Humming Bird Education · Science · Class 6
Humming Bird Science Olympiad (HSO) Class 6: syllabus, dates and exam pattern (2026–27)
Everything you need in one place — the exact NCERT chapters this paper tests, its published exam dates, the registration window, and the full marking scheme. Updated for the 2026–27 session.
Last verified against Humming Bird Education's own site on 17 August 2026. Exam dates re-checked on 28 September 2026.
2026–27 exam dates
Date 1
19 November 2026
Date 2
3 December 2026
Two alternative dates for one sitting, chosen at registration — not two rounds. The science paper falls the day after the maths paper in both windows, so a child entering both sits them on consecutive days in whichever window is picked. As with HMO, these dates are published only inside Humming Bird's registration form; its exam-schedule page still shows a 2021 calendar.
Registration: No registration cutoff is published for this paper — the two exam dates are the only dates Humming Bird publishes, and the slot is chosen at the point of paying. A family can register directly without the school: the individual route is online, taken from home on any device, at ₹150 per subject (₹600 outside India). Through a school, the school decides whether the paper runs online or on paper and keeps up to 40% of the fees collected as an organising honorarium. Registering for both HMO and HSO is two separate ₹150 entries; Humming Bird sells no combined subject bundle.
The deadline is set by your school, not by you
Most parents find the exam date and assume they have until then. The registration window closes long before it, and for some papers it has already started closing. Here is how it actually works.
- Your school registers your child and your school picks which of the 2–3 dates the class sits. The family does not choose.
- For SOF papers, registrations must reach SOF exactly 30 days before that chosen date — and once the school has chosen, the date cannot be changed.
- Most bodies register through the school. These do not have to: CREST (online, no published cutoff), Unified Council — directly for NSTSE itself at ₹350 against ₹150 through a school, and on three online sittings, NSTSE-Online, UIMO-Online and UIEO-Online, at ₹354 each including GST — Indian Talent Olympiad on its individual online route (its own later dates — Slot 1 closes 30 October), and Humming Bird (online, ₹150 a subject, no published cutoff — its two dates are picked as you register). CREST is the simplest of them. SilverZone also runs an individual registration form alongside its default school route; which papers it offers we have not been able to confirm.
Closing next
SilverZone Foundation — Every SilverZone paper
Registration closes 30 September 2026
The body publishes this date but has not marked it final — confirm with your school before treating it as fixed.
SOF ISO (Science) — if your school picks 30 October 2026
Registrations must reach SOF by 30 September 2026
Indian Talent Olympiad (ITO) — School route — Set B
Registration closes 10 October 2026
SOF IEO (English) — if your school picks 17 November 2026
Registrations must reach SOF by 18 October 2026
SOF IHO (Hindi) — if your school picks 23 November 2026
Registrations must reach SOF by 24 October 2026
Or read the full calendar on the site — no sign-up
Every deadline in this box was re-read against the exam body's own website on or after 28 September 2026. Each table carries its own source link and its own date. Bodies do move dates, so check against the body's own site before you act on one.
Exam pattern
How the HB-S paper is structured
| Section | Questions | Marks per question | Section total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single paper — multiple choice | 40 | Not published | — |
| Total | 40 questions | — | 50 minutes · marks not published |
As with the maths paper, Humming Bird publishes a question count and a duration and no marking scheme — no mark total, no marks per question, and nothing about negative marking anywhere on its site, which is why the table says "not published" rather than assuming a mark a question. Its FAQ separately says exams "may have 30 to 50 questions depending on the grade and subject" against the 40 stated on the HSO page itself. The mode — online or pen-and-paper — is the school's choice, unless you register directly, in which case it is always online.
