10 Flower Experiments and Explorations for Kids

As part of Science Week we were experimenting with flowers. Our experiment was a BIG FAIL - that happens sometimes! With too little time to conduct another experiment, I opted instead to search the web and some of my fave blogs and share some really cool Flower Experiments with you. 

These flower explorations and experiments are great for kids of all ages. They include lots of discovery and hands-on manipulation of flowers from coloring them to coloring with them, making perfume, play dough and even goo. There's so much you can do with flowers. How have you explored flowers?

How Water Moves Through a Flower Stem (Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas)

Dissecting a Flower (Gift of Curiosity)

Bi-Color Flower Experiment (Artful Parent)

How to Press a Flower (Tinkerlab)

Flower Pounding (Rhythm of the Home)

Exploring Flowers (The Golden Gleam)

Flower Perfume (Imagination Soup)

Flower Play Dough (Small Potatoes)

Garden Goo (Growing a Jeweled Rose)

Coloring with Flowers (Royal Baloo)

Even More Flower Experiments from my Science Week Co-Hosts -

Flower Pigment Experiment

(Coffee Cups and Crayons)

Transpiration and Colored Flowers

(Inspiration Laboratories)

Homemade Natural Watercolors

(Learn Play Imagine)

Which of these awesome flower activities will you try first?

Bern

Liquids Experiment with Oil, Water and Food Coloring

In honor of Science Week we have joined forces with Coffee Cups and Crayons, Inspiration Laboratories and Learn Play Imagine. On Monday we shared fun Weather Explorations. Today, we are Experimenting with Water. I want to take this opportunity to invite you back on Friday as we experiment with flowers.

These days simple, fast and easy are all I can handle as far as activities go with the Lil Divas. I am swamped as I get ready for the upcoming school year. I am spending hours upon hours either at work or prepping things at home for work. 

The fun Liquid Exploration I am sharing today is something you can do at a moment's notice with very little preparation. It utilizes items many of us have on hand in our kitchens and has a definite "WOW!" factor for the kids.

What You Need:
water
oil
food color
large clear container, jar or vase
plate
spoons

What To Do:
1. Fill your container with water and set aside.

2. Pour oil into a dish and add drops of food color. Use your spoon to mix. We opted to keep our colors separate. 

3. Scoop the mixed oil and food color mixture into your water. 

4. Observe what happens. The oil and water don't mix but the food color separates itself from the oil and mixes into the water, dramatically. FUN!

Wasn't that simple? Activities don't have to take hours of prep or involve lots of materials to be meaningful, fun and engaging for kids. The Lil Divas loved this simple exploration and did it a few times over, yet it only took me 2 minutes to prep. Yay!

More Liquid Experiments:

Does it Dissolve?

(Coffee Cups and Crayons)

Layering Liquids Density Experiment

(Inspiration Laboratories)

Walking Water Experiment

(Learn Play Imagine)

Have fun exploring oil and water!

Bern

Exploring the Effects of Hot and Cold Air

It's Science Week here on Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas! I am being joined by a few of my fave bloggy buddies - Megan of Coffee Cups and Crayons, Trisha of Inspiration Laboratories and Allison of Learn Play Imagine - to bring you some fun, kid friendly science explorations this week. 

Today's topic is Weather. The Lil Divas and I explored the effects of hot air and cold air with one of our favorite scientific tools - a balloon. :)  (Note: This activity should be done under adult supervision.) 

Do your kids ever wonder how hot and cold affects the air around them? This is such a quick and easy activity that will help them see how hot and cold affects the air around us.

What You Need: 

plastic bottle

bowl 

balloon

water

ice

What To Do:

1. Heat some water so that it's hot. I popped it into the microwave for approximately 2.5 minutes.

2. Fill your plastic bottle with the hot water and let sit for a minute.

3. Empty the water from your bottle.

4. Stretch the balloon over the mouth of the bottle and observe.

Our heated bottle got sucked in right before our eyes. The Lil Divas were amazed.

5. Place your hot bottle into a bowl of ice water and observe.

The air inside the bottle cooled and contracted causing outside air to be drawn in. The balloon was pulled in and inflated inside the bottle. Tip: You may need to lift/straighten the balloon to help it a bit if it's hanging off the side.

The Lil Divas thought this was pretty neat. Go ahead and give it a try.

