Monday 27 October 2014

Pretend Play Science Lab




Tamlyn received an awesome lab kit for her birthday.
 I completed the set by adding 2 lab coats and 2 pairs of safety goggles to the collection,
as well as this amazing book
Candy Experiments by Lora Levitt.
I'm so looking forward to trying out her candy experiments.
But for today's activity, I decided to stick to the basics.



The Butterballs love baking soda and vinegar reactions and they have done various experiments.
They even blew up a balloon using the gas created by this type of reaction.

so I set up today's pretend lab using an assortment of test-tubes and bottles.
I filled a few bottles and test-tubes with vinegar and a few with water.
the Butterballs helped me add a splash of food coloring to the liquids,
then I set out two dishes filled with a white powder
...one container held table salt and the other held baking soda.


I laid out an assortment of tools - eyedroppers, medicine syringes, scoops and stirrers
as well as few containers and the beaker and conical flask that came with Tamlyn's Lab Kit.

The Butterballs loved pouring and mixing their 'magic potions'
Using all those little tools was not only fun,
it also helped develop their fine motor muscles.


They also got to practice color-mixing.

and the look on their faces when they discovered the baking soda-vinegar reactions was priceless!


They used their observation skills and after sniffing each bottle and test-tube,
they figured out which ones contained vinegar.
They quickly realized that the grainy white powder(salt) didn't produce a reaction
while the fine white powder (baking soda) did!

We also talked about real science labs and the chemicals that you would normally find there.
I emphasized the 'no tasting, touching or sniffing rule'
explaining that they could only do so under adult supervision because it might be really harmful to them.

The Butterballs had a blast pretending to be scientists concocting amazing mixtures in their lab!
I can't wait to set up a few candy experiments for them to try out!!

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