Hands-On Science for Young Children

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Science Inventions

At CLARE, we asked the student to brainstorm inventions they would create if they were scientists.

 Flying House

 Painting Machine

 Rainbow Robot

Rocket Ship

Color Changing Carnations Experiment

this rainbow carnation experiment is one i remember from my own childhood. not only is it a visually appealing activity, it’s also a great way for kids to learn the science behind water is absorbed by plants and how it travels through the different part of a flower.

the inspiration for this post was an old spice rack i had sitting in the garage. what wonderful little vials these are for this experiment! we grabbed some food coloring and white carnations (we had some in the bouquet we bought for our butterfly habitat – all of this happened a few weeks ago, i’m just late bringing it to the blogging world.)

N had fun dropping food coloring into the water, and creating her favorite color, since it was not in the cheapo food coloring pack we had – purple!

she placed a white carnation into each tiny vase, and we put them out of the way of our flower-chomping cat…

and waited. i asked N, “what do you think will happen next?” she said that maybe the flowers would grow, and that they might drink the colored water. let’s see if her hypothesis is correct…

even within a day and a half, we saw the petals taking on the colors of the water they were drinking.

ten days later, the colors were distributed throughout the different parts of the flower. we noticed that the purple color was not as saturated in the carnation as the other colors, and the darker colored waters in general seemed to be more full in the end.

there are some explanations of this experiment online that we checked out, like this one from ehow. i didn’t find any scientific reason the darker waters would not be absorbed as much. in fact, most of the write-ups i saw recommend using darker colors for more dramatic results. all in all, we had a rainbowy flowery good time with this one!

- See more at: http://paintcutpaste.com/color-changing-carnations/#sthash.XZouUTh7.dpuf

Glue Star Sun catchers

To make Glue Star Sun catchers, you’ll need

• Tray, cookie sheet or similar to work on. {See notes below for more info.}
• Cookie cutters.
• Wax paper.
• Clear Elmer’s Glue. {White glue should work as well, it was used in the original post.}
• Pony beads.
• Glitter (optional).

We started by gathering all the materials we needed. I chose an 8×8 cake pan to work in and placed some wax paper at the bottom.

E got right to work with the clear glue, filling the bottom of the cookie cutter.

We tried out some glitter glue but it was really hard to squeeze, so the base of one of our stars looked like this before decorations were added:

It didn’t matter, as E made sure to use LOTS of decorations 

She used as much glitter as she wanted to before carefully picking out beads

and placing them in the glue.

And then, she usually added MORE glitter on top 

She loved it! {And when she saw the photos in this half-written post on my screen, she immediately said that she wanted to do it again  }

At my suggestion, she did one glue star suncatcher without glitter, just to see how it turned out.

I wasn’t entirely confident that all the glue star suncatchers were going to work out, it looked like some had too much glue and/or glitter, and the beads almost disappeared in the mix.

However, they all turned out fine, as the glue shrinks quite a bit during the drying process.

In the pictures of the finished products, you can see where the glue clung to the edges of the cookie cutters but shrunk in the middle:

Additional notes:

• While my 8×8 cake pan did a really good job of containing the glue, glitter and beads, a bigger size would’ve been better. I had to move the cookie cutters with a spatula underneath the wax paper each time one of the stars was finished to make room for the next one, and while it worked okay-ish, some of the glue leaked out every time. We did have plenty of glue but it could’ve been avoided if we’d had a cookie sheet or tray that fit all the cookie cutters at once.
• I didn’t realize it at the time but we used particularly sturdy cookie cutters, so we didn’t have any issues with leaking glue until I moved the cookie cutters. Please read the comments for some ideas that might help if your cookie cutters leak.
• It takes a while for the glue to dry completely, depending on how much you use. Ours were dry by the end of the next day.
• The dry glue sticks to glass but depending on how many beads you use, the glue star suncatchers may get too heavy. Alternatively, you could punch a hole at the top of your suncatchers and hang them up that way.

