Candy Experiments

I've been wanting to do candy experiments with the girls since last year. And, lucky enough, we got TONS of candy this Halloween, so I got to work making some printable experiments. I found all of these experiments and pictures from HERE (I like how they included nutritional info, too). I wanted to be able to print them and have an observation sheet, so I made these. You'll want to print an observation sheet for each experiment you decide to do. Have fun!

Candy Experiments

P.S. There was a cute border around the words but I can't get it to load. You'll just have to imagine it.

AND here's some other fun candy activities from TeachMama.

March Mad Scientist Week 2011: Biology

Each year during March Madness I like to do a March Mad Scientist Week with the girls. This year I'm separating it into 5 days  in 5 areas of science:

1.Biology: The Life cycle of a Butterfly
2. Chemistry: Baking Soda and Vinegar
3. Earth Science: Air
4. My Body: Food Science
5. Physics: Color/Rainbows

My goal was to have each lesson short enough to just last one day and give the girls a taste of science (probably my favorite subject in school).

I may not get the rest of the lessons posted on here, but I thought I'd share our butterfly lesson since it's ready.  Our caterpillars arrived in the mail yesterday and the girls are SUPER excited about them. They have named them  and check on them hourly. It will be a long couple of weeks watching them grow and change into butterflies :)

Here it is for you to enjoy:

The Life Cycle of a Butterfly

Here is a link to where I got most of my ideas and plans:

http://scienceforpreschoolers.com/

March Mad Scientist Week: Kitchen Science

Yesterday we did several kitchen science experiments:

1. Yeast: we activated yeast using sugar and warm water in an empty water bottle, put a balloon around the rim of the bottle, and then watched as it inflated the balloon.


2. Lemon Juice Art: we colored with lemon juice and q-tips, let it dry and then baked at 350 for 5 minutes. The heat browns the juice and makes a picture appear. Make sure you saturate your q-tip often.


3. Cornstach and Water Goop: by mixing 1 part water to 2 parts cornstarch, we made a substance that was a liquid when you held it and a solid when you moved it around.

4. Vinegar and Baking Soda volcano: We colored our white vinegar with a little food coloring to make it red, then poured it into our container of baking soda to make our volcanic eruption.

March Mad Scientist Week: Plants

Wednesday was plant day. We made diagrams of the parts of plant, found plants in our refrigerator and checked out the results of our celery experiment that we started on Monday. My favorite part was slicing the celery and looking at the holes (I think they call them the xylem if we're getting scientific) that were dyed red. Carnations would have been neat, but we didn't have any of those on hand. We also cut open an apple to find the seeds and then had it (the apple not the seeds) for our snack.

March Mad Scientist Week: Water Play

Little Miss L enjoyed the water play activities and was soaked by the end. I began filling an empty gallon milk jug with her which she then tried to lift. The point: to show that water is heavy. She agreed, it was heavy. Then we walked around collecting various items to find out if they would sink or float. We filled up the tub, I had my laminated sink/float chart and we began the experiment. I would ask Will it sink or float? Missy answered "float" 100% of the time :) She loved throwing everything into the tub while I recored our data. When we finished, I gave her some kitchen equipment and put some soap in the water and she just played and stirred up bubbles.

March Mad Scientist Week: Nature Walk

Our first science activity was a nature walk. Believe it or not, there is still a little bit of nature in the city. I made colored squares and tied them together. The goal was to collect at least one thing of each color. With the exception of blue (we had a hard time gluing the sky or water to our paper and we couldn't find any robin eggs), we found every color. I also took some pictures for things we couldn't take with us (flowers, bugs, the sky, etc). As we went on our walk, I talked to Miss L about nature (animals, trees, water, flowers...)

Get in on the fun this week...

I haven't been motivated in the preschool area but today I came up with a fun idea that I'm excited about and I just wanted to let anyone who reads this blog know about it. That way if you want, you can get in on the fun since the name won't work next week...
It's MARCH MAD...SCIENTIST WEEK at our house!
Everyday we are going to have fun doing a different science experiment(s).
Here's my tentative plan:
-Monday: Nature Hike and collection
-Tuesday: Float/Sink Water Play
-Wednesday: Plants...Celery food coloring experiment(you have to start this a couple days before)
-Thursday: Kitchen Science
-Friday: the Zoo..Animals
Let me know if you do it, too. I'd love to see pictures and ideas!