Today’s daily challenge is based around Science and some simple fun experiements you can try at home!
1. Magic Milk – Great for exploring colours – fill a shallow container with milk and add a few drops of food colouring. Dip an earbud/stick/pencil (anything really!) in some washing up liquid and gently touch it to the surface of the milk. What colours can you see? Did any of your colours mix?
2. Incy Wincer Spider – Can you make an umbrella for Incy Wincer Spider? Use piper cleaners or a stick and add different materials to the top; tin foil, foam, bubble wrap, cardboard, paper etc. Test them with water and see which would be the best Umbrella to keep Incy Wincy dry! https://www.science-sparks.com/umbrellas-for-incy-wincy-sp…/
3. Exploring Ice – Make some ice. It is a great learning opportunity to make the ice with your child as it begins to introduce them to the process and how Ice is formed. Add animals/dinosaurs/cars etc. To the containers and fill them with water. Wait for them to freeze and then explore! How can you make the ice melt? Try using salt, warm water, the heat of your hands, tools etc.
4. Fill a bottle half with oil and half with water. What happens? Can you add some drops of food colouring and see what happens to the colours? This is a nice simple sensory bottle, great for young children.
5. Floating and Sinking – have a go at a floating and sinking activity. Encourage your child to make predictions as to whether they will sink or float. Can you write these down? Tick or Cross next to your predictions if you were right/wrong.
6. Germs! This one is great for teaching your child about washing their hands. Fill a shallow bowl with water and sprinkle in some pepper. Talk about how the Pepper is representing Germs. Encourage your child to dip their finger in some hand soap and put their finger on the surface of the water. What happens? This is a good introduction to talking about hygiene and the importance of washing our hands.
7. Can you make a weather station outdoors? You could make a windchime, a wind sock and a ‘rain collector’; cut the lid off of a bottle/milk bottle and decorate. Leave it outside and see how much rain you can collect. You could add numbers to the side for older children so they can ‘measure’ how much rain they have collected.
8. Make some gloop – Mix together cornflour and water until you have a slime consistency. Try pushing down on the slime – it instantly turns solid. Roll some slime into a ball in your hand and then stop – it turns back into a liquid.
9. Create your own volcano – Decorate the outside of a cup to look like a volcano. Fill the cup half way with water and add a couple of drops of food colouring if you have some and stir in 3 tsps of Baking Powder . Add 2tsp of washing up liquid to the water and quickly pour a tablespoon of vinegar into the cup and watch it erupt! You can keep adding vinegar a tbsp at a time until the eruption has finished.
All these activities can be extended for older children to make their own predictions/write down what happened during the experiment.