4 Must-Have Science Materials

People who know that we homeschool and that I have an advanced degree in chemistry often ask me what books and resources we use to teach our children science. As you know, my kids are still very young (5 and 2, respectively), and I don't like to spend money when I don't have to. The books and resources I have chosen all fit the following criteria:

• These are materials that will last our kids for several years, at least until they are 12 or so. I hate the idea of buying new books and a new curriculum every year, with new kits and manipulatives to go along with it. The materials I chose are adaptable to kids of all ages and are high quality so they will last for several years, through several kids.
• They have to be interesting! I can't tell you how many times I hated a subject in school just because the textbook was so. dang. boring. The books have colorful pictures and simple, short text that make them appealing to children and the movies are captivating.
• A feature that sold me on the books we purchased is that they are internet-linked, meaning you can go online to a designated website to learn more about the subject you are reading about. For me, that is a HUGE value! In the Science Encyclopedia, for example, each and every page has links where you can go to play games, watch videos, or print activities that go along with what you read. UH-mazing!

Without further ado, here is my list of my top four science materials every family (especially homeschoolers) needs to own:

1. Science Encyclopedia from Usborne. Seriously guys, this is the only science text you are going to need until your kids are in high school. As mentioned above, it contains internet links that expand on the knowledge that is already contained in this 450-page text. It is really geared toward children 9-years-old and up, but my young kids love to flip through it and look at the pictures. They ask questions and we read short paragraphs together. I can't say enough about how much we love this text.
2. 100 Science Experiments, again from Usborne. This book contains hands-on science activities that my kids love, and that inspire a lot of the activities on this blog! Many of them can be done with young children, some of them are geared more for older kids. As the kids get older I plan to have them do a lot more of the planning and preparation for these experiments as well as further research into the how and why behind what they see.
3. The Story of Science by Joy Hakim. This is a three-part history series that is centered around scientists and their achievements and contributions to society. It starts out in ancient times with people like Pythagoras and Archimedes and progresses all the way through Einstein. We use this as our foundational text for history and geography, diving deeper into subjects as my children are interested.
4. Planet Earth from the BBC. This is a 5-disc DVD set that is as amazing to adults as it is to kids. It literally takes you all over the world to observe animals in their own habitats. Watch elephants migrate and fight off a lion attack, watch polar bears emerge from their den, watch exotic birds in the rainforest do their mating dances. These are events that are virtually impossible to see without these videos!

I want to give my children a science-based education, meaning that history, art, math, language, music, etc. are all based in science. These resources are meant to be a foundation for my kids that they can build on based upon their interests. So far it is working incredibly well. My kids are curious, creative, and confident, and they know more about science than any other 2- and 5-year-old I have ever met.

So what do you think about my choices? What do you use to teach your kids science?

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STEM Saturday

And now on to our STEM Saturday link up! Check out our wonderful co-hosts and link up your own math and science activities:

Gummies Math from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tail
Easter Oobleck Science | Non Newtonian Fluid from Little Bins for Little Hands

We want to see your best STEM Activities! That means show us your best Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math posts! By linking up, you are agreeing to be featured in future blog posts and allow us to use one image from your posts. Feel free to link up to 3 activities each week, and show others some love.

An InLinkz Link-up

Follow Little Bins For Little Hands's board STEM Saturday on Pinterest.

Film Canister Rocket | Explosive Chemistry for Kids

I love explosions. In my opinion, if you want a kid to get interested in science, explode some stuff. And then explode more stuff. And then make a rocket. And then explode it. Rinse and repeat.

Here is a simple activity to get you started. It is probably best to do this experiment outside, but you can definitely get away with doing it inside on a baking sheet or something to catch the mess. Be sure to stand back a few feet and wear safety glasses. You never know how high the rocket is going to fire!

