Dust off your white lab coat and put on your geek glasses, this is the week to expose your preschoolers to the wonderful world of science geekdom!
Science is such a broad topic, I thought the easiest thing to do is just offer recipes for fun that you can integrate into your days depending on your theme. You can create and do these activities as a class or as experiments.
Discovery Bottles
These bottle can be used all the way down to toddler age depending on which ones you decide to do. Make sure you start saving those water bottles and you can even have each child bring one to make their own bottles such as an ocean bottle made with water, blue bath fizzie and some fish beads or glitter. Here are some other experiment discovery bottles: float/sink bottle-fill bottle with blue-colored water, small Styrofoam balls and pennies. Another fun bottle is the glitter bottle. The glitter bottle is filled with water, two tablespoons of mineral oil, glitter and sequins. The magnetic bottle is filled with rice, paper clips, small washers, screws, etc. Have large magnets available for the kids to touch to the outside of the bottle. Bubble bottle is filled with water and one tablespoon dish detergent.
Flubber, goop and gunk
What kids do not like playing with these? To make flubber you will have a solution A made up of one and a half cup of water, two cups of Elmers glue and food coloring. Solution B will be made of four teaspoons of Borax and a one-third cup of warm water. Mix solution A in one bowl and B in another bowl. Dissolve both well. Pour solution A into solution B. Do not mix or stir. Just lift out the flubber!
Goop is made with one part liquid starch and two parts Elmer's glue. You can add food coloring if you would like. Gunk is made out of one part cornstarch and one part water.
Bubbles
Kids love bubbles and most times do not even realize they are doing science while playing with bubbles. Here is a recipe for the best bubble solution: Mix one cup water, two cups Light Karo Syrup and four tablespoons dishwashing detergent. For some adventure, fill up swimming pools with the mixture and a stool. Place a hula hoop over the stool. Have the kids step on the stool, bend down and pull up on hula hoop to surround the kids in a bubble. Very fun! Kids can also do bubble painting.
Dry ice
Purchase some dry ice from the store and drop in warm water to provide a fun gassy experience for the kids.
Mentos and coke
This has been done several times, but kids still love it. Buy a diet coke or I have done a Big Red to demonstrate a volcano. Drop Mentos in it and let it go. Be sure to be outside and give lots of room.
These are just a few suggestions to get you started. Enjoy the week! Bring out helium balloons and talk about gravity, etc. If you have any other suggestions, leave them in the comment section below.
tweet this!