Science experiment Archives - Page 6 of 14

Tin Foil Boat Ideas for the STEM Penny Challenge

March 22, 2017 By Deirdre

When you look up tin foil boat ideas on the Internet, you find a number of them feature a foil raft design. We decided to see if we could find another tin foil boat idea that would be as successful as the flat raft.

Before building boats with your children, you may want to read a book to them that features a boat. You will find some of my favorites below.
Links below are affiliate links.

Tin Foil Boat Ideas

You may want to give your children a piece of tin foil and let them come up with their own boat building design. You could also share with them the two designs we tried. If they are having trouble coming up with design ideas, trying our designs out might inspire them.

Tin Foil Boat Idea One – Hat Design

The first design you may want to have your children try out is the hat design. Your children will need to fold the rectangular piece of foil in half. Then they will fold the two upper corners down 2/3 of the way to form a pointed top. Next, they will fold up each of the bottom edges of the foil. They will fold the front side of the foil up in the front and back piece up in the back.

The hat will need to be opened up on the inside to make the boat wider. Then you will pinch the ends of the hat to keep water from flowing in.

Tin Foil Boat – Raft Design

You will start with a rectangular piece of foil. First, you will need to fold in each of the edges of the foil about 1/2 inch. Then you open up the fold edges and stand them straight up. Finally, you will pinch the corners together to close off the edges.

Our Penny Challenge Insights

We found that the raft floated the longest and held the most pennies.
The hat boat did float and it did hold a few pennies.
A penny needed to be added either side of the hat boat one at a time to keep it from tipping over.

Here are some more boat themed activities we have tried:

How to Make a Boat with Recycled Materials

STEM Activities-How to Make a Balloon Boat

How Long will a LEGO Boat Float?

How to Build a Paddle Boat

How to Make a Boat with Recycled Materials

March 20, 2017 By Deirdre

The boat in the book Toy Boat is made using a variety of recycled or upcycled materials. You can make a boat similar to the boat in the book and it is easy to put together. Let me walk you through how to create it with your children.

How to Make a Boat

Supplies

Links below are affiliate links.

Empty juice box container
Duct tape, assorted colors
Bendy straws
A Cork, 10mm Top Diameter
Strong glue
Scissors
Notebook paper

Directions

You will want to start by reading the book Toy Boat to your children. Seeing how a boat made with recycled materials will help them decide how to make a boat.

Then cut one of the wide sides off of the juice box. (You may want to do this for your children)

Next, you will wrap duct tape around the sides of the juice box. Why? It will cover the straw hole on the juice box. It will also give the sides of the boat more stability.

You may need to do this next step for your children. It involves used the pointing end of a pair of scissors to make a deep hole in the top of the cork and one in the side of the cork.

When the holes have been created, a bendy straw can be placed in both of the holes. The bendy end of each straw shouldn’t be placed in the either hole. You can glue the straws into place if you like. Our straws stayed in place without being glued.

Finally, a sail will need to be made with the notebook paper. Your children can cut a triangle out of the notebook paper. We cut ours out so it would have to have notebook paper holes on the side.

The straw will need to be threaded through the two holes on the side. A small slit will need to be cut near the front corner of the triangle. The diagonal straw will be thread through that hole.

Setting Sail

Our boat set sail on a windy day in a tub of water we placed outside. If you don’t have a lot of wind on the day your boat sets sail, then you children can blow the sail of the boat to get it to move.

This post is a part of the Storybook Science series and the Virtual Book Club.

Here are some more great boat-themed learning activities for kids:

Plant Cell Model Activity for Kids with Printables to Use

March 17, 2017 By Deirdre

This week the Virtual Book Club is exploring the book The Tiny Seed. Earlier this week I shared a flower and worm number activity that could be explored with young children based on the book. Today I wanted to share a plant cell model that could be done with older children after sharing the book with them.

How to Make the Plant Cell Model

The plant cell model activity uses a set of plant cell parts that can be printed out. Many of the other supplies you need for the plant cell model may be in your craft supply closet. If you don’t have them, you will find them at your local craft store.

