Science Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

Popcorn STEM Challenges and Experiments

January 24, 2024 By Deirdre

Popcorn is such fun to use in experiments! These popcorn stem challenges and experiments each feature a free recording sheet. While doing the first activity students will create containers for one cup of popcorn will need to be built. The second activity is an experiment that looks at making popcorn kernels dance. An activity is an experiment that compares the weight of popped and unpopped corn is third. Finally, there is a five senses activity. Children can do any or all of the experiments in the set.

Getting the Popcorn STEM Challenges and Experiments Pages

First, you will need to download the popcorn pages

Popcorn STEM Challenges and Experiments Download

Second, if you don’t have Acrobat Reader you will need to download it. The algorithm page is an Acrobat Reader PDF file.

Third, you will need to go to your download file and open the page. You may be asked if you want the file to open right after you download it. If you are, you won’t have to hunt for it in your download file.

Exploring Each of the Popcorn STEM Challenges and Experiment Pages

Exploring Volume by Building a Popcorn Container

Children will need to use construction paper to build a container for popcorn. They will start by drawing a diagram on the recording sheet. The diagram will need to incude the height, width, and length of the container.

Skills That May Need to Be Reviewed Before Starting

Children will need to know how to use a ruler. Many children start measuring at the number one on the ruler rather than the edge of end of the ruler.
Reviewing pictures of 3 dimensional shapes before starting may inspire the shapes of your children’s containers.
While it may seem obvious, explaining how to tape the sides of at 3 dimensional shape may need to be shared.

Making Popcorn Kernels Dance

This popcorn experiment looks at just what action or ingredients will cause popcorn kernels to dance or hop in a jar. While the recording sheet does not display an area for prediction making, taking the time to make predictions would be a good thing to do.

Popped and Unpopped Corn Weight

This popcorn experiment gives children the chance to make predictions and learn to use a scale. It also gives children the opportunity to see that when an object goes through a physical change other things about it change too.

After completing the experiment, you will want to have your children discuss what they learned about change. It might also be worth asking them if they would change their prediction.

Exploring the Five Senses with Popcorn

While children will have probably snuck pieces of popcorn during the other popcorn science challenges and experiments, this activity encourages eating. Children can write single words or whole sentences describing how popcorn smells, tastes, sounds and feels.

The page was designed so you can cut off the material and process sections. Without those sections the page is more focused on the recording section.

More STEM Challenges

Patriotic Flying Eagle STEM Challenge

Baseball Bat Straw Rocket Activity

Ghostly Cup Stacking STEM Challenge

New Year’s Thaumatrope Printable Set

December 17, 2017 By Deirdre

Thaumatropes feature a different picture on their front and back. When children spin a wooden dowel or chopstick placed between the pictures, they seem to blend together. Yes, you will see that it looks like one of the pictures has joined the other to form one picture. Your children will love watching the decorated images become part of a New Year’s themed optical illusion.

Creating a New Year’s Themed Thaumatrope

Getting Ready the Supplies Together

Downloading the Printable

You will need to download the New Year’s Thaumatropes Printable Set. Once you have downloaded the set, you can place a single word or the year of your choice on the back of the thaumatropes on pages five and seven. They have an editable space on them.

This set was designed to be printed out in black and white onto white cardstock. Your children can decorate or outline the pictures on their thaumatrope any color they like.

Links below are affiliate links.

Decorating Supplies

We used metallic marker pensto decorate each thaumatrope. If you don’t have any available, your children could use any of the following drawing tools to decorate theirs.

Magic Markers
Crayons
Color Pencils
Gold Foil Star Stickers
gel pens

You will also need wooden skewers or chopsticks for each child.

Putting the Thaumatropes Together

Once your children have decorated the designs that that will use on their thaumatrope, they are getting to glue them onto the chopstick. Then they will glue the back sides of the design circles together.

Explore Their Thaumatropes

Children will need to place the chopstick between their hands. Then they will need to rub them together. Rubbing their hands together will cause the thaumatrope to spin.

Some experimentation will need to be done to figure out how fast the thaumatrope needs to spin for the two pictures to blend together.

If you like this New Year’s activity, here are some more you will love.

Printable New Year’s Eve Countdown Clock

New Year’s Eve Fizzy Baking Soda Science

New Year’s Eve Wishing Wall

Paper Plate Countdown Ball

Zipline New Year’s Ball Drop

Constellations for Kids – Printable Constellation Mats

May 8, 2017 By Deirdre

Even young children can explore constellations. This simple set of constellations for kids printable constellation maps will introduce them to some of the well-known ones. Children can use small stars to help recreate the constellations on each mat. Let me walk you through several ways children can use them.