Check out the other weather experiments being shared today:

How to Make a Cloud in a Bottle

(Coffee Cups and Crayons)

Make a Hurricane

(Inspiration Laboratories)

Observing Conduction Weather for Kids

(Learn Play Imagine)

Science Week Topics -

Monday = Weather 

Wednesday = Liquids

Friday = Flowers

Insect and Bug Themed Movement Game

Most kids enjoy learning about insects and bugs. Every spring (for the last few years) we have observed the life cycle of ladybugs and butterflies. This year we added ants to our insect study and it has been a huge hit with the entire family. They are amazingly busy and I find myself just watching them hard at work.

Having these insects at our house inspired me to create a fun little game for the Lil Divas that would get them moving like insects. I knew it was something they would enjoy because it meant doing silly movements like

To prep for the activity I just picked 10 insects/bugs and made up some slips of paper using clip art and a sentence for each movement I wanted to include. Here's what I made. It's nothing fancy but it got the job done and that was what I was after.

I folded the papers so that the Lil Divas couldn't see what they said until they picked one and opened it to read it (sneaking in a little informal reading here).

There were lots of giggles as the Lil Divas tried to crawl like caterpillars, march like ants, jump like crickets, slide like inchworms and more (see pic of cards above for all the movements we used).

This simple game was a HUGE hit and the Lil Divas have already requested to do it again, which we will be doing after school today.

This fun game is the final post in our Learning Through Movement series. Did you see the other two (2) posts in the series? We played Add It Up: A Gross Motor Addition Game and Musical Sight Words.

Be sure to check out Train Up a Child and Mess for Less to find out how they played with balloons today.

What insects would you include in a game like this? 

Any fun movements I missed?

Bern

Easter Science for Kids: Fun Investigations and Experiments

We had so much fun with eggs and peeps last year that the Lil Divas are begging for more experiments this year. My thinking cap has been on & my mind has been working overtime and I am excited to share some of our science investigations with you...soon.  In the meantime, I thought it would be fun to recap all those Peep and Egg experiments from last year and have them in one handy place for you.

Let's start with some FUN

Peep Experiments
(click the titles and it will take you to the original posts for full details)

The Dissolving Peeps Experiment

Baking Soda & Vinegar Peep Experiment

The Microwaved Peep Experiment

The Super Sized Microwave Peep Experiment

The Lil Divas enjoyed last year's microwaved Peep experiment so much that they asked to do it again this year. When we spotted extra large Peeps at the store, we knew we had to try them in our experiment. The Lil Divas were super excited to see how large these would puff up in the microwave.

Here are the original sized bunny peeps:

Here are a few "action" shots of the peep heating up in the microwave:

We just hit the 1 minute button on the microwave & watched carefully
so I could stop it - it happens fast.

Here's a quick size comparison -

They start shrinking quickly once there's no more heat.

I tried taking a quick photo to no avail,

 the original heated peep was even bigger than this.

See how it takes up the WHOLE plate!
The Lil Divas were beyond thrilled with this giant peep bunny.

Now onto our

Egg Experiments!

(click the titles and it will take you to the original posts for full details)

Dissolving Egg Shell & Bouncing Egg Experiment

The Incredible, Unbreakable Egg 

The Floating vs. Sinking Egg Experiment



If you are looking for some cool Egg Decorating Ideas, check these out:

Tie Dye Eggs

Melted Crayon Eggs

and if you need some cool Egg Craft Ideas, how about these -
Tape Resist & Wet Chalk Eggs (my favorite!)
Tie Dye Coffee Filter Eggs

and if you want even more inspiration check out all our
  Easter posts & our Easter Pinterest board.


Have fun exploring, experimenting & creating,
Bern

Science Fun: The Dissolving Packing Peanut Experiment

Yesterday, we shared how we got crafty with packing peanuts and made some snowflakes. Today, I want to share a simple but fun science experiment we conducted with some of our packing peanuts.

The Dissolving Packing Peanut Experiment

After seeing the effect water had on the packing peanuts the Lil Divas were curious about how they would effected by other things so we decided to experiment.

We used 4 solvents to conduct our experiment: room temperature tap water, vinegar, acetone (nail polish remover) and (boiling) hot water - I heated the water up to boiling in our microwave before starting the experiment.

