Showing posts with label 2010 Science Fair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2010 Science Fair. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Materials Needed:
Since this project was going to take some time, we began after breakfast.
We started by putting two drops of food coloring into each section of the ice cube trays.
Grace watched while I helped Emma put the food coloring in her sections and was able to complete this step on her own.
Then we added water to each section.
We then put the filled trays in the freezer.
And went to play to help pass the time.
Finally, the ice cubes were ready!
Our friends from The Chronicles of Mad Molly were over and so they joined in on the fun!
The girls chose two ice cubes to put into each of their cups.
They each ended up with three cups.
Then they got down to the business of trying to get the cubes to melt.
Getting the ice to melt took some doing (note the addition of spoons in the pictures) and Mary and I decided that it would have been better to have some ice cubes partially melted already so that they could have had both the experience of getting the ice to melt, but also seeing the fruits of their labor sooner than they did.
We had the girls paint with the melted ice.
Before they would paint we had them predict what each new color would be.
Grace did really well remembering what each combination would make!
Being disappointed with this color not appearing to look purple (even though it should have been) we decided to let the ice cubes sit out and melt and come back later with the hopes the colors would be better.
About an hour and a half later....
The cubes had melted a lot more and the colors were much brighter!
Overall, not a bad experiment but certainly not a quick one! The girls enjoyed it, and did a great job making (correct) predictions about what each color combination would create. The key to making this experiment go more quickly is to have some ice cubes partially melted before the children sit down to conduct the experiment. We loved that they had the experience of trying to get the ice to melt, but with the ages of the girls and how long it was taking to get the ice to melt it could have been a disaster and they could have easily (and understandably) lost interest in it.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
It didn't take long to decide that we should enter a project, and I quickly decided that we would focus on mixing colors to teach various science concepts. I chose a project that involved freezing colored water to make ice cubes then melting two different colored ice cubes to make a new color. After thinking about this for awhile, and realizing how much the girls are totally enjoying painting at the easel, I realized that we should enter two projects and start with this one: mixing paint colors!
Grace did not end up napping today so I thought this would be the perfect time for her and I to work on this science experiment.
Materials Needed:
Red, blue and yellow paint
Paint brushes
Cups for each color of paint plus an extra cup for the color created
Paper
Smocks
Easel (optional)
We started by setting up the easel with red paint, blue paint and a cup to mix the paint in.
Grace then put some red paint in her empty cup, then added some blue paint in
and mixed to create...
Purple!
She was thrilled!
I placed a dot of blue + a dot of red= and she put the purple after =.
I thought this would be a good way for her to not only see how to make it but to start understanding addition as well.
She painted with the purple she created for awhile and then asked to make a new color.
So I set up the yellow and blue and an empty cup in the same way as above.
Blue +
Yellow =
Green!
Once again, when she was finished she asked to make another color.
I began to set the colors up and paint them on the paper.
She asked to do the yellow.
And then got to work mixing them in the cup,
and discovered that red + yellow=
Orange!
We then decided to see what would happen if we mixed all the primary colors together.
She did not want any help!
Grace was not sure what to call this color and I was surprised with how it turned out more green than the ugly brown color that I expected.
We settled on "ugly green".
Finished Products.
After Em woke from her nap she got in on the fun by painting with the colors Grace created.
We had such a great time conducting this experiment!
It was great to see Grace really understand the concept of creating a mixture and get excited at each new color she made.
It was also a great way to begin to lay a foundation for mathematical concepts.
Simple, fun and colorful. The perfect combination for a preschool science project!
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