Fireworks in a Jar

This Science experiment idea is from I Can Teach My Child

Age: From 4 years old

Materials:

1. 1 large mason jar 3/4 filled with warm water

2. 1 saucer 4 TBS cooking oil

3. 4 drops of red, green, yellow and blue food coloring each

4. 1 fork to stir the color

5. 1 spoon

6. 4 droppers (optional)

Directions:

1. Fill 1 large mason jar 3/4 with warm water.

2. Add 4 TBS of oil into a saucer.

3. Add 4 drops of food coloring red, blue, green and yellow each into the saucer with oil.

4. Stir gently if necessary to mix the oil and color.

5. Pour gently into the jar of water.

Additional Information:

J (6Y0M28D) wanted very much to make some Science experiments with me and have been pestering me for it. He wanted to do something with water and color. But I am too lazy to prepare the materials. Today, we finally sit down to do it. Ours doesn't look as good as the one from I Can Teach My Child. We repeated our experiment 3 times, but J still found it fun. Oh well, it is the process that counts :-)

References:

http://www.icanteachmychild.com/fireworks-in-a-jar

0. Prepare your materials

1. Fill 1 large mason jar 3/4 with warm water.

Close-up

2. Add 4 TBS of oil into a saucer.

 3. Add 4 drops of food coloring red, blue, green and yellow each into the saucer with oil.

4. Stir gently if necessary to mix the oil and color.

5. Pour gently into the jar of water.

Montessori Activity: Fun with Mixing Colours

Full set

Simple set

Yellow + Blue = Green

Purple + Orange = Brown

Age: From 3 years old

Activity Duration: 15 - 30 minutes

Preparation Time: 5 minutes

Objectives:
1. To teach colours.
2. To train the child's fine motor skills.

Materials:
1. 1 large clear transparent bowl
2. 2 clear transparent glasses or bowls filled with water.
3. 4 different food colouring
4. 6 plastic colour toy plates (yellow, red, blue, green, orange and purple) for benchmark (optional)
5. 1 jug for pouring water (optional, but Joshua found this fun)
6. 1 stick for stiring (optional)

Directions:
1. Pour the colour you want to mix into the glasses.

2. Ask your child to pour water into the glasses.

3. Ask your child to pour the first colour solution from the glass into the big transparent bowl.

4. Before asking your child to pour the second colour solution the big bowl, ask your child to guess what the colour in the big bowl would become. Use the colour plates and ask, "Does it turn into this green colour? Does it turn into red colour?" Encourage your child to guess.

5. Instruct your child to pour the second colour solution from the other glass into the big transparent bowl and watch the colour transformation.

6. Pour away the water from the big bowl, and repeat with other colour mixing.

Additional Information:
Joshua (2Y11M20D) played with this yesterday and this morning. He enjoyed it a lot and played for 30 minutes. He was curious what colour he would get. if he mix in blue and orange, or purple and orange. He found it funny and kept laughing when I said, it gave dirty colour, which he mixed and saw the dirty colour for himself.

Yellow + Blue = Green

Red + Blue = Purple

Red + Yellow = Orange

Orange + Blue = Dirty Green

Green + Blue = Green

Montessori Activity: Mixing Colours with Syringe

Idea from Veronika

Age: From 2.5 years old

Activity Duration: 5 - 15 minutes

Preparation Time: 5 minutes

Objectives:
1. To teach colours.
2. To train the child's fine motor skills.

Materials:
1. 1 syringe
2. 2 transparent glasses or bowls filled with water and 2 different food colouring (I use blue and red here)
3. 1 transparent empty glass or bowl
4. 1 syringe without needle

Directions:
1. Show your child how to suck up the blue colour water with the syringe, by saying "pull the syringe up".
2. Show your child how to release the blue water in the syringe into the empty glass by saying "push the syringe down".
3. Do the same to the red colour water.
4. Encourage your child to try.

Video Demonstration:

Additional Information:
This is my colleague, Veronika's fantastic idea. Joshua (2Y5M16D) tried this activity today. He really enjoyed it. I am definitely going to repeat this with different colour.