Total Time: Less than one minute
Safety Concerns: Depending on how much head space you have in your bottle, this can actually cause a pretty violent explosion. The thing to be worried about is getting hit in the eye with the bottle. Be sure to stand back at least a few feet and wear protective eyewear if you have it.

Materials You Need:
A plastic bottle with a snap top. The little canisters that hold 35 mm film work great, but I couldn't dig any of those up. I just used a different snap top bottle and it worked fine. (Airborne - how fitting for a rocket! Ha!)
Water
Alka-Seltzer tablets
Optional: Thin cardboard to make fins and a nose cone for your rocket. We cut up an old cereal box.

Directions:

• If desired, cut out fins and a nose cone for your rocket. Attach it to your bottle with tape or hot glue. (We did tape, and it fell about after 10 or so launches!) Be sure to attach the nose cone on the bottom of the bottle so that the bottom is facing up and the cap-end is facing down at launch time.
• Fill up your bottle with water leaving about 1/2 inch of head space at the top.
• Drop in one Alka-Seltzer tablet and quickly snap the bottle closed.
• Stand back! You'll see it start to fizz and leak a little bit, then the cap will bulge, then EXPLOSION!
• If one tablet wasn't enough to make it explode, try it again with two tablets. Or fill the bottle up with more water. Some experimentation may be necessary, but that's all part of the fun!
• You can always experiment to compare how it works with cold water versus hot water, how it works right side up versus turning the bottle upside down, etc. Record your findings and leave a comment letting me know what you found!

Print These Instructions 

So what makes the explosion happen? It is actually the same chemistry that happens when you mix baking soda and vinegar together. An acid plus a base mix to form carbon dioxide gas, which are the bubbles you see. When enough carbon dioxide has been produced the pressure builds until the container can no longer contain it, at which point the top pops off and the gas and liquid explode out.

Alka-Seltzer is made of citric acid and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), which acts as a base. When the tablets are solid and dry the acid and base don't react, but as soon as they are immersed in water they react to form carbon dioxide. This is what causes the explosion. You can even alter this activity just a tiny little bit to make your own lava lamp! (No explosion there, just cool colored bubbles.)

We have done this fun activity a couple of time now. The first time we did it as part of a unit study on volcanoes. I wanted to show the kids that when the pressure builds up under the earth's crust it can literally blow the top off of a mountain in a volcanic eruption. (This is how Mount St. Helens exploded in 1980.) This video illustrates that explosion very well.
The second time we did this activity we actually made our bottle into a rocket and set it off with the cap-side down. The kids LOVED this. We have set off our rocket no less than 20 times now! You can see in this video that sometimes we go a very small lift off, sometimes it was a bit bigger, and one time it flew over my head! Experiment to see what happens when you add more/less water, vary the temperature of the water, add more/fewer tablets, etc. The results may surprise you!

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STEM Saturday

And now on to our STEM Saturday link up! Check out our wonderful co-hosts and link up your own math and science activities:

  Easter Egg Hunt Sensory Counting Game from Stir the Wonder

We want to see your best STEM Activities! That means show us your best Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math posts! By linking up, you are agreeing to be featured in future blog posts and allow us to use one image from your posts. Feel free to link up to 3 activities each week, and show others some love.

An InLinkz Link-up

Follow Little Bins For Little Hands's board STEM Saturday on Pinterest.

Natural Egg Dye + Acid/Base Chemistry

One of the things I anticipate most about this spring season is dying eggs with my family. It's one of those things that is always fun no matter how old you get. This year we added another interesting dimension to our egg-dying party by using red cabbage as a natural egg dye. We then learned about acid/base chemistry by using various kitchen materials to paint our dyed eggs. For those of you who love science AND love doing things naturally (even organically!), this is the perfect activity for you.

Red Cabbage as a Natural Egg Dye

Red cabbage contains a chemical called anthocyanin that changes color depending on the acidity of its environment. This means it is a pH-indicator, a gauge that tells you how acidic or basic the surrounding environment is. Red cabbage is purple in a pH-neutral environment, but it turns pink in an acidic environment and bluish-green in a basic environment. We recently did another experiment with red cabbage where we froze cabbage-water into ice cubes and tested the acidity of different solutions. It's the same chemistry, just a different way to see it.

