Kitchen-Based Science Activities
Cartesian Diver - Plastic bottle, add orange peel, fill with water. Squeezing bottle will change the density and compress the peel. The Peel will change how high it floats as a result. Great density and pressure change experiment you can put together in a minute!
Cook cook cook. Kids love to be involved in cooking and baking
Density with Grapes Take 3 grapes, 3 small clear glasses water, sugar (ideally, make a super saturated simple syrup beforehand and cool). Drop the first grape in the water and watch it sink. Drop the second in sugar water and watch it float. Then for the grand finale, adjust the density of the last glass to carefully suspend the grape in the middle. Kids 3+ can be hands on and do much of this themselves with just a little supervision.
Dye Eggs Use vinegar and food coloring to dye Easter eggs. Or pick up an egg dyeing kit, if you prefer.
Easy Lava Lamp - 1/3 glass water, then carefully top with 2/3 oil. Add a couple drops of food coloring, and watch it fall in between the two layers. Drop in half a tab of alka seltzer. Voila! The color will mix with the water and activate the lava lamp action.
Easy Osmosis Lesson With Cucumbers
Slice 2 cucumbers. Weigh them with a food/postage scale, if possible. Place 1 slice in baggie alone. Place the other in a baggie with a tablespoon of salt. Weigh baggies, record.
Check again several hours later. Confirm total weight of each baggie is the same. Then check cucumbers. Salt will have drawn water out of 1 due to osmosis - salt will be very wet. Rinse the salty cucumber & dry to see how much less it weighs/how much water was pulled out.
Egg Osmosis Drop 3 eggs in vinegar. Wait a day or so for the shell to dissolve, then carefully wipe it away from the surface of the semi permeable membrane. You now have 3 soft, springy, sent transparent eggs. You can drop one in water, another in corn syrup, and leave the other as a control. Classic osmosis experiment!
Heat Rises Demo Take a regular Lipton teabag, empty out the tea. Straighten out the bag, it should be a nice tube. Stand up the tube, and light it on fire. Count down from 10... when it gets about 3/4 burned down, the heat trapped in the tube will rise and overcome the remaining weight of the material, and you'll have a moment of flying fire
You can do this at the stove. It goes out very quickly, but this one definitely needs adult supervision.
Make Butter from Whole Milk Place in container with water tight lid. Shake/roll/agitate until it turns into butter and whey.
Make an Emulsion A stable mixture of 2 immiscible liquids is called an emulsion. Make mayonnaise, which is an emulsion of oil, water, and egg yolks where the yolks is the emulsifier. (2 yolks, 3 tbsp vinegar, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp mustard, 1 c salad oil.
Have ingredients at room temperature. Use a mixer/egg beater to blend yolks, vinegar, & spices until yolks are sticky. Add oil drop by drop while mixing until thick.
Homemade mayo is thick, yellow, & glistening. It spoils easily & should be stored covered in fridge*. It will not separate like the salad dressing because the yolks keep the tiny droplets of vinegar/oil from finding each other to create bigger droplets.
Cook cook cook. Kids love to be involved in cooking and baking
Density with Grapes Take 3 grapes, 3 small clear glasses water, sugar (ideally, make a super saturated simple syrup beforehand and cool). Drop the first grape in the water and watch it sink. Drop the second in sugar water and watch it float. Then for the grand finale, adjust the density of the last glass to carefully suspend the grape in the middle. Kids 3+ can be hands on and do much of this themselves with just a little supervision.
Dye Eggs Use vinegar and food coloring to dye Easter eggs. Or pick up an egg dyeing kit, if you prefer.
Easy Lava Lamp - 1/3 glass water, then carefully top with 2/3 oil. Add a couple drops of food coloring, and watch it fall in between the two layers. Drop in half a tab of alka seltzer. Voila! The color will mix with the water and activate the lava lamp action.
Easy Osmosis Lesson With Cucumbers
Slice 2 cucumbers. Weigh them with a food/postage scale, if possible. Place 1 slice in baggie alone. Place the other in a baggie with a tablespoon of salt. Weigh baggies, record.
Egg Osmosis Drop 3 eggs in vinegar. Wait a day or so for the shell to dissolve, then carefully wipe it away from the surface of the semi permeable membrane. You now have 3 soft, springy, sent transparent eggs. You can drop one in water, another in corn syrup, and leave the other as a control. Classic osmosis experiment!
Heat Rises Demo Take a regular Lipton teabag, empty out the tea. Straighten out the bag, it should be a nice tube. Stand up the tube, and light it on fire. Count down from 10... when it gets about 3/4 burned down, the heat trapped in the tube will rise and overcome the remaining weight of the material, and you'll have a moment of flying fire
Make Butter from Whole Milk Place in container with water tight lid. Shake/roll/agitate until it turns into butter and whey.
