I volunteer at my kids after school program once a week for 8 week sessions. This session I am doing science and each session last about 50 minutes.
The first session we did name that smell with flavor extracts on a cotton ball in cups. The kids loved that one. The next we did a cup building activity. That was more to get the kids to work together than science but they had lots of fun so it worked. The last one was we did the light a lightbulb with a battery experiment. Again they had a blast trying to figure out how to do it and then once they did had fun trying different battery sizes and wires to get the lights lit.
So I'm wondering if anyone has any other ides for a 1st/2nd grade science experiment ideas. I know of the baking soda and vinegar and might try that but I want to try different things they might not do in regular class.
We have about 50 minutes and if the program doesn't have the supplies I buy them myself so nothing too expensive.
Thank you
Fill empty water bottles with a little less than half water and the rest with cooking oil (veg, canola...whatever is cheapest) Put in several drops off food coloring. The food coloring drops will go through the oil to the water. After that, drop in 1/2 alka seltzer tablet. It makes a cool lava lamp! (:
Carnations and celery will turn colors when placed in food coloring because of their vascular system. I'm not sure how long it takes though..........
You could do what floats and what doesn't?
Show and then teach them how a prism refracts light and makes a rainbow.
This summer, I was involved in a "science Sundays" program for my son and his friends. Here's one of my favorite activities.
1. Boil some purple cabbage. You can then ether put the juice in teeny tupperware jars or dip strips of paper towel in the juice. Either way, you've got some homemade litmus paper / "litmus juice"
2. Bring a bunch of common, safe household acids and bases with you, along with the paper/juice. Baking soda, baking powder, and toothpaste are all bases; vinegar, citrus, etc, are all acids. AND, bring in a neutral substance (water) for a control.
3. Have the kids hypothesize which is an acid and which is a base, and then test it via the litmus. Record both the hypotheses and results on a big piece of butcher paper.
4. Then have them hypothesize what will happen if you mix acids and bases. Get hypotheses on all possible combinations (acid + acid, base + base, acid + base, acid + neutral, base + neutral). Then, test the combination.
5. Make sure you record all the results. 2nd graders may be able to do their own mini "lab reports"; for 1st graders, you may be better off with one big piece of butcher paper.
The kids should get a fun result (acid + base = "volcano), but more importantly, they'll learn the rudiments of the scientific method.
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Here are a couple of things I thought of...
1. Food coloring and flowers. The kids can see how the flower's vascular system works.
2. Winter is coming and with it drier weather that's perfect for static electricity experiments. You could try balloons, rub their heads and "stick" the balloons to the wall, etc.
3. You could try an experiment with taste buds. Drop salty, sweet, sour liquids on the kids' tongues and see if they can guess the flavor and then you could discuss what is a taste bud and how they work.
4. Oobleck! Can be messy but a fun activity - is it a liquid or a solid? There's a Dr. Seuss book that goes along with it.
I agree with the other posters that a trip to the library/book store is a good idea so that you can get even more ideas for your next session. They may even have handouts that go with your experiments. Have fun!
I don't have anything off the top of my head besides the mixing oil, water, and food coloring that some else suggested (and if you add beads or glitter, then you can have a lesson on how gas, solid, and liquids mix), but I imagine there are a ton of books at the library that would give you lots of ideas. Look in the juvenile nonfiction section...I know our library has about 50 science experiment books.
cornstarch and water?
You could do the uncooked spaghetti and marshmallow towers. It is a bit of physics they should work in groups and figure out that triangles and pyramids are more stable than squares and boxes. Whoever makes the tallest tower in the time allotted wins a dollar store prize. For little kids you can use regular marshmallows, for older ones use the mini marshmallows.
Also this time of year you can do leaf chromatography--gather different types of green leaves and use coffee filters and rubbing alcohol. Cut the filters into strips. Use a quarter (the ridgy edges) to roll over the leaf and get bits of it onto the paper. Mark with a pencil, hang into a cup with the bottom barely covered with rubbing alcohol. The alcohol will creep up the paper and drag the colors from the leaf smudge up the paper at different distances. You can discuss what happens to leaves during the fall and how their colors are hidden for the rest of the year by chlorophyll. Look up the set up for the chromatography online and good luck.
Our school did one with worms & boxes of soil.... we were given water, to test whether the worms preferred the dry soil or the damp, & also cardboard covers & flashlights, to test whether the worms preferred the light or the dark. It was actually an activity for the parents, but my younger kids (preschoolers) go to attend & take part too. It was fun, very hands-on, & memorable... even for the grown-ups! : )
Get them outside with Hands-on Nature from the Vermont Institute of Natural Science. They are on the web: http://www.fwni.org/41.html
Click on a workshop and then click on teaching suggestions for experiments to do.
I concur with the suggestions of using the library to acquire science books.
You can also find sites on the web, such as: http://www.kids-science-experiments.com/index.html
Have fun!