Supplies for the Plant Cell Model

Styrofoam meat tray
Plant cell parts printable
Small buttons (all one color)
Medium sized buttons (all one color)
Bendy straws
Sparkly pipe cleaners
Plain pipe cleaners
Glue sticks
Scissors

Directions for Creating the Plant Cell

You will need to start by printing out the plant cell parts printable. If you can print it out it color, it would be wonderful.
Then you will need to cut out each of the labels and plant cell parts.
You will want to try to arrange them on the meat tray before you glue them down. Please make sure that you leave space for the ribosome and amyloplast buttons.
You will attach all the buttons with small sections of the pipe cleaners. After threading the pipe cleaners through the button holes, push the ends into the meat tray. Then turn the tray over and twist the ends together.
You will thread the pipe cleaners through small sections of the bendy straws to create the Golgi Apparatus. Then you will push the ends into the meat tray and twist the ends together.
The mitochondria were created by pushing the ends of the pipe cleaner into the mitochondrial shape and through the meat tray. Then the ends were twisted. Next, the pipe cleaner was bent into a squiggle.
Finally, the chloroplast was created by threading small buttons through a pipe cleaner. The ends of the pipe cleaner were pushed through the meat tray and twisted.

Here are some more plant themed activities for kids:

Number Activities with Printable Flowers and Worms

Kids Science Activity- Planting and Growing Grass Words

Plant Growth Algorithm Coding Sheet

Parts of a Flower Craft for Kids

STEM Gardening- Paper Plate Greenhouse

Horton Hears a Who! Listening Activities

February 27, 2017 By Deirdre

Horton Hears a Who! is a great book to read right before setting out this fun listening activity. After hearing about Horton hearing a Who, your children can tell you what they hear as they listen to the sounds made by shaking a small metal bucket.

Horton Hears a Who! What Do You Hear Activities

Links below are affiliate links.

You will probably want to read Horton Hears a Who!to your children before starting these activities.

Teacher Created Sound Buckets

You can gather objects that will make a different sound to put in the buckets. Below you will find a list of possible objects. You can share the buckets with your children. After giving them a chance to shake the buckets, they can try to guess what is in each of the buckets.

Sound Bucket Objects

Bells
Blocks
Pebbles
Beans
Paperclips
Rice
Other Objects You Have Available

Other Supplies You Will Need

You will also need small metal buckets. We found ours at a dollar store. They did not have Horton on them. A Horton coloring page was printed out, colored and glue to the buckets.

Once you have placed the objects into the buckets, you can put a lid on them. If you don’t have a lid that fits, you can use a rubber band to secure a piece of plastic to the top. We found that a drink lid for frozen drinks from a local gas station fit on our buckets.

Students Created Sound Buckets

You can put out an assortment of objects for your children to place in the buckets. Your children will need to know how you want them to move the buckets to create a sound. They could shake, swing or tap the sides of them.

More Exploration Ideas

Children can be asked to find out which of the objects makes the loudest or quietest sound.
They can be given cotton balls to put around the objects to see how the sound of each of the objects changes.
Lids can be placed out for the children to use. They can have a friend guess which object is in the bucket.

Extension

You could put out other toys and objects for children to explore like this

Here are some other wonderful Seuss themed activities:

Teach Kids Letters Through Play from Mama Smiles
Green Eggs and Ham Letter Practice from Still Playing School
Alphabet Puzzles from Sea of Knowledge
Would You Eat This? A Green Eggs & Ham Activity from Sunny Day Family
Dr. Seuss Sensory Play with Kinetic Sand from The Educators’ Spin On It
Lorax Cause and Effect Matching Game from Inspiration Laboratories
Green Eggs and Ham Game: Color Word Egg Sort from Growing Book by Book
Color Mixing Truffula Trees Art Project from School Time Snippets
Color My Feelings With My Many Colored Days from Teach Beside Me
Wacky Wednesday Visual Perception Activity from The OT Toolbox
Read Cat in the Hat with DIY Thing Puppets from Preschool Powol Packets
Ten Apples Up on Top Math Activity from The Moments at Home
Wacky Painting Inspired by Wacky Wednesday from Toddler Approved

How Animals Eat Their Food- Let’s Explore Macroinvertebrates

January 29, 2017 By Deirdre

Not all animals eat their food the same way. Animals that are big like elephants or as small as macroinvertebrates eat in a variety of different ways. Let’s look at how animals eat their food.

Wait! What is a macroinvertebrate? They are small organisms that don’t have spines and are large enough to see with your naked eye.

Here are some examples of macroinvertebrates:

Craneflies
Blackflies
Mayflies
Dragonfly
Snails
Flatworms

This set of explorations looks at how macroinvertebrates feed or eat.

How These Animals Eat Their Food

There are five ways that these animals eat their food. Let me walk you through each of them and share how you can set of how animals eat exploration stations for each one.

