Science in pre-school education and early childhood education and care (ECEC) is attracting more and more focus as a research area. However, focus is often on an instructional approach to a specific phenomenon or concepts or towards a general inquiry approach. Through an empirical study in Danish ECEC combining survey and field observations, we found five different categories of activities containing science content: (i) Show science, (ii) Slow science, (iii) Spontaneous science, (iv) Silent science and v) Skewed science. Together these categories form what we call the S’ence of science activities. Here we introduce these categories holding them up against a theoretical framework for learning science (Kolb, Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. FT Press, 2014; Vygotsky, Thought and language. Translated and edited by Alex Kozulin Cambridge, MIT Press, 1986) and a practical approach for doing early years science through science practices (Ahrenkiel et al., Journal of Emergent Science, 25(2), 5–11, 2023). An awareness of the advantages and pitfalls in these different categories of science activities can enrich future science education in early years.