Mad Scientist Play - Colour Explosions

As a Mummy blogger I am a bits and bobs hoarder; Meaning I keep anything that has prospective crafting or activity purpose. Among my craft cupboards (yes there are many) I had a collection of empty bottles in different shapes and sizes from baby wash, hair conditioner, drink bottles, vases and so forth, plus squirts from hand washes and sprays from bench cleaners that I've rinsed out. I knew I would use them for something cool one day. Here it is!

In Australia its warming up, days are getting lighter and warmer for longer and so along with the Spring air comes lots of outdoors play. The usual bike riding, ball throwing, digging and playing around the yard is all good and fun but this afternoon I set up a mini science lab for Dimples to experiment with.

Dimples had 2 types of experiments to perform as a Mad scientist. I set up a plastic tub station of bottles, three bottles with white vinegar in them and a few drops of food colour, I chose our three prime colours so as they exploded out he would see them mix in the clear tray they sat in. Then in the other two (the vase and the tall bottle) I did a ratio of canola oil and coloured water for some lava lamp eruptions. We have done this before so Dimples knew exactly what to do.

Getting inspired by the set up and the brightly coloured bottles waiting he went and put on his dress up doctor kit, which became his Mad scientist suit, one of my caps that he dubbed a Mad Scientist cap and some clear safety glasses from Adventures Dads tool shed. He was set and ready.

Dimples first broke open some alka-sielter tablets (you know those tablets that are for upset stomachs, you probably have some in the medicine cabinet) and dropped them into the oil filled bottles. See above. The tablet sinks to the water then it fizzes away in the water which makes the coloured water bubble up and erupt into the oil in blobs but as we know it doesn't mix, so it makes it look like a lava eruption. Pretty cool. Dimples had a close up watch until it settled then tried a larger piece to make even bigger coloured eruptions.

The second experiment was vinegar explosions using coloured vinegar in bottles and bicarb soda. The blue worked so well that it did actually splash Dimples in the face. Lucky he had his scientist safety glasses on. The trick to making a good explosion is to be prepared with everything you need on hand, plus extra. Make sure you put enough vinegar in the bottle so that it is about 2/3 full with enough room for it to fizz/build up and spout out the top.  Use a bottle with a small hole, narrow neck and use a wide funnel so that you can get a shot of bicarb soda into the container in one hit.

Dimples had go after go, of course the very first time worked the best with a huge explosion erupting so quickly it exploded out the top of the funnel before he had a chance to move it. Then he tried the blue witha  huge grin and a very loud "Woah" as he shook his vinegar covered hands but each one still continued to fizz over for several tries and the colours that splashed out onto the tray started mixing and looking very cool indeed. Dimples noticed the colours that were mixing and swirled his fingers around in them.

Do you have a Small Scientist waiting to perform some experiments like these?  

I'd love to hear how it goes, leave me a comment below

Learning Concepts:
Science; Oil/Water & Vinegar/Bicarb
Colour recognition
Mixing Prime Colours
Role Playing & Pretend Play
Sensory
Hands on

Ideas to Extend with:
Volcanic Explosions
Colour Mixing on Ice crystals
Do it in the dark; Glowing Vinegar Science
Mixing Prime Colours in bags

You can keep updated with all our Adventures by following Adventures at Home with Mum on Facebook, follow us on Pinterest, or check us out on Instagram.

Salad Spun Solar System - Extreme Paint

Apparently Pluto isn't important any more?
I know I learnt this stuff at school but my memory has failed me.
When Dimples got his Tag reading system on his 4th birthday I also got him a solar system booklet, he loves it and often plays, well "reads" by himself so it shouldn't have been a surprise when he told me that Venus was the hottest planet.
Silly me jumped in and said "isn't Mercury the one closest to the sun" well yes but Dimples was quick to tell me Venus is hottest because its cloud keep the heat in.

This conversation lead to my 4 year old teaching me all these things about our solar system that his tag reader had taught him. Fancy That! Then this lead to putting together a large floor puzzle we had and pulling out a space poster with matching stickers then some extended learning through Extreme Painting; The Salad Spinning technique.

Using a salad spinner, some circle paper and paint. We put the paper in with the right colours on top, shut the lid and spun. Dimples though that was the best part, he was rapidly spinning the planets around with wide open eyes telling me this one is going to be awesome! This one is going to be the best, I am spinning it so so very fast. Its a pretty easy painting technique and all the mess is confined in the salad tub making for easy clean up. We went through pointing out the planets on the floor puzzle, the tag reader diagram, the poster and then the ones we put in the salad spinner reading all the facts as we went. Dimples really engaged in the process, even to the extent of repeating anything I read to him.

All the Salad Spun Planets were put out in order and he set out his own solar system drawing rings around Saturn and the asteroid belt between Mars & Jupiter. Saturn and Earth worked the best in the salad spinner, it works best with running blobs of paint and with some even spread over your planet otherwise the paper can end up flying up the side of the salad bowl.

