Pre-School Science: Absorption & Colour-Mixing

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I first saw this idea on the marvellous Pinterest, and it originally came from a children's Australian TV Programme.

As far as The Boy was concerned we were about to perform magic, but then what else is Science if not a complete and utter mystery. It is to me anyway! So I posed him a question, showed him the equipment and waited to see what he'd say.

How can we make the coloured water travel from one glass to another, without touching it?

You'll need:

  • equal quantities of blue and yellow food colouring (although any two primary colours will work)
  • two glasses half-filled with water
  • one empty glass
  • two sheets of kitchen towel (absorbent but those with thirst pockets might not let it drip out again!)
  • two spoons for stirring
  1. Place the three glasses in a row with the empty one in the middle.
  2. Pour yellow food colouring into one end glass, and blue into the other end glass. Give them a stir with separate spoons so as not to mix the colours prematurely.
  3. Fold the kitchen towel strips into quarters, lengthways.
  4. Place one strip into the yellow food colouring and one into the blue. Fold the free end over into the empty glass in the middle and tuck it down to the side so they aren't touching.
  5. Wait and watch the results!

Colour-mixing

The Science Bit:

Kitchen towel is highly absorbent and the coloured water travels up the kitchen towel slowly defying gravity. It happens due to a force called 'capillary action'; a force of attraction between the paper fibres and the water. How does the water actually move up through the paper towel? The water is pulled up into the open spaces between the fibres in the paper, soaking the paper as it absorbs the water. When the weight of the water in the paper is equal to the upward attraction, then the water stops rising. In this case, gravity kicks in and because the kitchen towel is hanging down, the coloured water drips down into the empty glass.

The colour-mixing is basic science: blue and yellow makes green; red and blue would make purple; and yellow and red would make orange.

(In actual fact, The Boy asked what blue and red would make, and is desperate to try it out. I'd have obliged, but I'd bought up all the blue food colouring in our town yesterday with our playdough and preparing this!)

Colour-mixing

The end result is absolutely fascinating, even Mr. TBaM was enthralled.

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Tuesday Tots

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Learning Through Play: Colours

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Last Friday the theme on #MarchPhotoADay on Instagram was 'red'. I debated his red jumper, a red flower in the garden, blah, blah, blah. All very boring. Then it struck me when I was tidying up the threading and beading we'd been doing. I picked up the red lace and the red cotton reel and had a moment of inspiration.

I took the lace into the living room where The Boy was playing, put it down in a circle and asked him if he could find me anything red. He looked around the room and found one or two things, but needed a little help to see anything that wasn't shouting out to him. Then given a little more prompting he found a plethora of things, including my toes and his! I lined up the iPod ready to take a snap and he stopped me as he wanted his VTech to take one too.

Hopefully, it's obvious which one is whose!

He then ran off to find another coloured lace and we spent the next thirty minutes sorting things into colours.

He had loads of fun and I can't recommend it highly enough as an activity. It's excellent for pre-mathematical development; identifying colours and sorting accordingly so.

Have fun!

Luminarium: A Wonderous Kaleidoscope

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When I broke up for Summer last Friday, I vowed that The Boy and I would do a lot of fun things this summer and so far, I don't think I've done too badly. Last weekend we went to Cadbury's World and West Midlands Safari Park (where we had a little tweet-up), earlier in the week we met up with friends and had a fantastic picnic in a beautiful park in Cardiff, we had friends over and have visited others. Today, we were lucky enough to be invited to attend the Luminarium at Taurus Crafts, Lydney.

Taurus Crafts, in the Forest of Dean is not only a craft centre, but also a social enterprise. Elizabeth, the lovely manager, explained to us that this meant they worked along local businesses and artisans to provide products and crafts that were locally sourced. In addition to this, Taurus also work with local care agencies and schools to provide real-life and relevant work experience developing life-skills for people with learning difficulties whose needs are not well met through mainstream education and training. To support this brilliant and worthwhile enterprise, there are 15 craft businesses, a cafe, gift shop and local food shop and deli, which all supply amazing products and unique crafts that are out of the ordinary.

The Boy and me (ha, see what I did there?) arrived a little after the agreed meeting time of 11am (sorry Mummy Mishaps and Would Like to be a Yummy Mummy). Mainly because when I sat down in my car and programmed in the GPS I had a little fit that a journey that was only 40 miles was going to take an hour and a half. It was 10.20! That combined with the oh-so-convenient fire in the Brynglas tunnel in Newport meant that I was late. No surprise there, I'm always 10 (or so) minutes late. I think of time, like Dr. Who (DT not MS) says, as more of a wiggly-wavy thing meant to be bent.

And so to the Luminarium. What is it?

The best explanation that I have seen so far of a Luminarium is in this video, where it is explained that the original creator started designing them over twenty years ago and came up with the idea of "inverting a bouncy castle." See! I wasn't so far off the mark when I said about being inside a bouncy castle! Incidentally, I spoke to a member of Architects of Air afterwards who told me that the first one was designed as a stage for a play performed by children with special educational needs. That is completely understandable because the whole experience is visual, auditory and kinaesthetic.

With something this difficult to explain, you just need to be in it. And if you can't be in it, then here's a video to show you what it's like.

We received free entry into the Luminarium. I was not asked to blog about this but have chosen to, because I think it's a fabulous thing to experience.