Fun Science Projects With Kids

I'm not sure if you're kids are like mine, but mine love to do science experiments! Emily is always talking about wanting to do a "project". She'll get tape and some paper, usually the scissors and head off to sit on the floor and work on whatever project she thinks she should for that particular day. Or, I'll find her in the bathroom with tiny cups, pouring water from cup to cup, in her own little world of pretend play as she mixes up magic potions.

My son, Alex found a book from the school library that has all sorts of fun projects in it. He stuck sticky notes on every project he wanted to complete and then we went through it together to see what supplies we already had on hand. I'm all about learning and fun, but it's way easier when we don't have to make several trips to the store before hand. This is why we went with projects that we already had the supplies for. See below for two of the projects that we completed.

I liked the capillary colors project because we were able to talk about plant growth, capillaries, as well as the mechanics of what was happening to the food coloring over the course of the day. The kids loved putting the food coloring into the jars and mixing it as well as seeing the "magic" that had transpired by the time they had come home from school.

We took the project one step further by removing the celery from the jar and after placing it on a paper towel, I cut the celery in the middle of the stalk to see what the insides looked like. The kids were surprised to see the little spots of color where the food coloring had moved up the plant. We had one last surprise when my daughters kindergarten class did a similar experiment with carnation flowers instead of celery. She was knowledgeable and was able to explain to her friends what would happen to the food coloring and the flowers after a few days. Her teacher was impressed and surprised that Emily knew so much until she explained that we had done a similar project at home!

This second project is super fun and not all that tricky to do either. I won't give all the details for this one though, so you'll have to check out the book for all the step-by-step directions. The ingredients are simple enough though: a mason jar, wooden skewers, water, white sugar, food coloring and clothes pins.

Let me know if you make any of the other science experiments in this book. There are so many fun ones to choose from!