Inventions & Inventors -- School-age
Inventions & Inventors
Invention: Something that has never been made before, or the process of creating something that has never been made before.
-Cambridge Dictionary
Inventions
Great inventions have been produced through the use of imagination, ingenious thinking, and experimentation. Some inventions were invented by accident. Inventions have an impact on our daily lives.
Invention Scavenger Hunt
Give groups of students a letter of the alphabet. The students look for inventions in the classroom that begins with their alphabet letter.
Best Inventions
Have students brainstorm 5-10 best inventions, then choose one and tell why it is the best invention. Share with class.
Have students brainstorm the best toy inventions, then choose one and tell why it is the best invention. Share with class
Ancient Inventions
Take a tour of ancient inventions from Smith College History of Science, Museum of Ancient Inventions.
United States Patent and Trademark Office Kids' Page
Features puzzles, games, and other activities for children.
Inventions That Changed Our World
Forgotten Inventors
Everyday items from blue jeans to the can opener tells about people who created them.
Inventions-Magnifying Glass
Roger Bacon (1214 - 1292), a Franciscan friar and scholar, created the modern magnifying glass. Humans used stones and glass a long time, they could not be called magnifying glass by today's standards. This invention would came from Roger Bacon a lecturer at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. He conducted a range of experiments with lenses and mirrors. The first magnifying glass was used glasses, allowing people with failing eyesight to see better. Nearly every scientific breakthrough would not exist without the use of microscopes, which would not exist without the magnifying glass.
Plants Up Close
Need: magnifying glasses, potted plants, construction paper.
Give children a piece of construction paper and have them fold it in half. Place a potted plant on the table. Children draw on one side of the paper what the potted plant looks like when they look at it with their eyes. On the other half of the paper, children draw what they see when using a magnifying glass.
Make A Magnifying Glass from a plastic bottle.
Inventions-Telegraph
Before texting there was morse code.
Samuel F.B. Morse (1791-1872) developed a telegraph and the code that was dots and dashes in the 1830s. Morse code contains dots (short beeps) and dashes (long beeps) that represents letters, numbers, and punctuation marks. The messages are sent electronically using a telegraph machine that sends electrical signals across a wire to its destination. Telegraph wires were strung all across the United States for the use of the code. The International Morse Code was created in Europe in 1851. It contains extra letters with special marks on them that are used in some European languages.
What Is Morse Code? video lesson.
Morse Code Translator type in text and it will play it back in morse code.
Inventions-Telephone
Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1870, he immigrated to Canada with his parents. The following year, Bell moved to the United States to teach at the Boston School for the Deaf. Both his mother and wife were hearing-impaired. The inventor of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell became a citizen of the United States in 1882.
How Did You Hear That? Simple Sound Science for Kids
Sound Experiment for Kids to See Sound
Science Project String Phone: how to make a string phone and the science of what is happening -sound waves.
The Telephone at American Experience
Alexander Graham Bell - Nest Activity book Great printables (48 pages) pdf.
Video
Book Review
Toys!: Amazing Stories Behind Some Great Inventions
by Don Wulffson
A great, witty, and humorous nonfiction for 8+ year-olds. The reading level is high enough to challenge students, but written in articles with interesting topics making if easy to read. Great book.
Inventors
The Inventions of Benjamin Franklin
George Washington Carver (1865?-1943) - Scientist, Botanist, educator, and inventor.
I Can Live Without It! Worksheet
What invention could you live without and why.
Inventors Video
China
The ancient Chinese invented many things, things that we still use today. A few examples of Chinese inventions: abacus, matches, medicines, fireworks, silk scarf, tea, tangrams, and kites.
Make a Homemade Abacus using a styrofoam tray and chenille/pipe cleaner stems.
Recommended
Make a Homemade Compass Video
