Recommended for 4th graders! A collection of easy self-study ideas to try
For independent study in fourth grade, I recommend first finding what your child is interested in.
When they learn about what they like, they can keep going and enjoy it.
Here, we introduce simple daily study ideas that are helpful for independent learning.
When children and adults learn together, it sparks more curiosity and makes learning more enjoyable.
Learning opens up new worlds and helps build confidence.
Please use this as a reference to find areas of interest and enjoy independent study!
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Recommended for 4th Graders! A Collection of Easy Self-Study Ideas (51–60)
Let’s try making a cloud.
You can make clouds with a plastic bottle! It only needs a few materials and is surprisingly easy to do! You’ll quickly understand what clouds really are, won’t you? I think it’s a perfect research topic for junior high school students learning about the three states of matter—liquid, solid, and gas—for their independent study!
Which condiment makes a 10-yen coin the shiniest?
Many of you have probably seen videos or experiments about polishing 10-yen coins until they shine.
In this experiment, we soak 10-yen coins in various seasonings for five minutes to test which seasoning cleans them best.
Try any seasonings you have at home—soy sauce, oil, mentsuyu (noodle soup base), lemon juice, miso, and more.
Prepare some dulled 10-yen coins, soak each one in a different seasoning, then rinse them with water after five minutes.
Which seasoning will make the 10-yen coin the cleanest?
Let’s investigate delicious/tasty water
In Japan, delicious natural spring water can be found all over the country.
There are kits available from various sources that let you test the taste and pH of such water.
How about a science project where you use these kits to check and compare the taste and pH of Japan’s natural spring water and bottled water? It might also be interesting to investigate the relationship between similar-tasting waters and the terrain where they spring up.
Observing ants
How about observing ants using a kit that lets you watch them build their nest? People have observed ants for ages, but kits make it easier to see and study them.
You prepare a special gel and pour it into the case.
Then put in the ants you’ve caught and observe them every day.
As long as an adult helps with making the gel, the rest is just observation.
It’s a free research project that first graders in elementary school can do.
Recommended for 4th Graders! A Collection of Easy Self-Study Ideas You Can Try (61–70)
Making Colorful Flowers
Make Colorful Flowers: a fun experiment to learn what happens when you place flowers in inks of different colors.
Through experiments that make use of flowers’ natural features, you can deepen your knowledge while having fun.
Fill test tubes or plastic cups with printer ink or water mixed with food coloring.
Then simply place white flowers—such as roses, gerberas, or baby’s breath—into the solutions and leave them for 1 to 24 hours.
You can also split a stem in two to create a two-tone flower.
This experiment shows that plants draw water up through vessels called xylem, which carry the pigments.
Self-made game in Scratch
Scratch is a game creation tool that makes it easy to give children opportunities to learn programming.
It’s free to use and runs in the browser—why not make game development your independent research project theme? Choose a game stage from a wide variety of backgrounds and give the stage a name by changing the costume name.
After creating three costumes for the stage, use a new message to set up character selection.
Prepare a character from “Choose a Sprite” and rename it.
By duplicating and modifying the code you create, you can experience programming.
With intuitive drag-and-drop operations, it’s a tool that helps you learn how to use a computer and how to make games.
Skeleton Egg
This is an experiment where you can enjoy watching an egg turn transparent by soaking it in vinegar.
Rinse an egg with water, place it in a glass, pour in enough vinegar to cover the egg, and cover the top with a paper towel—that’s all you need to do.
Leave it for about two days, and the egg will gradually become transparent.
The change happens because the acidic vinegar dissolves the calcium in the eggshell.
The fizzing bubbles are caused by carbon dioxide being released, and the egg becomes larger because water molecules enter through tiny pores in the membrane.
Be careful not to eat the egg made in this experiment.
It’s a perfect topic for an independent research project that you can document with photos, illustrations, and writing.