Syllabus
Science syllabus mapped to NCERT Curiosity (Class 6, 2026-27)
Ch 1. The Wonderful World of Science
Olympiad syllabus label: Not named on Humming Bird's Class 6 list — the units-and-measurement half feeds Motion and Measurement
Ch 2. Diversity in the Living World
Olympiad syllabus label: The Living Organisms – Characteristics and Habitats
Ch 3. Mindful Eating: A Path to a Healthy Body
Olympiad syllabus label: Food; Components of Food
Ch 4. Exploring Magnets
Olympiad syllabus label: Fun with Magnets
Ch 5. Measurement of Length and Motion
Olympiad syllabus label: Motion and Measurement
Ch 6. Materials Around Us
Olympiad syllabus label: Materials; Sorting Materials into Groups
Ch 7. Temperature and its Measurement
Olympiad syllabus label: Not on Humming Bird's Class 6 list — new in the 2026-27 book
Ch 8. A Journey through States of Water
Olympiad syllabus label: Not on Humming Bird's Class 6 list
Ch 9. Methods of Separation in Everyday Life
Olympiad syllabus label: Separation of Substances
Ch 10. Living Creatures: Exploring their Characteristics
Olympiad syllabus label: Body Movements; Getting to Know Plants
Ch 11. Nature's Treasures
Olympiad syllabus label: Air Around Us (the composition and uses of air; Humming Bird names no soil or natural-resources topic)
Ch 12. Beyond Earth
Olympiad syllabus label: Not on Humming Bird's Class 6 list
Humming Bird publishes its Class 6 science syllabus as a flat list: Food, Components of Food, Materials, Sorting Materials into Groups, Separation of Substances, Living World, Body Movements, Getting to Know Plants, The Living Organisms – Characteristics and Habitats, Motion and Measurement, How Things Work, Electricity and Circuits, Fun with Magnets, Light, Air Around Us, Reasoning and Aptitude, and HOTS Based Questions — with four of those entries (Food, Materials, Living World, How Things Work) being headings printed at the same level as the topics under them. Read the actual topic names and something becomes obvious: they are the chapter titles of the pre-2023 Class 6 NCERT science book, almost word for word. This is the third body on this site publishing a Class 6 science syllabus written against a book that no longer exists, after CREST and Indian Talent Olympiad — and at Class 8 the same bodies' lists match the current book, so this is a fact about how thoroughly Class 6 was rewritten rather than about olympiad bodies being careless. The practical consequence here is smaller than at the other two: two topics on Humming Bird's list have no chapter in the 2026-27 Curiosity book — light, and electricity and circuits — against four each for CREST and ITO, because Humming Bird's list is shorter and never names the cell or fibre-to-fabric. Both are physics and both moved to Class 7, where they are chapters 11 (Light: Shadows and Reflections) and 3 (Electricity: Circuits and their Components). A Class 6 child revising only Curiosity has covered nine of the eleven topics on this list. On our own side the honest position is that Grade 6 science is the one cell in Classes 6 to 8 where our curator taxonomy carries no olympiad-scope topics beyond the book at all, so we make no claim to close those two gaps — a Class 7 chapter read a year early is what closes them. Going the other way, Curiosity now teaches temperature, the states of water, natural resources and the solar system, none of which Humming Bird names for Class 6. The mapping above is ours, not the body's.
Try it yourself
Today's science question
Practice
Practice in the HB-S format
No — OlympAI does not publish a practice paper for this exam. Humming Bird does not publish a section structure or a marking scheme.
Frequently asked questions
Related guides
Other olympiad syllabus guides
SilverZone Foundation · Class 6
iOM Class 6 — maths syllabus, dates and pattern
SilverZone Foundation · Class 6
iOS Class 6 — science syllabus, dates and pattern
SilverZone Foundation · Class 6
iSSO Class 6 — social science syllabus, dates and pattern
Science Olympiad Foundation (SOF) · Class 6
IEO Class 6 — english syllabus, dates and pattern
Keep reading
Guides that answer the next question
Which olympiads can you register for without the school?
Most olympiad bodies register students through the school — but some take a family directly: CREST, Indian Talent Olympiad’s individual online route, Unified Council’s NSTSE and Humming Bird, and SilverZone runs an individual form of its own. Here is exactly how each one works, what it costs, and the deadline that applies to each.
The registration deadline has passed — can my child still sit an olympiad?
A closed olympiad deadline is almost never the season closing. Of the three routes due to close on 31 August 2026, only SOF’s actually did — SilverZone moved its cutoff to 30 September and Indian Talent Olympiad extended Set A twice, to 10 September. Twelve of SOF’s thirteen sittings in Maths, Science, English, Hindi and Social Science were never on that clock at all, and some bodies take a registration straight from a family. Here is what is still open, subject by subject, with the date each route closes on.
Or see every 2026-27 exam date and registration cutoff in one table, or browse all the papers we cover.
Practice these exact chapters, free
Up to 20 olympiad-pattern questions a day free, in each subject, and 200 a day on a paid plan — for Class 6 science, generated from the same NCERT chapters above and written to the shape of the real olympiad papers, then automatically checked before they can be served, the hardest ones re-solved by a second model that has to agree.
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