Introducing Circuits to Kids

We are learning about circuits at home, and I wanted to share how we explore this subject through hands-on activities. I designed the learning resources we used in this subject area, including the presentation slides, the interactive notebook and foldable, the activity cards (command cards) and worksheets. This Circuit Learning Bundle I made is designed for kids ages 8 years and older. Even kids in secondary school (middle school) can use these as review notes or for practice. If you own this bundle, just print the ones you need.  

Sharing below our unit. May you find this inspirational!

VOCABULARY WORDS WITH MONTESSORI CARDS

Invite your kids to explore your circuit kits or any electronic components that you may have. I suggest you display these in a safe corner of your house or provide a suitable container box wherein your kids can explore them independently. Using the Montessori Cards, introduce what these components and concepts are.   To know more on how to use this card set, read. It here.

PRESENTATION SLIDES

The presentation slides summarize. Most of the basic concepts of electricity, circuits, conductors and insulators. I made this as child-friendly as possible, so kids could quickly grasp the idea. I made this editable so you can translate or reword any text in the presentation.

We watched the presentation together and paused from time to time to demonstrate some concepts discussed in the slides. For example, here, Vito and I are doing tests of the conductivity of some everyday items at home (this is part of the presentation).

You can try this at home with a simple battery and lamp connection!

EXTENSION ACTIVITY PACK

The extension packs contain wall cards, anchor charts, worksheets and some sorting activities. This is perfect for school use, and the worksheets are perfect for those families with older kids. I give the worksheets to my older child and have him work on them as a remedial.

Vito (9 years old) worked on sorting activities from this set.

INTERACTIVE FOLDABLE AND NOTEBOOK

Vito enjoyed assembling some of the foldable here. Designed mostly for middle schoolers, my younger son finds this interactive notebooking and foldable quite engaging.  

CIRCUIT SYMBOLS

There are a lot of symbols covered in this learning packet but just start with the basics. What's the basic? For beginners (9 years old), start with the battery, switch, bulb, motor, ammeter and voltmeter. You can introduce the bell and buzzer too. Then continue introducing electrical load symbols as you progress.

CIRCUIT COMMAND CARDS

This was the highlight of it all! I designed two sets of this: for beginners and for advanced. As I mentioned, beginners cover simple circuits, parallel and series, an ammeter and voltmeter, and basic circuit symbols. The child will set up the circuits from the command cards and will answer a few questions from the question cards. This will help the child understand basic concepts and understanding of circuits.

Our circuit kit comes from here:

• Electricity and Magnetism Basic Circuit Kit
• Kit and Motor 
• STEM Physics Circuit Kit for Junior and High School
• Circuit Add-Ons
• More Battery Holders

NOTE: these cards are not available yet in the shop. I'm still testing the circuits to make sure that they work.

I'm working on the second part of the command cards, which will cover resistors and other electrical loads.

You can get these learning packs from here:

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