4 Tips for Successful Elementary Science Stations

Have you ever tried using science stations in your elementary classroom? If not, or if you’ve had mixed results, here are four tips to help make your science stations a success. Station work can be a great way to get all of your students actively engaged in learning science content, but it takes some planning and preparation to make sure that everything runs smoothly. Keep these tips in mind, and you’ll be able to set up a productive station rotation quickly and easily!

How do you set up and run successful science stations in an elementary classroom? Keeping students on task and learning content is hard, but here are four tips that will make your elementary science stations run smoothly.

Science stations are one of my favorite ways to expose students to science content and help them take the content we’ve learned to a deeper level. We have created science stations for second grade, third grade, and fourth grade. We have 8 different elementary science stations in each unit that engage students in hands-on, interactive activities focused on the Next Generation Science Standards.

But . . . before we even start our elementary science stations, there are a few things we do to make sure students are prepared to work independently.

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1 – Create the Learning Environment Conducive to Station Rotation

Take a look at your room setup. Can students easily work in groups? Are table groups available for them to congregate and interact with the station activities?

Are table groups spread out? Do you have floor space for students to spread out or engage in some stations that take a bit more room? We have one station in fourth grade where students build a marble track to experience friction.

Do you have a designated computer area? How will students access digital resources?

Can you set up stations close to a sink or outside? Some of the stations may require some water or may make a bit of a mess. A sink will make cleaning up easier.

Those are just some questions to ask yourself when setting up your room for science stations. Not all of the science stations require space, or computers, or are messy, but having those options is always good. The Explore, Investigate and Model stations tend to have more hands-on activities that may require some extra space.

2 – Prepare Materials for the Science Stations

If you’re using our science stations, you’ll need to print the student direction pages, activity sheets, optional reading passages, and differentiated responses. Some stations will also require additional materials, which are listed in the materials list for each station.

We created all of the science stations in color; however, they can be printed in black and white. All of the student pages are in black and white for easy printing.

After printing the elementary science stations, you’ll need to figure out how to get the materials to students. I like using baskets. These baskets are about letter size and deep enough to hold papers and some supplies as needed.

3 – Group Students for Instruction

After you have ensured that your room set up lends itself to science stations and you have your materials prepared, you will need to group students. I tend to group students into heterogeneous groups of 2-3 students.

We offer 8 different science stations, which makes it easy to divide students into groups of three. Groups of four are possible, but I find that larger groups can sometimes lead to more chaos and dysfunction.

If you find that your groups are too large, you could repeat some of your easier-to-implement stations, like the Watch, Play, Diagram, Read, and Sort stations. Create two sets of those stations and rotate students through stations in such a way that they are separated for those stations and together for the Explore, Model, and Investigate stations.

I also like smaller groups because I can more easily separate students who don’t work well together. When grouping students consider behaviors and personalities. Which students are going to get along well enough to work independently and not need as much teacher attention?

While I do consider academic ability, I’m more interested in grouping students and pairing students who can work independently with those who need more support. It’s not always students who are high academically who are independent workers.

Keep in mind how much teacher attention each group of students will need and whether or not they can read the directions and complete the activities on their own.

4 – Train Students Well

The last tip I have for you is to train students well. The more effort you put into training students the better your science stations will run.

Set clear expectations. Students have to know what you want them to do and how you want them to behave in this new structure. Tell students what they will be doing and what you expect them to do before, during, and after science stations.

How do students need to get the materials? How do students need to work together within a group? What do they do if there’s a problem? After science station time is over, how do they clean up? What do they do with materials when the time is up? 

These are just a few questions to ask yourself and consider while training students.

Model, model, model. Model what you want students to do. Model what you don’t want them to do. Model it the wrong way and model it the right way. If students aren’t meeting your expectations, stop the class and model the right way to do it. Eventually, students will catch on and understand what it is that you want them to do.

One of the best processes for setting up student independence with stations is found in the Daily 5 book. The Daily 5 is a structure to help students become independent so that you can work with a small group of students. You may or may not use the Daily 5 in your classroom, but the way the book explains how to help students learn your expectations is spot on. It’s well worth the read, even if you don’t do Daily 5.

A Few Other Tips for Successful Elementary Science Stations

Go Slow. Going slow not only helps your students learn the new routine, but it also helps you figure out what areas need a little extra work. When you first start science stations, maybe you only do three stations but have 3-4 copies of each station. Or maybe you only do one station a day for 8 days. Whatever it is, go slow and observe students. Are they completing the tasks? Are they able to work independently? If not, what is the barrier?

Walk around often.  As a teacher, I was constantly on my feet checking in with each small group.

Pay more attention to the Explore, Model, and Investigate stations because those tend to have more hands-on experiments and may require a bit more teacher attention.  When considering where to place each group, I often place those three within close proximity so that I can easily move between them.

A Facebook Live Video about setting up Elementary Science Stations

Do you enjoy watching a video rather than reading a blog post?  Here is a Facebook Live that I recorded about how I set up and run elementary science stations.  Click below to see it!