I think I learnt more doing this then I did at school, or my memory has failed me. One thing I noticed was the Pluto wasn't even on any of the solar system info anymore, apparently it is a dwarf planet with several others.

Happy Adventures

Rainbow Ice-Crystal Science

 

This awesome Ice colour mixing Experiment started as our usual sensory bin and developed into something I hadnt planned or imagined, a much more magical episode of play and learning.

I love it when Play manifests into new discoveries and something completely unexpected.

 

It all started outside as I was cleaning out the deep freezer!  Instead of wasting the ice slabs I was chipping them off and giving them to Dimples to play with.

Dimples adores penguins so he was happy to play away in an imaginary small world where a Killer whale was chasing penguins onto ice capsules and lion seals were dancing around in the snow. Once all the ice was in the tub I gave him some coloured water to muck around with seen as though it was a warm day, blue & green that represented the ocean then I let him be.

 

Just quickly a word of advice, if you are doing this with younger children be careful as the ice can stick to their skin, I explained this to Dimples first and had some water in the bottom of the tub in case it happened but he thought it was the funniest thing ever and wanted to stick his fingers to the new pieces of ice.

 

To our surprise the coloured water looked amazing on the ice capsules. Because freezer ice is crystallised over time, the colour really soaked up into it much better then on any other ice that we have played with. The capsules kept their crystallised form, with small icicles and didn't melt too quickly, instead they took on the colours and looked like crystals themselves.

Dimples thought this was the coolest thing ever and used up all the green and blue then asked for more. 
Extending on the magical look of the coloured ice crystals we got a few different colours to experiment with and a dropper to use.
Dimples tried out yellow and then got the red, by then most of the ice crystals had blue on them but remained nice and vibrant in colour.  Instead of running through or dripping out the colour stayed nice and bright.

As he squirted red over a blue ice capsule he excitedly yelled "look Mummy Purple!" and I was amazed just how well the colour mixed through the ice. "Wow what other colours can you make?" I encouraged and he made a bright Orange. With every new colour he mixed he would say "WOW, look!" it was great to see him so engaged in the theory of colour mixing.
He experimented with mixing colours and got some beautiful shades of orange and purple amongst the red, green and blue.  By the end it looked like a rainbow of ice crystals.

After all the colour mixing and mucking around Dimples just continued to play with the Rainbow ice trying to break it up and smash it around.
Then after breaking a large slab in two he showed me that the colour had gone all the way through. Instead of the colours running off or only staying on the surface, as they do with your usual ice/salt play they had actually soaked into the entire slab and mixed in the process.

The large purple Ice crystal reminded me off a crystallised amethyst stone that my Nan gave me as a girl. We thought it was quite a magical and beautiful way to have some sensory play and experiment with colour mixing and ice crystals.

Happy Adventures

Rainbow Gelatin Exploration

Jello, jelly, gelatin its all the same to me.
Its a cool sensory material that never gets boring.
Have you ever used it in play?

 

 

This was our first attempt of gelatin using the jar of powered gelatin and the colours of the Rainbow.
I can announce that we will definitely be trying it again, in bigger better ways....

 
Just the way it jiggles, shakes and wiggles, the smooth texture and the sense of the cool temperature on the tips of your fingers is enough for any child to want to play with it (and adult).

 

I prepared some colourful sheets of jelly using gelatin, all it needs is to be heated (not boiled) and dissolved in water and then add some food colouring and let it set in the fridge. I just poured a cup of individual colours on cooking paper in a tray the night before, not knowing whether it would work or not. Success! I'll have to get more of this stuff, that was so simple.



Dimples and his best buddy explored the wriggly texture of the jelly with their fingers pretending to mix and cook with it. They used measuring cups to "measure" it and some plastic knives and forks to slice it in to pieces.
























Funnily enough, they held the bigger thicker pieces up to the light shaking and wobbling them, laughing at the funny movements it made. They experimented with tearing it up, squishing it between their fingers, chopping it with the knife and squashing it into a bowl pretending to make each other dinner. Mmmmmm Yum flavourless gelatin for dinner.



The gelatin is very fun used this way, its thicker and more pliable than your usual eating jelly, it is more like rubber and handles more from the playful preschooler than any jello would. It doesnt turned liquidy either, it stays in clumps and lasts much longer.
The boys tried mixing it and blending it together but the only success in that was making smaller pieces and more of a mess. They had a ball splatting it about and mucking around with it.



