Science Experiments

This week’s “Something Different” activity involved baking soda, white vinegar colored with food coloring, and eye droppers. 

Eye droppers were on the to-do list of Piper’s new occupational therapist, and I thought this would be a fun way to incorporate them.  And I figured that the vinegar would be nasty enough that it would eliminate any desire from my youngest to put the pretty liquid in her mouth.  I used colors that wouldn’t turn to mud when they mixed- I figured they would mix. 

I only had really big droppers which worked because they were easy, but it didn’t take much for the vinegar to flow out.  I just bought a whole bag of small droppers from Lakeshore Learning (the only ones I could find before were glass, and medical grade, neither of which were what I wanted!) to use for next time.  These worked really well, and they were easy, which is good, but I think the smaller ones, particularly for Piper, would be more challenging.  And besides, the vinegar wouldn’t get used nearly as quickly!

And I loved that this was a little science experiment, too.  The girls loved watching the bubbles grow and the colors mixing together.  They’d occassionally stir the baking soda with the pipette and then dip it back in the vinegar- we had exploding glasses more than ones.  Addy would ask for “more bubbles!” when the liquid ran out.

I was amazed at how long the girls played with this.  Piper sat longer than Addy did, of course, but even Addy played for at least a half hour.  We used old t-shirts, and I put the girls on their little picnic table, on towels, on the hardwood, just in case a glass of dyed vinegar spilled. 

And I’ll admit- even I had fun making it foam!