Amazing Science ~ Absorption Color Mixing Color Wheel

I love science and color mixing, so when I saw the idea for this color mixing science experiment that demonstrated absorption I knew we had to try it.  These simple science experiments are a great way to get children of all different ages excited about science.

The girls were amazed as the colored water slowly climbed up the paper towel and into the middle cup of plain water.  We went out for a little bit and as soon as we walked in the door they both ran to check it.  When they saw it they were bouncing up and down, “Mommy it’s green, the water turned green!”

To get them thinking we played around with adding more water to the colored cups and watching them water levels even out.

A few days later I was thinking about this experiment and how cool it would look if we did it to make a color wheel.  I told the girls about it and they decided we needed to set it up RIGHT AWAY!!!

The girls were able to see how the water was absorbed into the paper towel and then traveled up over into the cup of plain water creating the secondary colors. 

I filled the cups of colored water higher than the cups of plain water.  The next time we try this I am not going to put any plain water into the cups so they can see what happens then.

Catching a Leprechaun

This year Emily was determined to build a Leprechaun trap and catch a Leprechaun.  She kept talking about it, and when I saw this yummy Rainbow Bundt Cake Leprechaun Trap idea on my friend’s Facebook page, I knew this was the trap for us to build! 

First, we mixed up some yellow cake mix and divided it into six bowls.

The girls loved mixing in the food coloring… …until we had all of the colors of the RAINBOW!

Sine we only had Red, Blue and Yellow to work with this turned into a fun color mixing activity for Juliette too.  Emily loved teaching Juliette about how the colors mix together!

We poured the colors in one at a time to make a rainbow in the pan.

  When it cooled we frosted it with green frosting and the girls added some plastic gold coins to cover the opening in the middle, hoping that the Leprechaun would take the coins and fall in the hole and get trapped!!

We added a little sign to point the Leprechaun in the right direction.

The girls with their Leprechaun Trap Cake and Leprechaun Masks

In the morning the girls couldn’t wait to see if the trap worked and this is what we found…

…our Leprechaun ate his way out and left us some tricky chocolate coins in place of the gold coins!!

He also turned the milk for our cereal green and the water in the potty green too, what a little trickster ;)

Rubber Band Splatter Painting

I originally saw the idea for this Splatter Painting project on Pinterest, from Teach Preschool and knew  that I had to try  it out  with our Art Group. 

To set up this project I put a piece of paper inside each baking tray and put three rubber bands around each tray.  I started by painting the rubber bands with the paint then the girls  snapped them to make the paint splatter all over the paper, but very quickly the girls wanted to add the paint on their own to do it again and again and again. 

Emily loved snapping the rubber bands and even used both hands to do two at a time.  They experimented with moving the rubber bands around on the tray and even sliding the paper out and around the other way to mix the colors.

Emily’s finished painting.

All the kids from 21 months to 5 years old  loved this activity, except Juliette who was in a mood!  Oh well maybe next time :)

stART ~ Pinkalicious

Welcome to stART!  I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART. 

Emily received Pinkalicious, by Elizabeth Kahn for Christmas and both girls have not been able to put it down.  They look through the book and retell the story to each other when I am not available to read it to them.  So I thought this would be the perfect book for our first stART project of the new year!

We had fun with pink and created a pink cupcake collage with pink Easter Basket filler, pink dot markers, pink pom poms, pink sequins, pink buttons and pink pipe cleaners.  Emily and Juliette loved helping me find and think of different pink things that they could use for their projects.

First, I cut our a pink cupcake shape from some craft foam.  Then I gave the girls glue and our collection of pink collage materials and let them go to work.

Emily chose the markers to start with and Juliette went right for the do-a-dot markers.    

Both of the girls enjoyed gluing on the collage material to decorate their Pinkalicious Cupcakes. 

To finish them off we sprinkled them with white glitter for a perfect sparkle!