Total Time: This experiment takes awhile, though you don't have to actively be doing anything for most of the time. Allow about 40 minutes to boil the eggs and cabbage and at least 12-18 hours for the eggs to sit in the fridge in the cabbage solution. Painting the eggs only takes 10-20 minutes at the end.

Safety Concerns: As always, be careful when boiling things with kids around. Use caution when cooking and handling the hot eggs and cabbage.

Materials You Need:
One half of a head of red cabbage
One dozen large eggs
Slotted spoon
Lemon juice or vinegar
Baking soda
Q-tips or paint brushes to paint the eggs

Directions:
To prepare the eggs:

1. Place eggs in a large pot in a single layer.
2. Chop up your cabbage into small pieces and throw them into the pot with the eggs. Add enough cold water to cover everything by one inch.
3. Bring the cabbage/eggs/water mixture to a boil. Remove from burner and cover the pot.
4. Let your mixture stand for about 12 minutes for large eggs (9 minutes for medium eggs, 15 minutes for extra large eggs).
5. Using a slotted spoon, remove your eggs from the pot and cool completely under cold running water or in a bowl of ice water. They will most likely still be very white at this point.
6. Refrigerate your eggs. Once your cabbage water has cooled to room temperature, place your eggs back into the pot and refrigerate everything together. Make sure the eggs are completely submerged in the water for best color.
7. Leave your mixture in the refrigerator overnight.

 To paint your eggs:

1. Use a spoon to scoop your eggs out of the cabbage mixture. Feel free to rinse them off and pat them dry. They should be some shade of bluish-purple (depending on how acidic your tap water is!).
2. Pour some lemon juice or vinegar into a small cup (this is your acid).
3. In another cup mix 1/2 tsp baking soda with enough water to dissolve it (this is your base).
4. Using your Q-tips or paint brushes, paint your eggs! Watch as your eggs change from blue to pink when you paint with lemon juice and from blue to greenish-blue when you paint with your baking soda solution (this may not show up well until the eggs are dry again).
5. Feel free to try painting your eggs with other solutions from around the house to see what happens. Some ideas to try are washing soda, cream of tartar, and antacids. If your egg turns pink you know the solution is acidic, if it turns green you know it's basic!

Print These Instructions

 

STEM Saturday

And now on to our STEM Saturday link up! Check out our wonderful co-hosts and link up your own math and science activities:

  Amazing Easter Science Experiments from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tail

We want to see your best STEM Activities! That means show us your best Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math posts! By linking up, you are agreeing to be featured in future blog posts and allow us to use one image from your posts. Feel free to link up to 3 activities each week, and show others some love.

An InLinkz Link-up

Follow Little Bins For Little Hands's board STEM Saturday on Pinterest.

Make Your Own pH Indicator Using Red Cabbage

Who here likes red cabbage? It is widely celebrated as a cancer-preventing super-food. Some people love to cook it up in some variety of stir fry. Personally, I like to eat it raw in a salad with nuts, seeds, and dried cranberries with a drizzle of oil and vinegar over the top. Whether or not you like to eat red cabbage, I just know you are going to love doing science with it.

It turns out that red cabbage contains a chemical called anthocyanin that changes color depending on the acidity of its environment. In an acidic environment it is reddish-pink, in a neutral environment it is purple, and in a basic (or alkaline) environment it turns bluish-green and even yellow. This is a great way to introduce the concept of acids and bases to a child since they can see the color change before their very eyes.

This experiment can be found in 50 Science Things to Make & Do. In the coming days and weeks I am so excited to show you several spin-off experiments and activities that you can do using the same materials!

Let's get started, shall we?

