Tag Archives: experiment

Jun18

Skittles Rainbow

Posted on by
Standard

I kept seeing this Skittles experiment popping up on my Facebook feed. It was pretty simple, cheap, and quite entertaining.

We just arranged Skittles around the edge of a small white plate and then added some water, until it was touching all of the Skittles. Over a period of a few minutes, the colours of the Skittles slowly bled towards the centre of the plate.

Colour starting to bleed.

Closer to the centre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If left long enough, the colours began to mix together. Most of our attempts ended with T1 or T2 shaking the plate and making the colours swirl together, or knocking the plate over completely. Luckily we had plenty of Skittles.

You can see from the pictures that the centre of our colour wheel wasn’t quite at the centre of the plate. I think this happened because we were using a plastic plate and it didn’t sit completely flat.

Almost meeting at the centre.

Colourful wheel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was easily reproducible and the kids enjoyed doing it. They also ate the used Skittles once we were done!

Advertisement
Jul8

Catching a Rainbow

Posted on by
Standard

With a glass of water and a sheet of white paper on a sunny day, we caught a rainbow!

IMG_0930

We held the glass above the paper in the bright sun shining in through our window. The light hits the water in the glass and bends (refraction), causing the white light to split into its component colours, forming a rainbow. We caught the rainbow on the white paper, behind and below the glass. It was a little hard to see in the bright sun, but when L placed her arm in front of the window to create a shadow on the paper where the rainbow was falling, it clarified it.

The rainbow in the shadow of L's arm.

The rainbow in the shadow of L’s arm.

When we placed the glass of water onto the paper we could see a rainbow in the bottom of the glass. The kids thought this was a wonderful and fascinating little experiment.

The bottom of the glass.

The bottom of the glass.

More rainbows in the glass.

More rainbows in the glass.

 

Jul5

Rainbow Milk

Posted on by
Standard

When I was in school, we did an experiment with milk and food colouring that was really cool. I couldn’t remember exactly what went into the milk, so I had a look about the internet, and found the experiment I was thinking of over at DLTK’s Crafts for Kids, and they even had a video showing how it’s done!

Food colouring and milk in the tin.

Food colouring and milk in the tin.

This experiment is really easy, yet so amazing! We placed a shallow layer of milk into a cake tin. We only had light milk, so that’s what we used, and it worked just fine. A used a pipette to place some red, yellow and blue food colouring at roughly evenly spaced intervals around the edge of the tin. Once the food colouring was in, I placed a squirt of dish washing liquid into the centre of the tin, and we watched eagerly to see what would happen.

A few moments after the dish washing liquid was added.

A few moments after the dish washing liquid was added.

The dish washing liquid doesn’t mix with the milk, so it spreads out across the surface of the milk. The food colouring gets caught in the movement of the dishwashing liquid, and causes the colours to move and mix. We got a rainbow! The reaction can continue for a while, making new colours and awesome patterns. There’s no need to mix or move it for the colour mixing to continue. After about ten minutes, A wobbled the tin a little to see what would happen. It made the colours mix even more.

After a few minutes.

After a few minutes.

After about 10 minutes.

After about 10 minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A thought this experiment was so incredible, she asked to repeat it once L and Big L were home. L put a lot of dish washing liquid into the milk, and the reaction happened much more quickly than our earlier attempt. As the colours mixed, Baby T was completely mesmerised by the movement of the colours. This time, after the colour mixing had begun, we let the kids have a toothpick to drag through the colours to make even more interesting patterns. They enjoyed doing this, and kept doing it until the colours had mixed so much it was a murky brown colour. Science is pretty cool 🙂

A few minutes into the second experiment. The spot in the middle is the dish washing liquid.

A few minutes into the second experiment. The spot in the middle is the dish washing liquid.

Using a toothpick to make new patterns.

Using a toothpick to make new patterns.

Jul4

Rising Colours

Posted on by
Standard
Primary colours on paper towel.

Primary colours on paper towel.

We were talking about primary colours yesterday, and I thought we could try a little experiment with paper towel.

A and I made some coloured spots with markers on paper towel and placed it in water to see what would happen. As the paper towel sucked up the water, it took the colours with it, making them rise up the paper towel. A was amazed and excited by this.

Colours rising up the paper towel.

Colours rising up the paper towel.

A colouring in her spots.

A colouring in her spots.

A used markers to make more coloured spots on another piece of paper towel and placed it in some water on a plate. She let the paper towel lay flat, rather than upright. The colours spread out on the paper towel as the water was absorbed.

The colours spreading out.

The colours spreading out.

We also tried drawing the primary colours on top of each other before placing the paper towel in the water. The yellow rose up into the red, then both of them into the blue. Up went the water, and up went the colours, mixing together to make some orange, and purple and brown.

The colours stacked on top of each other.

The colours stacked on top of each other.

The colours rising into each other.

The colours rising into each other.

This was fun and easy, and I loved watching A’s eyes light up when she saw what was happening.