Pumpkin Spice Slime

Pumpkin Spice Slime

Ingredients

1. 2 glue bottles
2. warm water, from bottles
3. food coloring
4. 1 teaspoon Borax
5. 1/4 cup warm water
6. 1 tablespoon pumpkin spice

Instructions

1. Pour glue into a large bowl. Fill the empty glue bottles with warm water and replace cap. Shake the bottles to help remove any excessive glue and pour into bowl.
2. Stir in food coloring into glue and water mixture. I used yellow and red food coloring drops until I achieved the desired shade of orange.
3. In a small cup stir borax and 1/4 warm water until Borax dissolves.
4. Combine Borax water with glue mixture. The mixture will begin to thicken immediately but will take a few minutes to fully set. Continue to work the slime, with your hands if needed, until the water is completely incorporated.
5. Once slime is firm sprinkle pumpkin spice and roll the slime to distribute the spice.
6. Store in airtight container.

Raindrop Sun catchers

Supplies to make this project:

• Blue crayons
• Pencil or crayon sharpener
• Waxed paper
• Iron (for adult use only)
• Scissors

You can choose to have the blue crayons already gathered and peeled for the students, or you can allow the students to look through crayon boxes and pick their favorite shades of blue to use.

Once the crayons have been peeled, they are ready to be sharpened! This is probably the favorite part of any preschooler. It is quite satisfying for them to see how they can transform a blunt crayon to a point again! I had my kids sharpen the crayons right on top of a large sheet of waxed paper. As we sharpened, we spread the shavings around to take up space on the waxed paper.

We used a large sheet of waxed paper for my kids to work on together, but you may want to use smaller, individual pieces for each student.

After the shavings have been collected and spread evenly across the paper, cut another sheet of paper equal in size to lay on top of the shavings. Use an iron on the lowest setting to iron directly on top of the waxed paper and melt the crayon shavings. It only takes a quick swipe of the iron to do this. The wax immediately melts and cools rather quickly.

Teachers or students can then draw raindrop shapes on the paper and cut them out.

Use a hole puncher and embroidery floss to string them up in windows for display!

Living Things Concept Map

Living Things   Concepts Standard: 3.3: Biological Sciences	Activities	Assessment
Discuss the similarities and differences of living things	Read literature related to living things and their characteristics. • Create learning centers that focus on different living things (ex. Plants, animals, humans). • Create interactive tasks on how living things are created. • Provide interactive activities that provide children the opportunity to find and discuss living things around them.	•   observations •   comprehension questions •   child interview •   dictation writing •   science journal
Discuss that living things are made up of parts that have specific functions	Provide opportunities and materials for children to see what living things are made up of. • Have charts that show body parts, parts of a plant, and parts of an animal. • Use interactive activities in which the children must categorize or sort each category of living things. • Have examples of living things in your classroom (picture or in person). • Take children outside to see plant life and to observe their surroundings. • Provide children with a variety of samples of living things. • Provide interactive activities that show how living things come in many different shapes and sizes.	•  anecdotal notes •  dictation •  observations •  KWL chart •  clue cards •  science drawings
Discuss that characteristics are inherited and, thus, offspring closely resemble their parents	Create learning centers that focus on genes • Create interactive tasks on biology and why living things tend to look alike. • Create classroom environment that shows the connection between characteristics and offspring. • Provide interactive activities that provide children the opportunity to create their own offspring and what it would look like.	•   Class discussions •   worksheets •   observations •   small group discussions •   science notebooks •   offspring project
Identify changes in living things over time	Provide interactive activities that provide children the opportunity to see how living things change over time. • Provide opportunities and materials for children to role-play with simple props. • Show pictures of living things throughout their lives/cycles. • Use interactive activities in which the children must categorize or sort the living things from youngest to oldest.	•   comprehension questions •   child interview •   dictation writing •   science journal •   small group discussions
Recognize change in natural and physical systems	• Encourage students to ask questions about plant growth over a period of time • Model examples of observation skills, keeping an observation journal, and discovering growth and change. • Provide opportunities for students to participate in simple experiments and investigations both in the classroom and out of the observation and recording of differences in living and non-living thing • Model the usage of a ruler or tape measure to allow students to measure and compare & contrast differences in plants • Identify growth between classmates and sequencing growth smallest to largest	•   science journals •   small group discussions •   KWL chart •   end of the unit quiz •   observations