When we aren’t learning our 7’s tables, or working on reading, I do actually ‘school’ the youngers!  Today, we looked at things that ‘sink and float.’  I am pretty sure Malena has done this before with Audrey and Spencer, but she was game to try it again.  On the Home Science Tools site I found this sink and float experiment.  They loved it.  First, they made a chart using pictures for each item that they chose.  Then they circled their predictions. 

After they did the experiment, they circled what ‘actually’ happened.  Some of their predictions were right, and some, not so much. 

After the basic water test, we moved to a lesson in density.  I thought this was pretty cool. 

In a two cup measuring cup you put 1/3rd cup of oil, 1/3 cup of water, and 1/3 cup of corn syrup.  Each liquid sinks to a level based on its density.  You can even pour them in out of order, and they will separate.  That was cool.  Add food coloring to the water so you can see the layer clearly.  Not yellow.  Malena did yellow and it was too hard to tell between that and the oil.  Then, using the same objects or others, you drop items in.  It was cool because depending on the item they would settle on different levels!  It was very fun for the kids to do this.  Even Audrey found herself drawn into the experiment!! 

Other observations made by my darlings, included:

 

Noticing how the food coloring would bleed into the corn syrup but not into the oil.  We decided that gravity, and the fact that corn syrup was a water based product, made it soluble to the food coloring. 

 

Stirring all three ingredients together, we watched to see how long it took them to separate again.   

In the end, the corn syrup and the water mixed, so true separation was hard to determine.