Total Time: 40 minutes to prepare the indicator, two hours to let it freeze; 10 minutes to carry out the rest of the experiment

Difficulty: This one definitely requires the aid of an adult to prepare the indicator, unless you trust your child with a sharp knife and a hot saucepan full of boiling cabbage (I don't, personally). It's pretty easy, though, as far as actual skill goes.

Materials You Need:
One half of a head of red cabbage
Ice cube tray
Tall clear cups
Vinegar
Baking Soda
Water
Optional: More acidic/basic household items such as lemon juice, washing soda, cream of tartar, or antacids

Directions:
To make the indicator solution:

1. Chop up your red cabbage into small pieces. Place 2-3 cups in a saucepan and cover with water.
2. Bring the solution to a boil and then turn off the heat. Let it sit for about 30 minutes to cool down.
3. Pour the cabbage water through a strainer into a jar or large measuring cup. The dark purple liquid in the jar is your indicator.
4. Pour your red cabbage indicator liquid into the compartments of an ice cube tray. Freeze for a couple of hours to make ice cubes.

pH Experiment:

1. Fill one cup with water (this is neutral, or your control), one with vinegar (this is acidic), and one with a teaspoon of baking soda mixed with water (this is basic).
2. Drop a couple of indicator ice cubes into each cup. Notice how the colors change in each one. Draw a picture of what you see.
3. Repeat with other acidic or basic household items in other cups. Try to guess what color the solution will be before dropping an ice cube in!

Print These Instructions
 
I was shocked at how fast the colors changed and how delightfully brilliant and beautiful the colors were! My three-year-old daughter was excited because the solutions turned into her three favorite colors: pink, purple, and blue.

This is a fantastic way to introduce children to acid/base chemistry. And, who knows, maybe they'll even get excited to eat some red cabbage, too!

 

  STEM Saturday

And now on to our STEM Saturday link up! Check out our wonderful co-hosts and link up your own math and science activities:

STEM With Real Eggs from Little Bins for Little Hands
Science Experiment Growing Crystal Rainbows from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tail

We want to see your best STEM Activities! That means show us your best Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math posts! By linking up, you are agreeing to be featured in future blog posts and allow us to use one image from your posts. Feel free to link up to 3 activities each week, and show others some love.

An InLinkz Link-up

Follow Little Bins For Little Hands's board STEM Saturday on Pinterest.

Magic Milk | Process Art and Science for Kids

This is a very popular science and art activity for kids to do. It is simple to set up, yet keeps the kids fascinated as they do it over and over again. Every time we do this demonstration I am impressed with the new variations my kids come up with and the new ways they choose to carry out their ideas. This time they added glitter, mixed colors, and developed interesting shapes and patterns.
Process art is about the journey of creation with minimal focus on the end product. Process science is similar. It is about creating, mixing, hypothesizing, tweeking, testing, retesting, and learning through it all. There is not necessarily a final product and there is no right or wrong way to do it.

Total Time: About 5 minutes

Safety Concerns: None. This is a fantastic activity that even toddlers and preschoolers can do on their own. (Though they might get messy!)

Materials You Need:

Milk (we used whole since that is what we had in the fridge)
A bowl or casserole dish
Food Coloring or liquid water colors
Glitter (if desired)
Liquid dish soap
Toothpick

Directions:

• Pour milk in a dish. You don't want or need much, just a thin film that covers the bottom of the dish.
• Squeeze a few drops of food coloring or liquid water colors into the milk. Add glitter, if desired.
• Dip the end of the toothpick into the dish soap and then into the center of one drop of colored milk. Don't stir it! Watch the color erupt and scatter like a firework in the sky!

Print these instructions

What is going on?

There are actually a few different things that are going on here. First, dish soap is disrupting the surface tension of the milk. Remember when we did our fun experiment with surface tension to see how many drops of water we could fit on different coins? Remember the cool little dome that water forms at its surface? All liquids, including milk, act this way to some extent. Adding soap interrupts those bonds along the surface, making the surface molecules spread out and the colors explode like fireworks!