How to Eat Like a Predator

Predators like dragonflies have long mouthparts that extend. You can place pieces of a straw onto a tray or box top. Your children can use tongs or chopsticks to pick up the straws.

How to Eat Like a Collector

Collectors like craneflies tend to wiggle around until they find food. You can place a large bendy straw onto a tray or box top. Your children can wiggle the straw until they find and reach the straw sections.

Some collectors have net-like areas on their head. You can put a small strainer or net in a box or on a tray for children to use to collect straw sections.

How to Eat Like a Shredder

Animals like stoneflies are shredders.You will need to put small pieces of paper or old telephone book pages onto a tray for your children to shred. If you like you can put in leaves for them to shred or tear into small piece, just as a shredder would.

How to Eat Like a Scraper

The final way of eating is scraping. Scrapers like the mayfly scrape algae off objects they come across. Then they eat the algae. You will need to place a piece of scratch art paper and a stick onto a tray. Your children can randomly scratch a design onto the paper or draw bug onto the paper.

If you like these fun science explorations, here are some more you will want to do:

Water Pollution Experiments

Windy Experiments with Printable Pinwheel

Fun Experiments with Pollination

Fixed Pulley- Getting the Truck out of the Muck

Disclaimer: The graphics used on some of these pictures are from AML profl

Water Pollution Experiments for Kids

January 28, 2017 By Deirdre

While it would be nice to think that cleaning water is an easy task to do, it can actually take a number of steps to get it clean. Your children will have a better understanding of cleaning water after completing these water pollution experiments.

Links below may be affiliate links.

Before starting this experiment, you may want to read your children a book about pollution. The book Merhorses and Bubbles would be a great book to share with them. Below you will find that book and several other books that have a water theme.

Water Pollution Experiments

Removing Objects That You Can See

Before your children clean up a tub of water, they are going to need to pollute it with objects.

Here are some objects that you can place in the tub of water:

Plastic wrappers
Empty containers
Plastic lids or caps
Strips of Paper
Dirt
Straws
1 Tablespoon of Oil

Next, you will give your children some tools for cleaning up the polluted tub. If you have tongs, a strainer, or colander, they would be great tools for the clean up.

You will also need a container or bag to put the trash into. We used a large plastic container for ours.

Hint: Some children will want to wear rubber gloves to pick up the objects. That is just fine.

After all the objects have been picked out the tub, your children may think that the water is clean. The second of the water pollution experiments will help them see that it is still dirty. Looks like you will need to do another experiment to clean the water.

Filtering Water

If you have a coffee filter funnel or basket, they can hold the filer over the container or set it on top of it.

Then have your children pour the water you used in the first experiment into a pitcher or container. They will next pour water through the filter.Take a moment to have your children share what they see in the filter and in the water.

Next, remove the filter and pour the water back into the pitcher or container. After you replace the first filter with a new one and pour the water through it. They may notice that there are still small items in the second filter. You will want to take time to talk about the color of the water that drains into the container.

Finally, try filtering the water through the funnel with more than one filter. Your children will probably think more than one filter will make the remaining water very clear. We found it was still tan in color.

Discussion

While it was fun to pull the objects out of the water and pour water through the filters, there is something important you will want to discuss. You will want your children to understand that the water just looks cleaner. There may still be things in the water.

Water pollution is much easier to create then it is to clean up. Water treatment plants may have a number of steps they need to take to make water clean.

If you like these water pollution experiments, here some more Earth Day activities you will enjoy.

Sponge Painted Newspaper Tree

$Earth Day Math Activities - Recycling Bin Counting with Printables$

Recycling Bin Counting Activity

Recycled Planter on a String

Constellation Activity for Kids- Cookies in the Universe

January 27, 2017 By Deirdre

During the month of January, I have bee working group created by Little Bins for Little Hands to share the STEM concepts from A- Z. Earlier this month I shared the steps in the STEM design process. Just last week I shared different types of quantitative and qualitative observations. This is the final post I will be sharing in the series. It focuses on delicious a constellation activity.

The universe is a vast area filled with challenging scientific concepts for children to learn. You will find that giving your children STEM hands-on activities will make understanding some of these concepts easier.

Let me walk you through the constellation activity we did recently at my house.

Constellation Activity

While I would love to say that I came up with this constellation activity on my own, I can’t. I found it on AstroSociety website. They called it Constellation Detective. You will find that we created the cookie mix differently than they did. We also focused on a few different constellations.

