Science is all around us. Every aspect of our lives and world has some art and some science in it. Kids are natural-born scientists. From banging their toys to see what sound will come, to trying out all sorts of stuff, they love to experiment, ask endless questions, and see how things work. So you can indulge their curiosity and engage them with these 5 fun, easy science experiments right at home.
#1 Baking Soda and Vinegar!!
One of the classic home experiments and simple science activities for children is mixing baking soda and vinegar.
Things used
Baking soda in a tray Vinegar (little bit diluted with water) Food coloring or tempera colors Droppers
Method
Add 2 tbsp of vinegar in small containers (depends on how many colors you want to make) and dilute with very little water. Add food coloring and make different colored vinegar solutions. My daughter added the different colored vinegar solutions into the baking soda one after another and enjoyed the bubbles and foam that formed. And of course she poured all the vinegar in the end and mixing it all up!! She termed it the bubbles experiment. It was a big hit!! You can also build a volcano and enjoy the lava coming out!
#2 Color Changing Flowers!!
During our evening nature walks, I and my daughter talk about parts of tree, function of each part and how they cook food in as simple terms as a 3.7 year old will understand. I set up a super simple experiment to demonstrate how plants absorb water through their stems and how it travels from bottom to top to nourish leaves and flowers. She enjoyed it a lot!! She kept continuously checking after every few minutes how much colour has changed.
Things required
Fresh White flowers. I used Gerbera Daisies Food coloring – we used green, blue, orange and red colours. Glasses with water.
Method
Mix each color in separate glasses to make different colored solutions. If the flowers are fresh then within one hour one can observe the color changing in the flowers. After keeping them overnight we observed the best change happened with blue and green colors. Orange was mildly visible and red was not visible at all…only near the sepals area. Shorter the stem, faster will be the capillary action.
You can slit the stem up the middle and put each side in a different color to get bi-colored flowers.
#3 Magic Milk Experiment!!
Ever since I bought food colors for demonstrating some color experiments to my daughter, we have been on a roll!! Magic milk is a classic, easy, fun and simple science experiment. Interestingly no two magic milk experiments will ever be the same! Magic milk is nothing but color changing milk which creates an explosion of color in your dish. Cool chemistry at work!
Stuff required
Milk.
Liquid food coloring,
Dish soap
Cotton swabs.
Of course for her level we didn’t discuss the scientific concepts of surface tension, fat molecules, hydrophilic and hydrophobic molecules etc. We just had fun!! Pour milk in a shallow small dish (so as to limit the wastage of milk) and put drops of different food coloring in it. Pour little amount of dish soap in a separate container. Now ask the child to dip each swab in the dish soap and lightly touch each area of food coloring. See the magic happen when the colours begin to spread away from the dishwashing liquid drop and begin mixing and swirling around the dish. Note – It’s important not to stir the mix—just touch it with the tip of the cotton swab. Go ahead and try it.
#4 Walking Rainbow Experiment!
It’s a wonderful way for kids to learn about capillary action and color mixing.
NOTE – The primary colours in physics are Red, Green and Blue (RGB), while in dyes and painting, the colors red, yellow, and blue are considered primary colours.
Children can learn what are primary colors and what colors we get by mixing them. The walking rainbow science experiment is a good example to teach capillary action, which is how liquid can move up something, rather than follow the usual pull of gravity and pull down. Further we can teach capillary action is how plants pull water from the soil and take it up to the leaves to make their food. After sometime the water stabilizes and ends up at the same level in all the jars.
Things required
6 wide mouth short height glasses (I had only 5 of a set so used one cup as the 6th glass),
Wet wipes cut in two breadth wise and each part folded in thirds lengthwise
Food colors (red, yellow, and blue).
Method
Place 6 glasses in a row and pour water in the 1st, 3rd, and 5th cup about 3/4 full. Add red color in the 1st glass, yellow in the 3rd and blue in the 5th one. Place all the glasses in a circle and the wet wipes connecting two adjacent glasses as shown in pic below. Soon you will observe the colored water begins to crawl up the paper towel or wet wipe and the empty glasses in between start filling up with colored water which is the mix of the two adjacent colors.
#5 Rain Cloud Experiment
I and my daughter had discussed about the water cycle in simple terms. To further the learning, I decided to do this simplistic model to show what are clouds and how rain falls from cloud.
Things required
Shaving cream,
glass of water,
food coloring and
dropper.
Method
I filled the glass with water till about three quarters. Then I used the shaving foam to create a cloud on top of the water. After the foam settled a bit, I put few drops of blue food colouring into the ‘cloud’. As the cloud fills up, the food colouring will fall down into the water creating a rain-like effect. A fun STEM activity!! We tried again with different colors.
Note – Don’t put too much else the food coloring will take time to come down and you will have to saturate the cloud with water using dropper. But that is also another way of doing the activity. I hope you have a lot of fun doing these experiments with your kid and your child has a great time learning through play!!
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