Before we began I asked the Lil Divas to hypothesize which solvent/liquid would dissolve the packing peanut the fastest. The following were the order in which the Lil Divas hypothesized the packing peanuts would dissolve in order from fastest to slowest - hot water, acetone, vinegar and tap water at room temperature.

To begin the experiment we simultaneously dropped one (1) packing peanut into each individual container and observed what happened.

Upon the initial dropping of the packing peanut into the containers we noticed that the hot water had an immediate reaction - melting some of the packing peanut instantly. The one in acetone visibly shrunk in size but stayed intact. The packing peanuts in the water and vinegar seemed to puff up but not much else happened immediately.

The Lil Divas decided they wanted to stir the packing peanuts so we got four (4) spoons (one for each solvent) and they gently stirred each one. We waited 3 minutes (timed on our kitchen timer) and then took another peek. The packing peanuts in the water and vinegar had visibly begun to dissolve and the reactions were nearly identical. The packing peanut in the acetone continued to shrink but stayed intact. The packing peanut in the hot water had almost completely dissolved and only a little remained in the container.

After an additional 2 minutes (total elapsed time = 5minutes) we took one final look at our packing peanuts and noted our results. The hot water dissolved the packing peanut the fastest and it was nearly all gone. There was very little trace of the original packing peanut left in the container. The acetone shrunk the packing peanut considerably but it still remained in the container and was intact. The packing peanuts that had been in the tap water and vinegar had considerably dissolved but we could still see the remnants in the container.

Have you experimented with packing peanuts? What did you try? I'd love to know.

Bern

Top 12 Science Experiments and Explorations of 2012 on Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas

Some of our most popular posts for 2012 were definitely our science experiments and explorations for kids. The Lil Divas love hands-on science explorations and these posts hold so many wonderful memories and learning moments for us. I hope you find a few that you haven't tried before and are inspired to give them a go with your children.

Top 12 Science Explorations of 2012

1.  The Snowman Experiment

2.  Microwaved Peep Experiment

3.  Dissolving Peeps Experiment

4.  Incredible Unbreakable Egg Experiment

5.  The Dissolving Egg Shell & Bouncing Egg Experiment

6.  Easy Homemade Faux Lava Lamp for Kids

7.  What Melts Ice the Fastest?

8.  Homemade Bouncing Balls

9.  Blow it Up! Exploring Gas with Balloons, Baking Soda & Vinegar

10.  The Penny Experiment

11.  Ivory Soap Explosion & Exploration

12.  Fizz, Bubble & Pop: Exploring with Vinegar & Baking Soda

2013 will be bringing you lots more science fun from us -

stay tuned.....

Bern

Fall Themed Sensory Table in Preschool

My goal for this year is to present my preschoolers with a fun sensory table each month. In September we explored Water Beads  and I wanted to give the children a fall sensory experience for October. Being that we live in FL, fall is a pretty much non-existent season but I still wanted to expose the children to fall and harvest themes.

Here are a few photos of our

  Fall Themed Sensory Table

Not only do we not have as many fall items readily available (no lovely fall leaves - Boo!) but I also have to keep our play allergy sensitive so I did use lots of artificial items but the children LOVE our special "treasures" and they look forward to visiting the sensory table each day.

I used real hay as our base - it gives a wonderful aroma & sensory feel that can't be beat. Then I added lots and lots of different textures and fall themed items for discovery and play.

What in the table?

Base = Hay

Filler Items include -

mini pumpkins

various gourds (great texture)

small Indian Corn

corn kernels

dyed pasta noodles (for fun)

faux fall leaves

plastic acorns

plastic mini jeweled acorns

plastic mini jeweled pumpkins

small plastic jeweled leaves

pine cones (real - love the scent!)

fall themed stickers

For Play -

cups

scoops

rakes

shovels

strainers

I keep adding to the table as I buy items or we receive them as class donations. The hay is a bit messy, especially with 3 yr. olds, but the children really enjoy the table and it's so worth it.

What other items would you add? Keep in mind we are not in an area where fall items are so readily available and I can not include real nuts as well.

Happy Fall,

Bern

As always be careful of allergies to the hay before using & of course whenever you are using small parts be sure to supervise children while playing and discuss that these items do NOT get put in their mouth or eaten. :)