Approach to physical concepts in preschool and primary school

The aim of this paper is to present the results of some physics experimentations carried out in preschool and primary schools by university students in “Scienze della Formazione Primaria” during the preparation of their master theses. The main idea of the proposed activities is to test how the suggestions of the recent didactic research concerning new approaches to physical concepts and new didactic methodologies can promote the young pupils reasoning and learning process. In this paper the experimentations are analyzed using the rich documentation provided in the thesis through the drawings of the pupils and the records of the verbal and written expressions, often obtained by audio and video registrations. The presented results provide also new indication useful for the future didactic research.