Texas TEKS K.1

ScienceKindergartenScientific and engineering practices

TEKS Knowledge Statement (Expectation Cluster)

Scientific and engineering practices. The student asks questions, identifies problems, and plans and safely conducts classroom, laboratory, and field investigations to answer questions, explain phenomena, or design solutions using appropriate tools and models. The student is expected to:

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Science

Cluster contents

Student Expectations in This Statement

K.1 is a TEKS knowledge and skills statement. These are the student expectations under it.

Teacher's field guide

What This Cluster Means

What Students Need to Do

Students ask questions about what they observe and plan simple ways to find answers. They use tools safely, collect observations or measurements, and record data. They also make models or simple prototypes to show ideas and solve problems.

What Mastery Looks Like

A student can ask an investigable question, choose a useful tool, and explain how to use it safely. The student records evidence with pictures, numbers, words, symbols, or a simple graph, then uses it to explain a finding.

Common Misconceptions

Students may give a guess instead of asking a question, or rely on memory instead of recording evidence. They may treat tools as toys or think tasting and touching are always safe. They may see a model as an exact copy rather than a way to show an idea or process.

How to Assess It

Give each student a rock, hand lens, and recording card. Ask the student to demonstrate safe tool use, draw two observations, and state one question that could be investigated.

Lesson moves

Ways to Teach It

  1. Give groups sand, gravel, trays, cups, and sieves to separate materials, then record each material with pictures and tally marks.

  2. Show a classroom plant and ask, "What do you notice, what do you wonder, and how could we investigate safely?"

  3. Play a tool-match game where students pair picture cards of tools with tasks such as measuring rain, viewing seeds, or holding samples.

  4. Place a rain gauge outside, record the water level after rain, and build a class picture graph of weekly rainfall.

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Printable K.1 Worksheet

Preview of the K.1 printable worksheet

A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to K.1, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.

PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.

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