Second, soap is super interesting. One end of a soap molecule LOVES water (hydrophilic) while the other side HATES water and loves oil and fat (hydrophobic). Soap can get dishes and clothes clean because the hydrophobic end picks up the grease, oil, and dirt, while the hydrophilic end dissolves in water and washes all the dirty stuff away with it.

Milk, especially whole milk, contains fat and proteins. When soap is added to milk, the hydrophobic end of a soap molecule grabs onto a fat molecule in the milk. With millions of molecules finding a partner all at once, the mixture gets all stirred up! You will notice in my video that it looks like the milk is erupting for several seconds after dish soap is added. This is why. It's such cool effect, isn't it?!

You can easily turn this activity into an interesting science fair experiment by trying it out in different liquids. What happens when you try skim milk versus whole milk? What about something like cream that has lots more fat in it? What about water? Try vegetable oil? Record your findings and enjoy the process!

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  STEM Saturday

Now we want to see your best STEM Activities! That means show us your best Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math posts! By linking up, you are agreeing to be featured in future blog posts and allow us to use one image from your posts. Feel free to link up to 3 activities each week, and show others some love.

An InLinkz Link-up

Follow Little Bins For Little Hands's board STEM Saturday on Pinterest.

Rainbow Paper | Color Science for Kids

Rainbows are one of the most beautiful natural wonders. They are created in the sky when just the right combination of rain and sunshine mix. Sunlight is reflected off of raindrops in the air, making the light we usually think of as "white" split into a gorgeous array of different colors. In this science activity the kids are going to create rainbows on paper that can be enjoyed year-round, rain or shine.

Total Time: About 5 minutes

Safety Concerns: None. This is a fantastic activity that even toddlers and preschoolers can do on their own.

Materials You Need:

A bowl filled with water
Clear nail polish
Small pieces of black paper

Directions:

• Add 1-2 drops of clear nail polish to the bowl of water. Watch it disperse over the surface of the water.
• Quickly dip the paper into the water. Let it dry on a paper towel.

• Once it is dry (this only takes a few minutes) tilt the paper in different directions to see the rainbow patterns appear. Hold it next to a sunny window for best results.
• NOTE: The nail polish will dry quickly on the surface of the water, which will create a film that won't stick to the paper. To do this activity successfully you will need to do it quickly. Be sure to dip the paper into the water within 10-15 seconds after you drop the nail polish in. If the nail polish does create a dry film on top, simply scoop it off and try again more quickly!

Print these instructions

We did this experiment several times with several pieces of paper. It was fascinating to see how each piece came out so differently!

What is going on?

When you dip the paper into the water it gets coated with a thin layer of nail polish. Light is reflected by the nail polish, creating rainbow patterns. This is basically the same thing that happens when a rainbow is naturally formed in the sky.

Try to find each of the following colors on your rainbow paper: red. orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. White light is composed of all of these colors!

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 Saturday Science

And now on to our STEM Saturday link up! Check out our wonderful co-hosts and link up your own math and science activities:

Rainbow Rockets from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Follow Little Bins For Little Hands's board STEM Saturday on Pinterest.

20 Must-Try STEM Activities for Valentine's Day

Over the past several weeks we have had many amazing bloggers link up their best Valentine's Day STEM activities for kids during STEM Saturday. Today we get to pull all these great posts together to showcase the 20 best science, engineering, and math activities for Valentine's Day from all over the web. Enjoy!