Constellation for Kids Mat Activities

Getting Ready for the Activity

Before you can start the constellation for kids activities, you will need to print the Constellations for Kids Activity Mats There are ten constellations in this set. You can print all of them at once or print out a few at a time.

Next, you will need to decide what objects you want your children to use to recreate each of the constellations for kids. We used wooden stars that were painted yellow and gold.

Here are some other objects you could use:

Star Shaped Pony Beads
Pom Poms
Star Shaped Buttons
Wooden Stars
Play dough and star-shaped cookie cutters

Exploring the Constellations

There are a number of ways to explore these constellations. Let me share with your some of the ways that I came up with to use them.

A Star on a Star

You can put out just the number of stars your children will need to complete a constellation. Your children can simply place a wooden start on top of each of the stars displayed on the mat.

Count the Stars on the Mat

Your children can count the number of stars on their constellations for kids’ mat. Then they can take that number of stars out of a pile on the table or a bowl. Next, they will place the stars on top of the stars on the mat.

All Sizes of Stars

Children can place a variety of different kinds of stars on their constellation mat. You can encourage them to use stars of different colors and shapes.

The Virtual Book Club is exploring the book How to Catch a Star this week. Here are some wonderful star activities from this blog and others.

Solar System Sensory Bottle

Paper space shuttle

Edible Mars soil space experiment

Printable constellation mats for kids

Create a Star Stamps

Space STEM- Shooting Star Bottle

Simple Machines Games- Counting Sheep with Pulleys

October 25, 2016 By Deirdre

This post contains affiliate links.
This week’s STEM activity explores double pulleys. We created a pulley system that uses counting sheep to play some simple machines games. You may remember that we created a fixed pulley activity that went along with the book Little Blue Truck a few week’s ago. These simple machines games are based on the bookTime for Bedby Mem Fox.

Simple Machines Games

Building the Pulley System

Before your children play the simple machines games, you will need to build the pulley system. Let me walk you through how to put it together.

Supplies

*We used awood rolling pins to create our pulley.

Creating the Pulley

You will need to start by placing painter’s tape around your rolling pins. The tape will be placed about five inches in on left and right side of the rolling pin. It will create a walled area that will help keep your yarn from heading to either end of the rolling pin.

Then you will cut a piece of yarn that is about 18 inches long. You will tie the two ends of the yarn together to make a loop. Next place a rolling pin at either end of the loop.

The chip clip will be placed on the yarn. The coil that helps open and close the clip will sit right on top of the yarn.

Finally cut out the counting sheep out of the printable.

Simple Machines Games

Find and Share a Number with a Friend

This game is played with two people. One person will call out a number. The other person will find that number and place it on the clip. Then they will turn their rolling pin forward until the sheep on the clip reaches the other player. Who will take the sheep of the clip.

Find and Share a Number Solo Version

One child will search for the number one. They will place it on the clip. Then pick up both rolling pins. Next they will roll one pin forwards to get the number to travel to the other rolling pin.

They will repeat this process until the have moved all the numbers from one to ten using the pulley system.

Counting on from a Sheep Number

This game can be played by one or two children. The number one will be selected and added to the chip clip. As the number is moved from one rolling pin to the other, all the numbers after that number up to 10 will need to be said by child or children.

More STEM Activities

Spider Web Hanger Exploration

STEM Activities with #2 Pencils

3-Ring Binder Car Ramps

Shadow Games – Building Block Numbers

July 13, 2016 By Deirdre

This post contains affiliate links.

We bought JDaniel a set of building blocks when he was really little. I built towers that he knocked down at first. Then he created elaborate towers and waterways with them. The blocks have been sitting on a shelf in his room for awhile. In the past year we have used them for math activities like creating snowflake patterns and creating shamrocks. Then they went back on the shelf. Recently I decided we need to take them outside and play some shadow games with them. At first we exploring arranging blocks to building a palm tree like the one in Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Then we moved on to trying to build numbers.

The numbers we build look a lot like the actual numbers. In some cases the shadows created by the numbers help to fill in the spaces between some of the blocks. The shadows themselves actually look like the full number in most cases. Shadows are amazing that way. As you can see below the blocks a right beside the shadows. That may have helped us picture the number.