Emily’s Pinkalicious Cupcake

  Juliette’s Pinkalicious Cupcake

Memory a New Way

Emily and Juliette have been enjoying using our Mickey Mouse Paint Chips, which we got for free from Home Depot to play the traditional version of Memory.  They turn them upside down and pick to cards until they get a match and repeated.

Emily enjoys it, but I wanted to challenge her to something a little different and came up with…

Memory, What’s Missing?

First I put some of the cards out on the floor

  I told Emily to study them and try to remember what was there. Then she closed her eyes and I took one away.

She had to tell me which one was missing.

She did really well and said the yellow one was missing!!

After a few times we added more cards.  This was harder for her and she would get it right part of the time, but she said it was fun and wanted to keep trying.  We took turns taking the card away and figuring out which one was missing.

We also played it with them in straight lines too.

This was a great way to practice paying attention to details and working on memory.  We talked about noticing patterns, for example in the first set there were 2 of each color.  You can do this with any group of toys to go along with anything you are working on or your little one is interested in.  Next time I think I might take out our little people!!

For more great activities for your kiddos click on the buttons below:

Fun and Learning with Baking Soda and Vinegar

This week the girls experimented with the reactions between Baking Soda and Vinegar to create some pretty cool art!

I had leftover flower and baking soda from when I made some fizzy sidewalk chalk paint, and we had leftover liquid watercolors from art group, that I just couldn’t dump down the drain.  So, I thought the girls would have fun working with these materials in a new and different way!

First, I added vinegar to the liquid watercolors then they used pipettes to drop the colored vinegar onto the baking soda mixture.  This was seriously so much fun all three of us spent over half an hour dropping colors watching it fizz and trying it again. 

 

Emily liked making little drops and watching each one fizz.  She worked one color at a time until the mixture was almost black and would not fizz anymore.

   Juliette liked trying all different colors it looked so pretty!

While we were busy creating we were able to talk about the colors and what happened when the colors would mix together.  I also used the words acid, base and reaction when describing what was happening when the vinegar mixed with the baking soda.

The mixture of flour and baking soda made the mixture fizz a nice amount but not as much as if it were only baking soda.  It was perfect to do inside at the table.  We all agreed that we have to try this with our friends for art group!

For more great activities for your kiddos click on the buttons below:

Read and Stamp

Emily is so excited that she is starting to read so I thought that she would have a lot of fun with this read and stamp activity.

My dad found this Melissa & Doug Baby Farm Animals Stamp Set at our Church’s White Elephant Sale last year for a really great price.  I tucked it away and thought it would be the perfect thing to use for this activity. 

I folded a piece of white paper to make 8 even spaces.  At the top of each box I wrote the directions.  For example, I see 4 red pigs.

  First, Emily read the directions.

  Then she used the animal stamps to fill in the boxes.

Emily was so careful to pick the right stamp, the right color and to count as she was stamping the animals throughout this whole activity.  She did this whole activity on her own.  When she had trouble with any of the names of the animals she looked at the stamps that she did not use yet and made the sound of the first letter of the name to help her figure it out.

This activity can also be done with farm animal stickers.  I just noticed that I have a set in my sticker box, so I might try it another day that way!

 

For more great activities for preschoolers click on the buttons below:

Color Mixing Ice Cubes

Emily and Juliette love playing in the water and they love ice cubes.  Whenever an ice cube drops from the ice maker they run from wherever they are to pick it up and hold it while it melts.  So, I thought it would be fun let them play with some ice cubes outside.  I filled up our large sensory tub (a.k.a. under the bed storage container) with water and added some ice cubes.  To make it even more exciting I froze some ice cubes with food coloring in them and added those too.

Emily, Juliette and their cousin had fun picking up the ice cubes and also pushing them around with popsicle sticks. 

As the ice cubes melted we were able to see the colors begin to blend together.  It was very pretty to look at…

…and then it turned BROWN!

We talked about how when you mix all the colors together you get brown.  This was a great way to experiment with colors and keep cool on a summer afternoon!