Shaping Early Children Science Development through Discovery Learning as Brain-Based Activities

GENERALLY, at the age of two, children attend pre-school or playgroup which is known as Early Childhood Education. Then, at the age of four, they attend Kindergarten. This education level is not compulsory for some countries, as the aim of this is to prepare them for primary school. The kindergarten years are usually divided into "Class A" and "Class B" that students spending a year in each class. At least there are ten learning areas suggested by Montessori (2009) to be taught to children in pre-school, they are; social-emotional, cognitive, language and literacy, aesthetic, spiritual, practical, sensory awareness, language, mathematics, and cultural development. Amongst, cognitive development is important to be more concerned. Learning math, science, social studies, health, and other content areas are all integrated through meaningful activities such as those when children build with blocks, measure sand, water, or ingredients for cooking; observe changes in the environment; work with wood and tools, sort object for a purpose; explore animals, plants, water, wheels and gears, sing and listen to music from various cultures. In fact, pre-school children, precisely, need longer time to understand the concept of science if they are not associated with the real objects and experience. As a result, as a teacher, he/she has to find the creative and joyful activities that can make the children understand. One of the activities-based learning that is suggested here is discovery learning activity. Learning through discovery is fun and children like to do it as an experiment and a new experience for them. Discovery is a vital and natural part of growing up in learning. Through discovery, children will experiment, discover and interact with their environment. However, not all teachers are ready to implement the discovery learning method in class, because the teachers should have the knowledge and well-assessing skill to select the best-discovery learning activity that is suitable for the teaching objective. This paper is intended to give a clear insight into some best practices in using discovery learning in pre-school class. Therefore, a careful preparation becomes essential part before starting discovery learning in class. In practice, discovery learning can develop the ability to have cooperation skill, sharpen the brain activity, and train student to be a "little scientist." There are some types of discovery learning introduced in this paper. These are times flies, thought bubbles, color craze, boats that float, melting magic, water magnifiers, sound off!, let the sunshine in, cause and effect, and gravity games