Shadow Games – Number One

The number one was made by creating a column of rectangular blocks. The bottom of the number one shadow does have a slight angle to it.

Shadow Games – Number Two

The number two was trickier to make. We had to use cube and rectangular blocks to build the two. The blocks had to be moved around several times to get the shadow to look like the number two. The bend at the top of the two was the trickiest.

Shadow Games – Number Three

Creating the number three required us to try each of the cubes and the rectangular block at various angles. We weren’t able to get smooth bends at the top and the bottom of the number three’s shadow. We decide after much trying that this look really close to a number three.

Shadow Games – Number Four

The number four’s shadow doesn’t stand independent of the blocks. The blocks actually were needed to make our number four. If you try to make the number four with blocks as your house, you may be able to have the shadow separate from the blocks.

Shadow Games – Number Five

It actually took us awhile to create the numbers two through four! We decided to stop creating numbers after making the number five. The number five used cubes, rectangular, and triangular blocks. The top part of the five was easy. The bottom section of the number five was a challenge. We were able to get the shadow to be mostly independent of the blocks. We considered that a huge success.

As I mentioned we stopped at the number five. If you try to create any of the numbers from one to ten, please share the pictures with us on Facebook or Instagram. I would love to see what your children create.

35 Totally Awesome Kids Activities with Pumpkins

September 1, 2015 By Deirdre

Pumpkins are one of my favorite fall themes. I don’t think you have to wait until Halloween to work on kids activities with pumpkins. They can be explored September through November. There are so many ways that children can learn and create with pumpkins.

I have found totally awesome pumpkin themed activities you will love on wonderful blogs. Please take a moment when you visit each blog. You will find that they are filled with great projects and ideas.

At the end of this post you will find our activities. JDaniel and I have done a number of activities that feature pumpkins. We truly enjoyed each of them. I know you will too.

Kids Activities with Pumpkins

Science

Pumpkin- Cano from Little Bins for Little Hands

Pumpkin Investigations from Inspired By Family

Halloween Science- Pumpkin Rockets from Preschool Powol Packets

Runaway Pumpkin Halloween Experiment from All Done Monkey

Magic Jack O’Latern from I Can Teach My Child

Reading

Free Pumpkin Pre-K Pack from This Reading Mama

Sight Word Pumpkin Patch from Coffee Cups and Crayons

Pumpkin Literacy Activities from The Educator’s Spin on Things

Crafts

Easy Hand Print Sponge Pumpkin Craft from ABC Creative Learning

Friendly Pumpkin Decorating from Craftulate

Halloween Window Gel Clings from Science Kiddo

Halloween Pumpkin Craft from Busy Kids Happy Mom

Ninja Pumpkins from Frugal Fun 4 Boys

Pumpkin Printing with Pool Noodles from Toddler Approved

Life Cycle Pumpkin Craft from Carrots are Orange

Math

Pumpkin Counting Sand from 3 Dinosaurs

Pumpkin Math- Geo- Pumpkin from Fun-A- Day

Creating a Pumpkin on a Geoboard from Still Playing School

Seed Counting from Mama.Papa.Bubba

Paperclip Counting Vines from Playdough to Plato

Just Plain Fun

Pumpkin Washing Sensory Bin from Where Imagination Grows

Printable Halloween Games from Laly Mom

Busy Bag Mix and Match Pumpkin Faces from Mama Miss

Kids Activities with Pumpkins from JDaniel4’s Mom
$35 Totally Awesome Kids Activities with Pumpkins$

Pumpkin Box Bowling

Pumpkins are Here!- Prepositional Phrases Activity

Pumpkin Faces Created and Carved

Mouse House Pumpkin Activities

Measuring in Farm Units

Pumpkin Teeth Math Printable

Button Pumpkin Face

Cupcake Liner Pumpkin Craft

Planting Pumpkin Seeds in a Pumpkin

If you try any of these pumpkin activities, please let me know in a comment below.

Awesome Toys for Six Year Olds- Boys

November 13, 2014 By Deirdre

My six-year-old and I recently sat down and looked through catalogs my mom received to look for gift ideas. She loves for him to pick them out for her. She just then has to order one or two of them. I thought you might want to see what awesome toys for six-year-olds that he selected. Also included on this list are some toys and gifts that I have seen him enjoy playing with during the year.

Since he is a boy I have chosen to call this post 9 Awesome Toys for Six Year Old Boys. I think that girls will love these too.

The links below are affiliate links.

