I’ve started following @SarcasticRover on Twitter. The creation of hilarious humorist and screenwriter Jason Filiatrault, it’s a parody of what the Mars Rover would be tweeting if it was in fact alive, could tweet, and, well, had Internet on Mars. He coined “Let’s do a science,” which caught on so much the real folks at JPL and NASA tweeting about the Rover started talking about doing a science. Awesome.
What’s more, with its 97,000+ followers, it’s giving a passion for science some great exposure.
In honor of the Rover, and my little budding scientists, I’ve actually gotten myself organized and have started scheduling awesome little pre-K science experiments around Fall. Lots of credit goes to Pinterest and the Internet to find some awesome projects. I’ve posted my projects on my Pinterest board if you’d like to try them too, and get other ideas.
I was so proud of myself, first gathering everything that might be fun to do, then categorizing them into related topics that I could correlate with what was going on right now. Like, raining, fall colors, Halloween, harvest, etc.
We did our first science experiments last week, focusing on rain.
The first experiment was making rain in a jar. We talked about how water rises and condenses into clouds. Then once there is more water than the cloud can hold, it rains.
To make rain in a jar, fill a jar with 2/3 water and put shaving cream at the top. Then put colored water in separate cups, hand out droppers (I pilfered them from the medicine cabinet from old expired infant medicines), and have them use the dropper to put the colored water on top of the cloud. (I recommend putting down some highly absorbent paper towels first.) It takes a lot of water to fill up the cloud. Then the color starts to seep through.
In the beginning, the color hovers just below the cloud, but in time, it starts to drop down, in slow motion.
While the kids added their colored water to the “cloud” I showed them images in books and on the computer of virga, where rain starts falling from the clouds but hasn’t hit the ground yet, relating it to what they were seeing in their jars. We also talked about how much water it was taking to fill that cloud.
This kept the kids entertained for almost an hour. They loved mixing the colors on the clouds, then suddenly noticed the colored rain falling from the clouds and really got excited.
While I thought of this as mainly a weather experiment, the added benefit was some chemistry – experimenting with mixing colors.
Once the jars were coming up on black from all the mixed colors, I emptied them at the kids’ request and we started all over. We even did a final round without the clouds because they wanted to watch the water fall faster and see what colors two colors make.
Awesome.
My mom tip today is do a science. Find something fun and easy to do that plays into your child’s natural curiosity. You’ll be spending valuable time together, having fun, and fostering an interest in science.
Do you have a place where you find great science experiments for your kids to do at home? Please share.
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That is so cool! And with my Little Man’s ability to maintain focus for about 2 minutes, something like that experiment would be cool. One thing he loves to do is to take one of our clear water bottles that is a cylinder shape, and put water and a packet of Propel in it (it has no color). Then he shakes the bottle in such a way that he makes the water inside swirl around. It looks like a tornado or a water spout.
Good for you, Jen. Get those science and math projects going for our future generation.