Teaching Pre-K: Science Week!

The last week of March was Science Fair week so we did a lot of fun experiments in class. Yes, I realize that this post is a month late, but better late than never right? All of these experiments I either found at Dollar Tree or found on Pinterest.

On Monday we started growing crystals; yep cool green kryptonite-looking ones! It was a kit that I found at Dollar Tree.

We also learned about filters and how they help clean the yucky stuff out of our water. As you can see from the picture we started with a bottle of water and added some dirt to make the gross muddy water below.

 First, we filtered out the bigger stuff with a regular mesh sieve. Below you can see that we got a good amount of the mud our of the water that way.

 Next, we used a coffee filter to get out all of the small particles that were still left.

 Look how gross! Since it was a coffee filter the kids were calling it "coffee". But you can see in the picture above that it made the water clear again.

On Tuesday we started growing the plastic grow frog. Again, found this little guy at Dollar Tree. They had other creatures too, but since we're the Frog class I figured a blue frog would be perfect!

We also started our eggs in vinegar experiment!

Wednesday we rinsed the remaining softened shell off the eggs and the kids were amazed at the rubberized bouncy eggs. I had planned to do an osmosis experiment with them as well, but letting kids touch them means that one broke (creating a huge mess on a tray thankfully!). I had wanted to put one in plain water and one in sugar water. To still demonstrate osmosis and permeable membranes I put the remaining egg in plain water. We spent the rest of the morning with the rest of the school building marble mazes, making cool chromatography art, and watching derby car races!

Thursday was my favorite experiment. I love anything that includes baking soda and vinegar! We made raisins dance, and also had some minor explosions thanks to me. I mixed the baking soda with warm water like the directions told me to, added the raisins, watched them sink to the bottom of the bottle, added the vinegar but it was reacting before getting to the raisins on the bottom. So I put the lid on the bottle and shook it a little bit. When I went to open it it exploded all over the table! The kids thought it was awesome, except one that ran to the back of the room and stayed there until the experiment was over, and wanted me to do it again. :) So I added a little more vinegar and baking soda, put the lid on, shook the bottle, and made it explode again. After two explosions we did indeed have dancing raisins! For the rest of the morning kids were watching them go up and down in the bottle. The picture below is after the reaction was finished and they were all floating on top, but you can still see a few bubbles.

Friday we didn't do any new experiments instead we wrapped up the ones we had started earlier in the week. Below you can see our fully grown crystals as well as the frog. I didn't have a chance to take a picture of the enlarged egg before poking a hole in it with a pin to watch the water shoot out.

What are some of your favorite science experiments to do with kids?