Summer Holiday Experiments

[crazygracieuk]

Ds2 has just finished y1 and really enjoys doing "experiments."

He has loved making icecream by shaking a bag of flavoured milk which is in a bag of ice and salt. We've done the making a raisin bob up and down in a bottle of lemonade and making a volcano too.
We've also cooked play-doh.

Can anyone recommend any others?

I know that there are Horrible Science kits but I'd prefer something that can be done cheaply with objects in my cupboards.

Making popcorn (teacher did it with a microwave!)

Best done outside - Old style kodak film roll cannister (you know opaque plastic about 5 cms tall). half fill with water, place in half an alka seltzer, put lid on quickly and again quickly place cannister upside down on drive / path. Step back. Whoosh!

A mento in a bottle of coke- make a hole in the top of the coke and voila- coke rocket. (and lots of mess)

Get an old film cannister or sterident container and effervescent vit c tab. Blu tac the tab to inside lid of container and put water in. Shake and stand well back while lid shoots off!

www.imaginationstationtoledo.org/content/2011/04/how-to-make-a-naked-egg/ this site has some great ideas. We have already done naked eggs and are planning to do egg into bottle and lava lamps

Growing crystals is always fun. Also (a bit gross so may appeal) watching different foods decompose over time.

www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Science-Things-Usborne-Activities/dp/0746080387/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1342644475&sr=1-1-catcorr

Fabulous book

Thank you so much! Those suggestions are fab. The kids will really enjoy those :)

Ds2 had missed the water table and play aspect of Reception so the holidays will be perfect to catch up.

Boil up purple cabbage until the water goes purple. It is now an acid/alkali indicator. Can't remember exactly as long time since done it but for example put it into a container with vinegar (Acid) and it would go green, put in with bicarb of soda (Alkali) it would go blue.

That's a good one too.
Thanks

Buy some white carnations and put then in water with food colouring in.

The petals take on the colour of the water.

Rather lovely to have 4 or 5 glasses with different colours on and watch them change.

Buy some white carnations and put then in water with food colouring in.

The petals take on the colour of the water.

Rather lovely to have 4 or 5 glasses with different colours on and watch them change.

the one with cornflour/cornstarch and water is a good one too, a half-liquid, half-solid thing, depending what you do to it (can google for more details).

also just interesting is noticing how tannin is also a pH indicator, so if you put lemon juice in your tea, for example, it suddenly clears and you can see the bottom of the cup (could write a secret message or something).

actually secret messages in general are quite good for science, things like lemon juice and heating it on a light bulb/over a toaster, etc.

The naked scientists kitchen science Page is great. Sorry, can't link from phone.

if you can get the POP tv channel, backyard science is great for ideas

Chromatography: Wet a smartie in a dish and let the colour travel up some blotting paper or tissue to see the different colours separate out.

www.madsci.org/libs/areas/demos.html

www.madsci.org/experiments/

Put celery into a jar of water with food colouring in. After a while the food colouring travels up the 'water tubes' sorry mind gone blank to proper name, inside the plant so can see how a plant takes water in from the ground and uses it.

I have plans to make a pop-bottle rocket sometime with the DCs (though they are still only quite little!) - with vinegar and soda. There are instructions on YouTube somewhere!

We already tried making salt crystals too, though ours didn't actually work that well (nor did growing an avocado stone...).

Decorating eggs - wrapped in onion skins while you boil them, or boil them first and then use crayons and food colouring.

You can probably do something with acid/alkaline and the colours too (like litmus paper but I'm sure there are ways to make it more interesting. And lots of cooking can probably be made into experiments...

Oh I like the sound of the celery one, must try that (we have some leftover old celery in the fridge too, so maybe tomorrow). And just saw someone had posted the acid/alkaline thing already. Lots of good ideas - DS is a bit of a mad scientist so would love these!

Thanks so much everyone.

Your ideas are excellent and should keep us busy. Ds2 will be really impressed

The 'diver' in a pop bottle is a good one too
www.kids-science-experiments.com/diverinabottle.html

Freeze a big container (maybe a washing up bowl) filled with water, small plastic toys and bits and bobs. You could maybe add food colouring and glitter for interest. Then when its frozen (takes a good couple of days) experiment with different substances to melt it. We did this, it was great fun.

Flubber is fun to explore.

How about growing some cress or bean sprouts? Try growing them in different conditions (in a cupboard/ on a window ledge etc.) and see which ones grow best.

Or make some bread - talking about what the yeast is doing. Maybe find other recipes for bread which don't use yeast.

You could try blowing eggs and decorating them.

Tie-dying is cool - you could try making some vegetable dyes and seeing what works best.

Thank you so much.
I'm feeling really excited about doing them this summer.

If anyone else has ideas please could you add to this thread as 7 weeks is a loooong time and I suspect that there will be lots of rainy days to fill.

What a great thread. Thanks so much for asking Crazygracieuk, I'm going to print these out and make DS1 do some of these with me and then take pics, write them up in a book in the holidays in a bid to improve his writing.

Another thumbs up for this thread, some great ideas DS & DD will love