Scene: 8:30 Sunday night, Your House.
Your child: “Oh, by the way, Mommy, I need to do a science experiment for homework. For tomorrow.”
You: “AAAAGH!”
Don’t panic. No need to raid the hospital medical lab or even try to find an open store. You can use items already in your house to do simple science experiments with your young children.
Here are five simple projects using everyday household items that you and your child can do as science experiments or just for fun on a rainy day indoors.
Celery Roots
The celery experiment is a good lesson in how plants get water into the very tips of their leaves.
Put 8-10 drops of red food coloring in water in a jar. Cut the end off the bottom of a celery stalk, leaving the leaves at the top, and place the celery in the jar of red water. In about 12 hours, you’ll be able to see the red water has been absorbed into the veins of the stalk and the leaves.
Color Wheel in a Bowl
Watch how some materials mix together and some don’t.
Pour 1 cup milk into a bowl. Add three drops of red food coloring at the edge of the bowl at the “12 o’clock” position; add 3 drops of blue food coloring 1/3 of the way away at the “4 o’clock” position; and add 3 drops of yellow food coloring 1/3 of the way away at the “8 o’clock” position.
Be careful not to move the bowl.
Squeeze a drop of dish soap (such as Joy or Dawn) into the center of the bowl. Watch as the soap, which won’t mix with the milk, floats on top of the bowl and spreads across the surface. As it moves it grabs the food coloring. Where the colors meet they form new colors.
Creating Crystals
An experiment in solutions, liquids and solids.
Fill a jar with boiling water. Mix in borax 1 tablespoon at a time, for a total of 3 tablespoons per 1 cup of water, until it settles on the bottom of the jar and won’t dissolve. Add food coloring.
Bend a pipe cleaner into a star shape, tie it to a pencil with a piece of string, and suspend it over the jar so that the star pipe cleaner is in the borax solution but not touching the bottom or sides of the jar.
Watch as crystals form on the star. Let set overnight. In the morning, remove the star and allow it to drip dry.
Enchanted Learning has more instructions for growing crystals.
Cornstarch Suspension
A demonstration in liquids and solids.
Place 1 cup cornstarch in a bowl. Slowly stir in about ½ cup water (you may need less) until the mixture is the consistency of thick pancake batter. Add a drop of food coloring just for fun.
Cornstarch and water is a suspension – it can go from a liquid to a solid state. If you hold it in your hands and are squeezing it, shaping it, and keeping it moving, it will be a solid. If you stop moving it and hold it in your hand, allowing it to be still, it will turn liquid and run through your fingers.
Egg in a Bottle
If you have more time for your experiment, this demonstrates how hot and cool can expand and contract glass, and how vinegar can soften hard, calcium eggshells.
How can a raw egg fit into a milk bottle with a narrow top? You have to manipulate both the egg and the bottle, but it can be done! First place an egg into a bowl of vinegar and let set for about two days. The vinegar will soften the eggshell, but leave it intact.
Next, take a clean empty milk bottle and heat it in a big pot of boiling water. Carefully remove the bottle (parent help will be needed here) and place it on a counter. Hold the egg on top of the bottle. As the bottle cools, it will contract and will suck the softened egg into the opening. Source: Hunkinsexperiments.com.
