STEM States of Matter Sensory Bottles

JDaniel has been studying the three states of matter at school. I thought it would be fun to create a STEM science activity that would help him to visual the three states of matter.

This activity uses only two objects. A bunch of Augshy 120 Pcs 1 Inch/25 mm Christmas Silver Jingle Bellsand small water bottles. (You could use large water bottles, but you would need to use a lot more jingle bells.)

The bells represented molecules. The bottles represented a way to contain the matter.

States of Matter Sensory Bottle Construction

We started by talking about how easily each state of matter can move around. We decide that gases can move very easily. The gas bottle would need just a few a few jingle bells dropped into it. When the bottle was shaken those few bells could easily move around in the bottle.

It was decided that the liquid bottle need more bells than the gas bottle, but not as many as the solid bottle was going to.  When that bottle was shaken, we could see the bells move. They didn’t move as easily around the bottle as the gas bottle’s bells could.

The bottle of bell representing a solid was filled with all the remaining jingle bells. We even transferred some of the bells from the liquid bottle to the solid. The bells in the solid bottle barely moved when the bottle was shaken.

We then talked about why a solid keeps its shape and a gas doesn’t. It was easy to see that the gas molecules moved easily around the container. There weren’t a lot of other molecules around them to help them keep their form.

The liquid bells has other bells that prevented them from moving freely. They could move, but not everywhere they tried to go.

The bells in the solid had very little movement. They were able to move slightly.

I think it was helpful to visual matter with our bell bottles. It probably also tapped into my son’s auditory and tactile learning. I bet it will do the same thing for your children.

You will find more science experiments like this simple pendulum experiment on my Early Learning Science board on Pinterest.  Please take moment to check them out.