Make an Emulsion A stable mixture of 2 immiscible liquids is called an emulsion. Make mayonnaise, which is an emulsion of oil, water, and egg yolks where the yolks is the emulsifier. (2 yolks, 3 tbsp vinegar, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp mustard, 1 c salad oil.
Have ingredients at room temperature. Use a mixer/egg beater to blend yolks, vinegar, & spices until yolks are sticky. Add oil drop by drop while mixing until thick.
Homemade mayo is thick, yellow, & glistening. It spoils easily & should be stored covered in fridge*. It will not separate like the salad dressing because the yolks keep the tiny droplets of vinegar/oil from finding each other to create bigger droplets.
* Uncooked eggs can also carry salmonella, so consume at your own risk.
Microbes on Bread Experiment Have kid place unwashed hands on bread. Seal in ziploc bag. Do the same with washed hands. Label & set aside to watch/compare the mold.
Red Cabbage pH Solution If you're willing to do more prep work, make a simple anthocyanin pH indicator by boiling up some red cabbage. Use that to do acid and bases experiments with simple solutions around the house (vinegar, water, lemon juice, bleach, baking soda and water). If you can get dry ice, there are a million dry ice experiments you can do.
Salad Dressing Density Make salad dressing with 1/3 vinegar 2/3 oil + spices, like minced garlic, paprika, pepper, salt.
Use to discuss density (oil lighter than water-based vinegar) and that some liquids will mix/dissolve together but some will not (are immiscible). Let kid stir (or shake up with good lid) and watch the liquids separate again.
Skittles Color Spread - scatter skittles around the edge of a plate. pour water in the middle until it just touches the Skittles. Watch as the colors move to the middle of the plate in a lovely rainbow.
Smell/Taste Experiment - Have kids eat an apple blindfolded with a pear slice under their nose. It will taste like pear & vis-a-versa. This is because your tongue senses the sweetness of the fruit, but it is your sense of smell that informs the rest of the taste.
Solutions & Solutes with Rock Candy Add sugar to water until it no longer dissolves. Then heat to turn into a super-saturated solution. Then make rock candy to recover the solute.
Sugar Antifreeze Experiment Get ice cube tray or little Dixie cups. Fill 1 slot/cup with water, 1 with 100% fruit juice, & 1 with mixture of water & juice. Place in freezer. Check on the 3 every hour to see how much the sugar disrupts the crystallization process.
Discuss how plants use this principle to keep from freezing completely in winter. Also, this is why we get maple syrup - the tree pumps its sap full of sugar during the winter. We tap the tree and concentrate the sugar further via boiling.
Surface Tension - Fill a shallow dish with water, sprinkle pepper evenly on the surface, dip a toothpick in dish soap, and dip the toothpick in the middle of the plate. Magic! The pepper races away to the edges.
Microbes on Bread Experiment Have kid place unwashed hands on bread. Seal in ziploc bag. Do the same with washed hands. Label & set aside to watch/compare the mold.
Red Cabbage pH Solution If you're willing to do more prep work, make a simple anthocyanin pH indicator by boiling up some red cabbage. Use that to do acid and bases experiments with simple solutions around the house (vinegar, water, lemon juice, bleach, baking soda and water). If you can get dry ice, there are a million dry ice experiments you can do.
Salad Dressing Density Make salad dressing with 1/3 vinegar 2/3 oil + spices, like minced garlic, paprika, pepper, salt.
Use to discuss density (oil lighter than water-based vinegar) and that some liquids will mix/dissolve together but some will not (are immiscible). Let kid stir (or shake up with good lid) and watch the liquids separate again.
Skittles Color Spread - scatter skittles around the edge of a plate. pour water in the middle until it just touches the Skittles. Watch as the colors move to the middle of the plate in a lovely rainbow.
Smell/Taste Experiment - Have kids eat an apple blindfolded with a pear slice under their nose. It will taste like pear & vis-a-versa. This is because your tongue senses the sweetness of the fruit, but it is your sense of smell that informs the rest of the taste.
Solutions & Solutes with Rock Candy Add sugar to water until it no longer dissolves. Then heat to turn into a super-saturated solution. Then make rock candy to recover the solute.
Sugar Antifreeze Experiment Get ice cube tray or little Dixie cups. Fill 1 slot/cup with water, 1 with 100% fruit juice, & 1 with mixture of water & juice. Place in freezer. Check on the 3 every hour to see how much the sugar disrupts the crystallization process.
Discuss how plants use this principle to keep from freezing completely in winter. Also, this is why we get maple syrup - the tree pumps its sap full of sugar during the winter. We tap the tree and concentrate the sugar further via boiling.
Surface Tension - Fill a shallow dish with water, sprinkle pepper evenly on the surface, dip a toothpick in dish soap, and dip the toothpick in the middle of the plate. Magic! The pepper races away to the edges.
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