Deciding on the Constellations

Before you start the creation process, you will need to decide which constellations you are going to make on the cookie. We found an illustration of the winter constellations in the Northern Hemisphere. (The illustration we found was copyrighted and because of that I am not sharing it here.)

Hint:

After printing it out, we decided to create as many as we could on the cookie. That was probably a mistake. If you want to be able to identify the constellations easily after the cookie is baked, you will want to pick just a few. We ended up with a crowded group of constellations on our cookie.

Getting the Cookie Ready

You will need to spray some cookie spray on the bottom of a pan. Instead of making sugar cookie dough from scratch we used a pre-made cookie dough and pressed it into a pan. You can decide if you want to make the dough or buy it pre-made.

Creating the Constellations

The illustration we used had simplified versions of constellations. You may decide that you want to create more accurate constellation creations. We found that it made it easier to replicate the simplified versions.

The narrow end of a chopstick is a great tool for creating constellation dents in the cookie. You will not want to make them very deep or the chocolate chips will disappear into the cookie while it is baking. (We had that happen.)

After creating the spots or dents for each constellation, you will place a chocolate chip into each spot. We placed our chips in top down.

When you have finished creating, you will bake the cookie as directed on the package or according to your recipe.

If you like this STEM activity, here are some more activities you will like:

Act of Kindness Ripple Effect Experiment

STEM Engineering Design Challenge- Building a Basketball Hoop and Dunking Lever

Build a Dino STEM Challenge

Quantitative and Qualitative Observation Skills for Kids

January 19, 2017 By Deirdre

There are two different types of observations that children will need to do while conducting STEM experiments. They can be a part of the each step of the STEM design process. (You can learn more about the STEM engineering design process in a post I wrote called What is the STEM Engineering Design Process?) Both can type of observations will ask your children to ask questions and make predictions. They can both help children figure out how we want to plan further investigations. What are those two types of observation? The first one is quantitive and the second is qualitative. Below you will find more information on both types on observation skills. You will also find them on this printable Types of STEM Observations Anchor Chart.

What is Quantitative Observation?

If your children are making quantitative observations, they are focused on measurable observations. This type of observation is done with a variety of measurement tools.

Measurement Tools

Rulers (Standard and Metric)
Measuring Tape
Balance
Spring Scale
Cylinders or beakers
Thermometer

We used a ruler to measure the height of paper dinosaurs in an activity called Measuring Really, Really, Big Dinosaurs.

What is Qualitative Observation?

When children use their senses to observe, they are using their qualitative observation skills. Let me walk you through what they can observe with each of their senses.

Five Senses

Sight- Size, Shape, and Color
Touch- Texture
Hearing- Sounds and Pitch of Sounds
Smell- Odors and Scents
Taste- Sweet, Sour, and Salt

We explore all five senses in a post called Observing Signs of Spring.

While you may not choose to tell your children that they are working on quantitative or qualitative observation skills, you will want to incorporate them into your STEM experiment and science explorations.

If you like are looking for wonderful science experiments to do with your kids, you will want to visit my Early Science Activities for Kids board on Pinterest.

Kindness Activity-The Ripple Effect Experiment

January 16, 2017 By Deirdre

This post contains affiliate links.

Kids often think that they can’t do things to help others. They may think that they aren’t old enough or big enough to do something. This kindness activity looks at how big actions and small actions have a ripple effect. I bet the lion in the book The Lion &the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney didn’t think when he was able to spare the life of the mouse that it was a big thing. He probably was glad the mouse didn’t think about it that way. His small act of kindness had a big effect on the life of the mouse. That act inspired the mouse to help him in a time of need.

Kindness Activity

This wonderful kindness activity uses an experiment to illustrate that the simple act of dropping an object causes a ripple effect. The ripple may be small or large depending on the object. Just as our acts of kindness can be large or small. They too will have an effect or a ripple in the life of another person. The impact of that act of kindness can make someone’s day better or change how they treat others.

Experiment

When you gather items for this experiment, you will want to select some things that have the following attributes.

Small
Large
Light
Heavy

Then will need to fill a container with water. We used a cake pan for our experiment. If you have a pie plate, bowl, or saucepan you would like to use that would be fine.

Observing the Impact

Each of the objects will cause a ripple in the water when it is dropped. Some will cause a big splash when the are dropped into the water. All of them will cause the water to move as it is displaced by the object.

What you will want your children to notice is that they all cause a ripple effect! Something happens to the water when the object is placed in it.

