Help me make a "science experiment" - Page 2

[aran]

Make slime.

pour a bottle of white glue into a bowl.
refill the empty bottle with lukewarm water and shake to remove the excess glue.
mix the glue-y water together with the glue in the bowl until it is very smooth.
add food coloring if you wish.
mix 1/2 tsp. of Borax laundry detergent into 1/2 cup lukewarm water, and then add to the glue mixture.
mix, mix, mix, knead, knead, knead, icky, slimy, goo.
Then it turns into flubbery slime that can be played with safely and cleanly on the kichen table or a tile floor.

This is a polymerization reaction - the borax catalyzes the formation of "ladder rungs" between the molecules of glue, and water is trapped in the new long, stringy structure of the glue.

[Jeannettea]

When I did student teaching, I told all my students that if they could figure out what made the explosion, they would get an A+ automatically. None of them did. LOL

I put a TEENY TINY piece of an Alka Seltzer tablet in a film container, and then I added some water and capped it w/ the canister lid. I set it on a desk and walked away. After a few seconds, the lid would blow sky high, hitting the ceiling. And nothing was left in the container.

I did, of course, tell them that there were no cleaners of any sort mixed together - I didn't want them to mix bleach and anything else (that's dangerous!!!).

That was a fun semester when I student taught.......LOL

[reemasams]

Hi,

can you get turmeric powder there.. if so get it, mix and dilute in water, then get some lime stone powder and mix in another cup or jar...
lime stone and turmeric together produce blood red color.
just ask your kid to show his/her hand.. give a wipe with lime stone water and take a stick and dip it in calcium water then make a streak on your kids palm.. it will appear like blood...
and explain him about the color reaction.

[sarahtdubb]

These all sound so fun!

If you want to get into longer-term "experiments" you can always do some cooking/kitchen stuff together and learn what's happening--- like making kombucha, sourdough starter, yogurt, etc.

[meemee]

see you live in a world of science. and everything is a science experiment.

my dd began hers when she was what a year or 18 months old. when she started throwing things - even food - we watched how it landed. the difference between throwing youghurt, peas and pasta. when she started mixing her milk with water and watch it swirl.

when she started mixing textures. like her bean bowl (dd is extremely tactile and lives to be messy) - when it was time to change the beans i would add sugar or flour to it and she would add water to see what happens. i gave her my old makeup and lotions so she would mix them together to find out what happens (i'd let her know she cant throw it down the drain). she loooooooved bath fizzies. plus bottles with different mouths in the bathtub to see how they work. straws. how she discovered while playing and experimenting how to 'pick up water' using a straw. how oil and water does not mix.

everything you do is science. even cooking. too much baking soda. why what happens. there is tonnes of science in just our everyday world. we just have to see them as 'science' rather than as our daily task.

[anj_rn]

My DS loves dyeing plants. We started by mixing some sugar and food coloring in water and soaking a celery stalk in it to get colored celery (the sugar speeds up the process).. He especially love to do it with white carnations, to get colors. You have to freshly cut the stem before you put it in the colored sugar water.

Also, make hard boiled eggs and boild red cabbage in the water, the eggs will turn blue.

He also likes the blind taste test (with his friends),, we cut up small chunks of fruits and veggies and make them hold their nose and taste them (teaches them how important the sense of smell is to taste).