Anticipating the upcoming Valentine’s holiday and taking an opportunity to learn, Miss Autumn’s class at Rainbows’ Kids’ Point made love potions… and a really awesome, fun mess! Kids love to pretend, so incorporating imagination with scientific inquiry is a great way to get them interested in asking questions and testing their theories out.
Miss Autumn’s 3-5 year old group pretended they were making love potions for Valentine’s Day while doing the following project during the Science teaching block of the day. This experiment gave the children an opportunity to make their own hypotheses, as their teacher asked each of them for guesses on what would happen when mixing all the ingredients in front of them. This activity also provides experience for the children as they measure the ingredients and witness the cause and effect reaction.
This would be an easy learning activity to do with your kids at home this week as Valentine’s Day approaches. You might even have all the material on hand!
Here’s how:
- Gather your materials. You will need baking soda, vinegar, food coloring (or you can use red Kool-Aid powder like we did), and some glitter to add to the fun. You will want 2 transparent containers, a spoon, and a tub or tray to catch overflow.
- Help your child measure out ½ cup of vinegar and 1 teaspoon of glitter. Talk through the different sizes of measuring cups and spoons while you are working. Add both ingredients to your first container.
- In the second container, add ¼ cup of baking soda, your food coloring of choice, and an additional teaspoon of glitter. Place this container in a tub or on a tray, as there will be some liquid overflow that can be messy!
- Make sure you talk to your child about what they think will happen when you combine the two containers, and let them be hands-on as they help you measure and mix the ingredients.
- Slowly pour the vinegar mix into the second container of baking soda and glitter. Now, watch the reaction of the mixture and your child!