Awesome Toys for Six Year Old’s

Magna-Tiles 32-Piece Clear Colors Set, The Original, Award-Winning Magnetic Building Tiles for Kids, Creativity and Educational Building Toys for Children, STEM Approved

JDaniel has really loved playing with these at the library. It is amazing what creative structures you can build with them. He will really enjoy creating with them.

Spot-It Party Game (Color of Packaging May Vary)

We have the original Spot It game and JDaniel really likes to play it. It reminds him of Where is Waldo and I Spy books. I thought he would like to have a version of the game that works on reading skills. ( Actually I thought he would like the game. I would like that they worked on reading skills.)

Scientific Explorer Scientific Explorer Magic Science for Wizards Only Kids Science Kit, A247

This is one of the gifts that JDaniel pointed out in one of the catalogs. He really loves science. Magical science really looked like fun to him. I think it looks like fun too.

Elenco Snap Circuits Jr. SC-100

Last spring I got JDaniel a Snap Circuit Kit for his birthday. I didn’t realize at the time that there was a junior version of Snap Circuits. He needed assistance with the kit we gave him. I think this kit will be a better toy for six-year-olds.

LEGO City Construction Bulldozer 60252 Toy Construction Set, Cool Building Set for Kids, New 2020 (126 Pieces)

JDaniel is super big into LEGO. He just loves building with them. He will be getting this kit for Christmas. I love the bricks come in a sturdy storage container.

Lot of 3 Lego Accessories Orange Brick and Axel Separator Tool piece

A brick separator was included in a kit that JDaniel got as a gift. It is the best thing ever. It makes separating bricks so much easier for him and for me. I think it would be a great stocking stuffer.Lego Parts: 630 Classic Brick Separator (Pack of 2 – Orange)

Kinetic Sand The Original Moldable Sensory Play Sand, Green, 2 Pounds

This sand looks like it would be amazing to play with. We haven’t tried it, but I think we will have some under our Christmas tree. JDaniel thought it looked great.

Perplexus Rebel, 3D Maze Game with 70 Obstacles (Edition May Vary)

We both think this sphere game looks like fun. I like that you really have to think and use eye-hand coordination to play with it.

DuneCraft Carnivorous Creations Dome Terrarium

This is another awesome toy for 6 year old’s and older that my son thought he might want for Christmas. He points it out to me in several catalogs.

I hope that you find these gift suggestions helpful. They lean toward creating and learning about science. (My son is interested in those areas.) If you need to buy toys for six-year-olds, I hope you think about buying some of the toys I have listed.

Follow Erica • What Do We Do All Day?’s board Gift Guides for Kids on Pinterest.

Science Project Ideas- Sink and Float M&M’s

November 12, 2014 By Deirdre

Last Saturday we went to the Roper Mountain Science Center for their monthly family event. This month they featured science project ideas that focused on chemistry and candy. Needless to say JDaniel had a blast! Candy and chemical reactions are two things kids really enjoy.

One of the science project ideas really stood out! We were all fascinated by the results. The activity focused on what part of an M&M will sink and float. Wait! Did I just say what part of an M&M will float and sink? Yes, I did. When you place M&M’s in warm water, part of each of the M&M’s will sink and part of them will float.

You may have guessed that the color will float off of the M&M’s. If you did, you would be right. After placing M&M’s in warm water, the colors did float off. Some of the color floated right to the bottom of the cup and some co-mingled with the water. The M&M’s floated to the bottom of the cup too.

With their color removed, the M&M’s has a white shell. We thought they looked a little odd without their color coats.

Part of each of the M&Ms did float. The edible M’s floated to the top of the cup. They apparently are very light. They are also very flat. That seemed to aid them in their floating. We decided that the M’s looked really odd separated from their candy.

One of the scientist helping with the experiment told us that this same experiment could be done with Skittles. If you use them, you will have S’s floating at the top instead.

As I mentioned this was our favorite of the science project ideas shared. I bet you will want to try it at home or in your classroom. If you do it around a holiday time, you will want to look for holiday themed Skittles or M&M’s.

The links below are affiliate links.

Here are some holiday M&M’s:

M&M’s Milk Chocolate Candies for The Holidays

M&M Solid Milk Chocolate Valentines Day Candy

This would also be one of those science project ideas that would be great to use as a science fair project. Kids could try the experiment with different types of M&Ms or different types of liquid to see if results would be that the M’s floated to the top of the liquid.

