Lets talk about floating M's..

Alright this one is for the kiddies!

I am constantly on the hunt for new activities to do with the girl guides,

you have no idea how hard it is to please eight 9-12 year olds.

I am not a teacher I have no training for this

I try and whip things up but its hard when my brain is a pro-crafter

but not so pro-song singer or game player.

 

So having had their fill of crafts in 2014 I could tell the girls were

itching for a fresh idea.

 

*INTRODUCING SCIENCE NIGHT*

 

We have done science night in previous years

and it was really cool science things like

figuring out which of your hand, foot, eye, etc. is dominant

and making lava lamps.. etc etc etc

(google or pinterest ^^ if you're interested in those experiments)

 

However those things required a lot of preparation,

this year I'm really struggling to find a balance between

good girl guide leader and tired mom.

 

Hence SCIENCE NIGHT 2.0 was born

but tamed down to experiments I could quickly throw together and didn't need

much scientific explanation.

They were just cool and fun and would please a wide age range of kiddies.

 

1. MILK RAINBOWS

 

You've probably seen this one floating around the Internet

 

you grab a plate

pour some milk

drop some food colouring

and then drop some dish detergent in the middle

 

the milk and food colouring then starts

spiralling and spinning

making a tie dyed milk rainbow

 

The girls loved adding more and more food colouring and

extra dish soap to keep the colours moving.

 

This ones hard to grasp the coolness factor unless you see it in action

but see photos below.

 

 

 

2. WALKING WATER

 

We had done this in a previous year but we only used one empty cup

and one cup of water, we watched the water travel up the paper towel into the empty cup.

 

This year I decided to try it again but add a third cup and add food colouring to the water

because every kid knows things are more fun with food colouring!

 

3 cups

food colouring

 2 pieces paper towel

 

Drape paper towel into one cup of food colours water

place other end in empty cup

Do the same to other side

Watch the water walk up the paper towel and create a new colour in empty cup!

 

*Note: Do this experiment first so you can keep coming back to check in

the water can take a while to 'walk"

 

 

3. DANCING RAISINS

 

It doesn't get much easier than this one

 

a bottle of light coloured pop - sprite, mountain dew

(we tried both)

cups

raisins

 

pour a cup of soda

drop raisins in

 

The bubbles will grab hold of the raisins and

make them 'dance'

meaning they will float up and down in the cup

 



 

 

4. FLOATING M'S

 

This one was personally my favorite because I had never seen it done before and

thought it was super cool (when it worked).

 

bag of regular m&m's

bowl of water

 

We tried this experiment twice

the first time we filled a bowl of water and dropped the m&m in.

 

The second time we placed the m&m in the bowl then poured the water over top

we had success and failures both times.

 

You place your m&m's in the bowl with the M side facing up

and then you wait.....

 

First the coloured shell will melt off

then if your lucky, very slowly the 'M'

will peel off the chocolate and float to the top of the water!

 

We had about 50% success,

it does take a little patience you cant rush science!

& sometimes the M was perfectly intact

sometimes it would turn into more of a N or even a L

hahaha

but none the less a super fun activity!

 

^^^^ How neat is that!

 

So that was our excitement for the week,

if you are really eager you can look up the technical science

behind each of these experiments.

We just enjoyed the fun and didn't dig too deep into the

who, what, where, why side of things.

 

 Afterwards we even had time to sneak in some songs and a game of telephone

so t'was a good night to be a girl guide if I do say so myself!

 

Do you have any simple kids games, songs, crafts, experiments

share your knowledge with moi!!

:)