Valentine's Day Science

DIY Magnetic Fishing Game from The Practical Mom
Flying Cupids | Static Electricity for Valentine's Day from The Science Kiddo
Light Up Circuit Valentines from Left Brain Craft Brain
Dissolving Candy Hearts Experiment from Lemon Lime Adventures
Scented Hearts Experiment from Suzy Homeschooler
Fizzy Hearts & Stars | Baking Soda and Vinegar Experiment from The Practical Mom
Fizzy Heart Valentine Science from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails
Easy Kids Toy Valentine from Thriving STEM
Sparkly Red Valentine's Day Slime from Best Toys 4 Toddlers
Learning About the Human Heart from Suzy Homeschooler
Chocolate Science Reversible Change Food Science from Little Bins for Little Hands

Valentine's Day Engineering

Candy Heart Catapult | Measuring Distance from Stir the Wonder
LEGO Candy Box for Candy Hearts from Little Bins for Little Hands
Heart Marshmallow Toothpick Structures from Buggy and Buddy
Engineering for Kids | Peeps Catapult from Lemon Lime Adventures
LEGO Valentine Lantern from Planet Smarty Pants

Valentine's Day Math

Sprinkle Math Heart Fine Motor Activity from Sugar Aunts
300 Free Valentine Math Worksheets for Kids from iGame Mom
Valentine's Day Polygon Shapes Building Activity from Lemon Lime Adventures
DIY Valentine Dominoes Busy Bag from Mommy Needs a Coffee Break

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Saturday Science

And now on to our STEM Saturday link up! Check out our wonderful co-hosts and link up your own math and science activities:

Totally Awesome Science Experiments for Kids from Lemon Lime Adventures 
Freezing Bubbles Indoor Outdoor Bubble Play from Little Bins for Little Hands
Awesome Science YouTube Channels for Kids from Stir the Wonder
Magnet Lab Science Sink from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Follow Little Bins For Little Hands's board STEM Saturday on Pinterest.

DIY Fire Extinguisher | Baking Soda and Vinegar

Have you ever sat around a campfire and watched it dance and glow? Have you ever wondered about the science of fire? We know it is hot. We know it needs something to burn, like paper or wood. We know it is usually orange or yellow, depending on the materials that are being burned. And we know that it needs oxygen to "stay alive".

There are several different ways to deprive a fire of oxygen so that it will go out. You can dump water on it. You can put something like dirt or sand on top of it. For small fires, like candles and matches, you can simply just blow on it.

So why does a candle go out when you blow on it? One of the possible explanations is that when you exhale you breathe out a lot of carbon dioxide. That carbon dioxide displaces the oxygen around the fire, making it go out. Some fire extinguishers even use carbon dioxide (among other chemicals) to put out larger fires.

In this experiment we made our own fire extinguisher using vinegar and baking soda. The reaction of these two materials produces carbon dioxide, which you can see bubbling up through the solution. Carbon dioxide is heavier than air so it drops right on top of our candle to put the flame out.

This experiment can be found in The Usborne Science Encyclopedia, one of our favorite books that I consider essential in our home library.

Total Time: About 5 minutes

Safety Concerns: Use caution around fire and matches. Make sure your child understands that playing with fire is dangerous and that he or she can get burned severely, even with small candle fires.

Materials You Need:

A sturdy bottle (preferably glass)

A funnel

A small candle

Matches

5 Tbsp vinegar

1/2 Tbsp baking soda

Directions:

• Have an adult light the candle.
• Add vinegar to your bottle.
• Using a funnel, quickly drop the baking soda into the bottle.
• Being careful not to spill your mixture, hold the bottle at an angle so the carbon dioxide can flow out onto the fire.
• Notice how carbon dioxide is heavier than air and drops right onto the flame to extinguish it!

Print These Instructions

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Saturday Science

And now on to our STEM Saturday link up! Check out our wonderful co-hosts and link up your own math and science activities:

Learning About the Human Heart from Suzy Homeschooler
Fizzy Heart Valentine Science from Frogs Snails and Puppy Dog Tails
Chocolate Science Reversible Change Science from Little Bins for Little Hands

Engineering for Kids | Peeps Catapult from Lemon Lime Adventures

Follow Little Bins For Little Hands's board STEM Saturday on Pinterest.