Discussion

Once your children have seen the ripple effect, take some time to talk about the effects of kind acts on others. Simple things we all can do like saying thank you or holding a door open for someone can have a ripple effect.

Here are some other kindness activity ideas that you can do with our children:

If you like the book The Lion and the Mouse, here are some more kindness themed books:

A Sick Day for Amos McGee
Frog and Toad: A Complete Reading Collection
Please Don’t Tease Tootsie
I See Kindness Everywhere
Horton Hears a Who
The Kindness Quilt
Kindness Is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler
Because Amelia Smiled
Have You Filled a Bucket Today?: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids

STEM Engineering Design Process- Building a Basketball Hoop

January 8, 2017 By Deirdre

Yesterday I describe each of the steps in a STEM engineering design process. A copy of the steps in the process display in a printable poster and a student planning document are shared in that post. Today I want to walk you through the STEM Engineering design process steps. I will be sharing a recent project we did at my house.

Walking Through the STEM Engineering Design Process

Ask

The first step in the process is to define the problem. JDaniel has been exploring levers as part of a Scout enrichment unit. The problem we focused on had to do with creating a lever to do a simple task like put a basketball in a basket. If you want to leave your project more open ended you could ask your children to find a way to use a lever to complete a simple task.

After defining the problem, you will need to look at the constraints of the project. The supplies available to you and the availability of boxes for the project would really be a constraint of this project. (We had a variety of engineering supplies available to us.) Time might also be another constraint.

Imagine

Brainstorming is a challenging part of the STEM engineering process. Your children will let their imaginations shine as they share their ideas.

One of the key elements we needed to brainstorm was how to create the hoop for the basketball. There were two main ideas that were discussed. The first was to attach something like a plastic spool leftover from Christmas ribbon to the box. The second was to create the hoop from a part of the box. After a little discussion, it was time to decided that we would use part of the box.

Plan

The planning set involves creating a diagram of what you are going to make. Then you will create a list of the supplies you will need.

Here is a list of the supplies we used:

Box with attached lid
Paper clips
Plastic spoon
Rubberband
Variety of toy balls
Jar lid
Scissors
Ruler
Pencil

Create

After planning our creation, it was now time to put it together and test it out.Our task had several distinct tasks. First, a hoop needed to be traced onto a section of the box and then cut out. Then the hoop section needs to be attached to the box with paper clips. Finally, a lever needed to be created.

Once everything was put together. We needed to test it out the lever and see if we could make a basket.

Improve

It is during this step in the process that you look at what worked and what needs to be improved. We decided we need to test out a way of attaching the paper clips that made it easier for the ball to fall through.

This post is part of STEM series hosted by Little Bins for Little Hands on understanding STEM for A-Z.

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Tin Foil Boat Ideas

Tin Foil Boat Idea One – Hat Design

Tin Foil Boat – Raft Design

Our Penny Challenge Insights

Here are some more boat themed activities we have tried:

How to Make a Boat

Supplies

Directions

Setting Sail

Here are some more great boat-themed learning activities for kids:

How to Make the Plant Cell Model

Supplies for the Plant Cell Model

Directions for Creating the Plant Cell

Here are some more plant themed activities for kids:

Horton Hears a Who! What Do You Hear Activities

Teacher Created Sound Buckets

Sound Bucket Objects

Students Created Sound Buckets

More Exploration Ideas

Here are some other wonderful Seuss themed activities:

Here are some examples of macroinvertebrates:

How These Animals Eat Their Food

How to Eat Like a Predator

How to Eat Like a Collector

How to Eat Like a Shredder

How to Eat Like a Scraper

If you like these fun science explorations, here are some more you will want to do:

Water Pollution Experiments

Removing Objects That You Can See

Here are some objects that you can place in the tub of water:

Filtering Water

Discussion

If you like these water pollution experiments, here some more Earth Day activities you will enjoy.

Constellation Activity

Deciding on the Constellations

Getting the Cookie Ready

Creating the Constellations

If you like this STEM activity, here are some more activities you will like:

What is Quantitative Observation?

Measurement Tools

What is Qualitative Observation?

Five Senses

Kindness Activity

Experiment

Observing the Impact

Discussion

Here are some other kindness activity ideas that you can do with our children:

Walking Through the STEM Engineering Design Process

Ask

Imagine

Plan

Here is a list of the supplies we used:

Create

Improve

Categories

memberships

From the Past