Hooray for the Red, White and Blue!

This week in Preschool, we celebrated American Heroes! We had a visit from a local police officer, we made Flat Stanley letters to send to soldiers and had an American Heroes Parade with some real American Heroes, dads and grandpas who are or have been soldiers! We made Yankee Doodle hats complete with feathers and tambourines from paper plates. In honor of our country, we even did a red, white and blue science experiment. I found this experiment on the internet at www.brighthub.com/education/k-12/articles/35948.aspx. 

 

 We created a density stack by pouring liquids of different densities together to see if they would mix. What we got was a red, blue and whitish (ok, it was yellow) stack. 

For this experiment, you will need:

 A clear jar or vase. I used a Dollar Tree vase. 

1 cup of light or clear corn syrup mixed with red food coloring.

1 cup of vegetable oil

1/2 cup of water mixed with blue food coloring

1/2 cup of bleach

 First I showed the children how thick the corn syrup was and then poured it in the vase. Next I added the vegetable oil. As you can see, it stayed on top of the corn syrup. Next, I poured in the blue water.

It went through the oil but still stayed on top of the corn syrup. There we had our density stack. To take our experiment a step further, we then poured in the bleach to see what would happen. We discussed that bleach is something that the children should never touch and that it would make you sick if you drank it and takes color out of things.

The children watched in awe as the bleach went through the oil and the color disappeared from the water but the red corn syrup didn't change.

 Next, one of the teachers asked what would happen if we put blue food coloring in the vegetable oil instead of the water. I hadn't thought of that and wasn't sure what would happen so we tried it. I put a small amount of vegetable oil in a cup and added a few drops of blue food coloring. The food coloring did not mix with the oil even when we stirred it. Then I poured it on top of the density stack we had already made.

 This time the oil stayed with oil but the food color went through to the water. Ah, but we had previously put bleach in that water, so guess what happened to the blue food coloring again! Yes, it disappeared, too.

We had a great time celebrating the Red, White and Blue and our American Heroes! And our first science experiment of the year was a huge success! Hooray for the Red, White and Blue!