Science in the Kitchen

The kids love to do “experiments” in the kitchen.  They love to mix kitchen ingredients together and see what it looks like when they are done.  Usually things like ketchup, flour, salt, honey & oatmeal are mixed together for their experiments.  Yesterday they wanted to do it again.  But I hate it.  I don’t let them do it very often because it is messy and wasteful.

So to make us all happy they helped me put a small about of white kitchen ingredients into little bowls.  We then labeled them with their names and a number.  Then I made the kids a quick chart with the number of the cup and a yes or no box.

Here it is all set up:

And then I gave them each a squirt bottle of vinegar.

I told them to spray 3 squirts into a bowl and see if there was a reaction.

They were excited when they saw the vinegar melt the sugar in bowl #1 and wanted to mark down yes on their chart.  I told them that was just a change, what we were looking for was a reaction.  (They gave me a silly look but marked down no on their chart.)

Again they were excited  to see the vinegar and the flour in #2 make a paste.  Again I told them it was not a reaction and to mark no.

Then I jumped to #5.

They started jumping and yelling “a reaction!”.  It  was super cute.

I told them to put their ear to the bowl and to listen.

They got excited again when they could hear the bubbles from the baking soda (#5) and the vinegar reacting.

They quickly filled the bowl up with vinegar and saying “more reactions, more reactions”.

They moved on through the rest of the bowls.  Each time spraying it with vinegar, mixing it with the toothpick and watching/listening for a reaction.

Only #5 and #8 had a reaction.

Here are all charts and cups:

What… you wanted to know what was in each bowl and what it’s reaction was?

Well then:

The kids sure did have a great time.  They wanted to do more!