No cost science activity

I have a cupboard full of plastic containers, empty spray bottles, empty dish washing bottles, egg cartons and card board boxes that I keep on hand. They make great paint trays, sorting trays, art bases, small part toy containers and water toys.

I asked Sully what color he was interested in learning how to make ...

"Green!", he shouted back to me.

So I pulled out an old soap dish bottle and filled it with water and blue food coloring. I filled a plastic tub 1/4 full with yellow food coloring and water. I threw in a couple sponges and the little baby lizards that now needed a bath from playing in rice the past week.

In hindsight, it kind of looked at first like Rex took a leak in the kiddie pool. But after awhile the water started to turn green as he pumped more blue water into it. We talked about how and why it was changing. From there we got into things that sink and float because he noticed the cars and lizards were falling to the bottom, but the sponges stayed on top.

While rummaging through the utensil drawer I found a crazy straw and opened my big fat mouth to announce that it would make an awesome device to blow bubbles into the water with.

Yeh, needless to say we ended up with one extremely wet kitchen/child/science experiment.

Playing IS Learning! What we learned:

How two primary colors make a secondary color

Denser objects sink while lighter, porous objects float (mass vs. weight and displacement)

Dramatic play of washing the baby lizards

Fine motor skills - using our fingers to pump the water

Air pressure & the exertion of force through a straw to make bubbles!