After the rainbow fiesta of wiggly wobbly fun, they piled it all back on to the tray and helped me clean it up like little angels......
That was until we arrived at the park later in the day and they were giggling and pointing at me, to their amusement I found the tiny rainbow chunks of jello they had put in my hair while i was down under the table and chairs trying to clean up.
Little Angels :)

Glowing Vinegar Experiment

After reading a really interesting & fun post over at growingajeweledrose.com about glow water, we have been experimenting a little with lots of glow fun.  I was easily persuaded to buy a black light in the post by growing a jeweled rose, I found one at the local hardware shop for $13- It is a black light globe that I put in a lamp and it is officially one of the most coolest ways to experiment with play.  If you dont have one GET ONE! You wont regret it...  Something you may not know, tonic water even glows!

Basically, the black light makes anything Neon or white glow in the dark. In the above post you will find how to make glow water, it is just neon texter or highlighter texter ink with water. So you crack open your pen and use the ink cylinder, soak it in your water and voila. that is your glow water.

We did a glow bath and some glow paints with shaving cream in the bath and then I used the highlighter ink and mixed it in vinegar for some Science fun in the dark. I used 3 disposable cups filled with orange, pink and green glow vinegar and had 3 smaller container with bicarb soda and some droppers.

Dimples was in awe as he walked into the dark room and everything was glowing. He could not wait to get in to it. The orange & pink worked great, they were so vibrant!
He started with the dropper watching small amounts of the vinegar fizz and bubble away but he couldn't help him self, the affect wasn't good enough. He poured some in and watched the explosion of bubbles come pouring over the top and onto the tray, now the entire tray was glowing and fizzing away.

He put his head down and listened to the bubbles and pops as it fizzed, then he realised the smell was funny & had to smell them all. The experimented with mixing different colours and then pouring the vinegar soaked bicarb onto the tray. It was good fun. He ended up using his finger to draw around on the tray & mix all the bicarb in.
 

Cutting the Snotty Gak

Gak, Goo, Obleck, slime, silly putty what ever you have known it as, we've never made it before......

So here goes -
You can find a good detailed recipe here : homemade-kids-gooey-gak
But it is so simple & easy to make, I let Dimples do it all on his own.

Using white craft glue, he poured the whole container into a bowl & mixed it with 1 1/2 cups of warm water. Our first attempt we added blue food colour & it turned out so vibrant, then we tried one with black (the texture was much better but it looked like snot)

while Dimples was mixing through the water, glue & colour, I boiled the jug & dissolved a teaspoon of borax in about half a cup of hot water, then i put it in for him.
Its really quite science like, as soon as it swirls through your mix you can see it separate then as you mix it it gets gooey.

This is where it gets fun, I asked Dimples to then mix it with his hands, with no hesitation he squeezed, kneaded and squished it around until it was no longer liquid at all.  It was gak!  Snotty looking Gak.

He loved the stuff, I gave him a pair of scissors & the cut so well through the gak, I think practising with scissors is made more fun using the gak but it seems to work better as well.

Dimples used his scissors to slice a long stringy piece of gak, it was easier for him to hold as he was working on his fine-motor cutting skills, trying to manipulate the scissors in the right direction to cut the "worm" into "baby worms" -
When the scissors cut he can see clearly the slice, it goes through easily whether the scissors are plastic or blunt or safety ones, where as sometimes the kiddy scissors struggle with paper.
And of course there is the sensory aspect of it, it feels soft and squishy & cool on the fingers.
The science of it, the way it moves blends, breaks, the way it mixed, the way it sinks & flattens.
To sum it up, we think its lots of fun & is an interesting thing to play with.

Dimples used it like play doh with his play doh toys, he cut through it for a long time, he used his knife & fork & pretended it was a slimy dinner and he just played about stretching & hanging it around watching it grow

Penguin sensory box: styrofoam Ice & waterbeads.

Styrofoam Ice & Blue water beads with penguins.

Using Broken pieces of Styrofoam box as ice capsules for the penguins to sit on & bright blue water beads as the water Dimples played in the penguin sensory box for hours.

Like as if it were in water the Styrofoam didn't sink in the water beads. It was a fun experiment and we talked about where the penguins lived and how they lived on ice capsules and were able to escape from predators who live in the water like killer whales and lion seals by jumping up onto the floating ice.  Happy feet the kids movie came into our conversation a few times because the penguins are off this movie and Dimples adores the movie.

If you push the Styrofoam down under the water beads it slowly floats back up to the top. So Dimples experimented by putting the little penguin figurines on it and seeing if they could balance and stay on there as they floated on an angle up to the top, & popped back to the surface (just like ice does) they did stay on it most of the time.   He tried covering the Styrofoam with water beads but they just rolled off. The penguins had a good swim around diving under and over the rock and ice.

Eventually he broke the Styrofoam up into small pieces for each of the penguins but they still wouldn't sink or stay under the "water".  I also put in some foam packing that you get in delivery boxes and the water beads made it do strange things. this was something interesting for Dimples as well, the pieces stuck together and got some what sticky so through play they ended up slightly touching each other and eventually clumped together.

Dimples loves water beads, he never gets bored of them.