Science Books for Preschoolers
I’m going to come clean here. Sometimes I just do not want to put together a science activity for my kids. I know, but I love STEM activities! How could I not want to do them?
I do love doing all kinds of learning activities with my children, but I am a mom. There are times when we are too busy, don’t have the supplies, or I just don’t have the energy to deal with the set up and clean up.
This is when I pull up some book lists and find some science books for preschoolers. There are a ton of picture books and preschool books out there. How do you know which are good ones?
I decided to save you all some time and learn about the options myself. Here is a roundup of science books for preschoolers for you to read at home.
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What's In This Post?
Math and Science Books for Preschoolers
How do you decide what type of book to get for your children? A great resource is your local library and librarian. Ask them for recommendations! They want to help you out.
But if you are like me, library time is often spent running after the kiddos. So while I try to check out the children’s science books, I really am just judging books by their covers.
I prefer to put books on hold online (a lot of libraries let you do this, it is awesome!). Then I can quickly grab them and check them out in no time.
This means I need to ask my children for ideas. What are they interested in? Animals? Space? Water? Trains? Whatever they want to learn about, there is a probably a book ready for your readers.
Here are some of my favorite books for teaching kids about science.
Life Science books for preschoolers
Science books for kids don’t have to be super complicated. You don’t need to be working on proving string theory. Just exploring life and the world around you counts.
Science books for toddlers specifically can focus on simple topics like animals, plants, and the senses.
To get some of the best life science books for preschoolers, check out this post from Pre-K Pages. It has 50 books covering everything elephants to frogs, pumpkins to ladybugs, and your hands to your skeleton.
50 Life Science Books for Preschoolers
A few of my favorites were on the list too!
Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert: A father and son plant vegetables and make soup out of them! Besides learning about how plants grow it could help with picky eaters. Seeing where food comes from can take some of the fear away from eating them.
My Five Senses by Aliki: This is a great science book for kindergarten that looks at the five senses. Sensory activities are such great teaching activities for kids, and they don’t need to be limited to sensory bins!
Physical Science Books for preschoolers
Physical science books teach kids about the more traditional sciences. We’re talking about physics, chemistry, engineering, etc. Again, you don’t have to go to in depth to encourage your children to learn!
These books can really inspire your children to get out and do projects and experiments themselves. I think that makes these some of the best science books for kids. When you inspire a child to get up and do something themselves, you are really teaching them.
Growing Book by Book has a great list of over 30 options for you to check out: Science concept books for preschoolers. Here are some of my favorites.
Ada Twist, Scientist, Rosie Revere, Engineer, and Iggy Peck, Architect by Andrea Beaty are three of my favorites. Two of them have strong female role models for kids (boys need to see strong girls too!). All three show children exploring our world without worrying about doing it wrong. Just dive in and try. And I like the message that anyone can be a scientist.
STEAM Play & Learn by Ana Dziengel has beautiful pictures that will really excite your children and make them want to try the activities. Sometimes we all need a little inspiration to get started exploring, and this book has great activities to try.
Space Books for Kids
Ben is so into space right now, and Ali and Sammy are quickly following in his path. Ben can tell me about the phases of the moon, he can name most of the planets, and he is just hungry for more!
I love learning more about space too, it isn’t something that I have studied heavily. This makes it perfect for us to explore as a family. How can you not look up at the sky and just wonder about it all?
Space.com has some great ideas to read—> Best Kid’s Space Books
Here are some of my favorites.
National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Space. I love this book. It has so many facts, which is awesome if you have a little one that just wants to know more! The explanations are short and to the point though, bonus for shorter attention spans. Ben can flip through this and enjoy the pictures, or we can read through it and talk together.
Mousetronaut by Mark Kelly. This is written by the real astronaut Mark Kelly. I like how it encourages kids to actually consider going into space themselves. We want to do more than just learn facts, we want to inspire kids to go out and do.
Math Books for Preschoolers
Yes, math is an important part of science. (Remember the M in STEM is for math!) And math books can be fun, they aren’t just workbooks for of times tables to fill out.
Stay At Home Educator has a list of 72 of the best math books for kids. That’s a lot of books. But math books for toddlers and preschoolers can be any book that encourages counting and number recognition. (Remember number sense learning starts young. Get some fun activities to work on it—> Number Sense Learning Games)
Quite honestly, any book can become a math book if you just sit with your child and practice counting. But some focus in on it a bit more. Here are a couple of my favorites.
Little Quack by Lauren Thompson is a family favorite. (Ali, in particular, loves it as she loves ducks.) I like that it shows the math that goes along with the counting on each page, boosting early addition. It also just has a great message about being brave and trying something new.
Sort it Out! by Barbara Mariconda teaches the basics of sorting and classifying. These are such important skills, not only for future math and science learning but for future reading skills. It works observation and focus.
Dinosaur Books for Preschoolers
Is there a preschooler out there that isn’t at least a little bit into dinosaurs? Ben loves them. Ali and Sammy have also been known to choose dinosaur toys to nap with. (Not soft ones either, the hard plastic ones. Silly ladies.)
Read Brightly has several great dinosaur book ideas to consider. We have a couple of favorites ourselves.
National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Dinosaurs is a great one. (Yep, just like the space book from National Geographic.) I love the pictures and facts. It is really fun to flip through and learn more about the dinos my kids love.
My Big Dinosaur Book This is a big board book with lovely pictures of the dinosaurs. It isn’t as fact-filled, but it is great for little ones. A fun thing I like to do with this sort of book is work on comparisons. It builds observation skills and practices comparison vocabulary.
Science Activity Books for Preschoolers
It can be super fun to read through activity science books with your children. You don’t have to do the activity right that moment. The fun is in the planning.
Going through these books with your child includes them in the planning process. They learn so much from figuring out what supplies they need, how they create the setup, and then following through with the project.
Junk Drawer Physics I love this book. There are so many fun science projects you can do with things you find in your house. It is a great way to encourage kids to use what they have and be creative with their explorations.
The Book of Totally Irresponsible Science I got this as a gift for Mother’s Day and I talk about it all the time! It gives fast and fun science projects with explanations. That’s my favorite part, you learn the why behind the what!
Simple Science Experiments This one is a bit old school, and you can tell in the illustrations. But the science stands and the classic activities still hold up. I like that these aren’t just flashy or trendy, they are tried and true and actually teach children science.
Keep Reading!
These are just a few of my favorite books. They make great gifts for preschoolers and toddlers. You can never go wrong with a book for a present. And don’t forget to check out your library for these and more books.
Ask your children, what would you like to learn about? Get books on what you were interested in as a kid. The more you can expose your child to the better. Reading together is one of the greatest joys parents can share with their children.
Here are some more posts to help you out!
STEM Toys for Toddlers and Preschoolers
Deeper Than the STEM: Life Lessons from the Scientific Method