Here are some other science project ideas:

Turtle Balancing

Water Flowing High and Low

Polar Ice Fishing

How Long will a LEGO Boat Float

If you have done a science project using candy,please stop by my Facebook page and share a picture of you project.

Science Experiments for Kids- Turtle Balancing

July 31, 2014 By Deirdre

Turtle balancing is one of those experiments for kids that looks easy, but is tricky. Coming up with ways to balance them is easy, but what ways will allow the turtles to stay standing. It is easier to get them tumble than it is to get them to all to stay stacked. We found two ways that worked right away. Coming up with more was challenge.

Making this set of balancing turtle was super easy and they didn’t require a lot of supplies.

Here is what you need:

Four paper towel rolls

Magic marker black

Scissors

Green paint

Printer paper

Pencil

How to put the turtles for these experiments for kids together:

Trace a turtle on a piece of copy paper folded in half in pencil. Then cut the turtle out. The turtle cut out will be a template you use to trace the turtle onto the paper towel rolls.

Place the turtle outline on one paper towel roll at a time and trace the turtle onto it. I tried to place the nose of the turtle close the edge of the paper towel roll so that it would be easier to cut out.

The paper towel rolls I used were easy to cut, but not so flimsy that the turtle’s legs would collapse under them. I was able to cut them out while watching JDaniel play in the yard one afternoon. They took no time at all.

The original idea was to draw a grid on each turtles back and place a spiral each square of the grid. Once that was done, green paint would be placed over the marker design. When we did that, the design did not show through well. JDaniel explored the turtles and trying to balancing them a little and then I drew the design on top of the green paint. The design looked much better on top of the paint.

With the turtle creation completed it was time to go back to balancing the turtles.

Science Experiments for Kids- Turtle Balancing

One way to balance the turtles that we tried was to create a turtle tower with one turtle on top of the other. The next best way was to have two turtles on the bottom and to balance the rest of the turtles on them. The second way did send a turtle tumbling at first. Placing the turtles carefully on each other in just the right place was key. Finding that right place was tricky.

Having more than four turtles would make this science experiment more challenging. Thankfully we go through a lot of paper towels! We should be able to add to the turtles number by the end of the week.

Below I have placed an affiliate link for your convenience

After exploring this science experiment, I remembered the book Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories I will have to look for it the next time we go to the library. It would be great to read it and then pull out our growing number of turtles to balance them.

Here are some other science experiments for kids we have done this summer:

Science Ideas- Controlling the Flow of Water

Measuring Forms of Water

Polar Ice Fishing

How Long Will a Lego Boat Float?

Easy Experiments- Measuring Forms of Water

July 22, 2014 By Deirdre

This week I am sharing water, water everywhere. Easy experiments and explorations with water will be shared here on the blog as well as on Pinterest, Facebook, and Google +. There will even be water related pictures shared on Instagram. I hope you will stop by each of these venues to check out them out. Some of the posts will be the same, but many will be different.

Comparing Water in a Glass

Do all forms of water take up the same amount of space in a container? Will ice create more or less water in a glass? This fun science experiments will look for the answers to these questions.

What do you need for these easy experiments?

3 cups or jars

Ice

Water

Measuring cup ( 2 cups)

Drawing paper

Crayons

Pencil

How do you conduct these easy experiments?

Getting the Cups Ready

You will want to place the cups or jars into a roasting pan or a plastic tub before you fill them if you are doing the experiment inside. If you are doing it outside, you may decide that it isn’t necessary.

Cup One

Into the first jar or cup, you will place water. It doesn’t matter if it is tap water, bottled water or filtered water. Make sure that you fill it about 1/3 of the way up if you use jars.

Cup Two

The second cup or jar is filled with ice cubes about 1/3 of the way up the container.

Cup Three

The final cup or jar is filled with ice and as much water as you need to get the contents of the glass up to 1/3 full.

Melting Time

Set the jars or cups in a warm spot. The spot could be inside or outside of your house. The goals are to have the contents of the cups melt so, the warmer the spot the better. On a hot day here in South Carolina that doesn’t take very long.

Measuring Time

Slowly and carefully place the contents of each cup into the measuring up. Record the amount of water that was transferred from each plastic cup into the measuring cup paper with a pencil. Then draw the results of these easy experiments with crayon.

If you would prefer to have your children record their results in a notebook or just share them orally that would be fine too.

Which cup do you think will have the most water? Stop by our Facebook to see how this experiment turned out.