with Dr. Seuss’ books? Check out our favorite easy science experiments that are all fun ideas to add into your Dr. Seuss activities.
We like to add a few science activities to our activities for Dr. Seuss day, March 2nd. These are a great way to add science to any of the different books in the Dr. Seuss collection you choose to read!
How to Add Science to Dr. Seuss Books
Science in early childhood is all about discovery, exploration, and cause-and-effect. It’s often much simpler than adults and parents assume. Science activities are great for critical thinking, observation skills, and cognitive development.
For preschoolers, kindergarteners, and toddlers, science is often simple questions like “What will happen if…”, “How can I make…”, or “What if I change…”. As you do these fun activities, ask your child simple questions like this to help them think.
Mixing Colors
For this science activity that we did for the book One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, we asked the question “What will happen if you mix the colors red and blue?”. You can choose any two colors that go along with the your favorite book!
We decided to mix paint as we were doing our painting craft (you can see it here), but water with a little food coloring is also a fun way to mix colors! Choosing the colors as you read a Dr. Seuss book is a great starting point, and, then, bring out with paint or food coloring after reading.
Coloring Coffee Filters
Another fun science activity is coloring coffee filters with washable markers, and, then spraying the coffee filters with water. “What will happen to the color if we spray it with water?”. Kids of all ages can see as the color changes and dries differently on the coffee filter.
Young children have a great time using the spray bottle, and it’s awesome for fine motor skills. This is a great activity for even the littlest learners!
The first time we did we used green markers, but you can use any colors that go with the book you’re reading! We turned this activity into a fun craft for Green Eggs and Ham that you can read all about here.
Make Your Own Play Dough
Play dough is one of our favorite activities because kids have so much fun while using fine motor skills and so much creativity! So for one of our Dr. Seuss science activities, we decided to make our own play dough. You can ask the question, “How do we make play dough?”, “What ingredients do we need to make it feel like play dough?”, or “What happens if we mix all these things together?”.
This fun activity can be done with any of Dr. Seuss’s books because it’s so open-ended, but we decided to make green eggs and ham with our play dough. This great book is one of our favorites.
You can find the whole recipe here along with all kinds of activities to do with play dough that you can tailor to the books you’re reading.
Dr. Seuss Shaving Cream
Another one of our favorite activities for science learning and sensory play is shaving cream! Shaving cream has all kinds of benefits for little hands, and it’s easily adaptable to any themed activity you want to do. The simple experiment we do with shaving cream is “What will happen if we add…to the shaving cream?”.
For the classic Dr. Seuss book Cat in the Hat, we explored what would happen if we added a few drops of red food coloring along with blue food coloring. But you can add anything that goes along with any of the popular books!
More Dr. Seuss Activities
We have a whole week of Dr Seuss activities in preschool that will work for toddlers, preschoolers, or kindergarteners to go along with the Dr. Seuss theme week including easy to add on art and math activities. Some can be used with any of his children’s books, but some are book specific.
Start with the Simpler Books
Some Dr. Seuss books are long or hard to read, so, if you have toddlers or smaller kids, its a great idea to start with these easier Dr. Seuss books. They still have all your favorite characters but are shorter or easier for little kids to keep their attention on.
Try The Foot Book Activities
This lesser known, but classic book is a great way to get in some educational activities with little kids. This goes well with the Dr Seuss theme week, or great on it’s own. Read all about it here.
