Tuesday 28 April 2015

Colour changing flower science experiment

Why not investigate some science by doing this simple child friendly experiment and develop using language to predict at the same time.

The Frog currently at the midst of the 'why' stage and was asking 'Why plants need a drink?'. So I thought it might be a good time to do this experiment to show him that they do drink (I am aware that that it didn't actually answer his question but after a day of 'why' it seemed a welcome distraction!). I remember clearly do this experiment with my Dad (although we used celery not flowers).

Using language to predict what might happen next is a useful skill. Some children find this hard and hands on science is a great way to practice this skill.


We added food coloring to water, placed some flowers in the water and waited. We asked questions to help us think through what might happen, 'What colour is the water?', 'I wonder what will happen?' etc These are simple questions but help to encourage higher level language skills such as reasoning and prediction.


The results were clear after a few hours. We did the experiment just before bed and by the morning the flowers had changed colour. You can find more details about the science behind the experiment here at Science Sparks a fab kids science website. There are tonnes of other great experiment there too why not try some out- don't forget to ask 'I wonder what will happen....?'

2 comments:

  1. I love this post - my 10 year old is loving science at school at the moment and is always asking to do something at home too so we'll be trying this! Thanks for linking up with #FabulouslyFrugal

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love little experiments like this. Thanks for posting. Hello from Fabulously Frugal Linky.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for stopping by and visiting my blog. I'd love to hear your thoughts or comments and will try to reply to any questions you have.