Science Experiments for Kids Teach Curiosity and Problem Solving

by Holly Homer on February 13th, 2011 | 2 Comments »

I am really excited about what will be happening here at Mom It Forward over the next few months. I am going to be taking you (and hopefully your kids) through a series of fun and easy science experiments.

As a mom, I find science to be one of the most engaging subjects to help my kids embrace. Science builds curiosity, teaches problem solving, and is just plain fun! After all, it's hands on, involves making messes, often includes weird and gross smells and loud noises all while encouraging kids to ask questions. What's not to love?

This series of experiments was put together by the people at Workman as an introduction to the many amazing children's science resources they publish. I am familiar with many of them as a homeschooling-science-loving-want-to-find-fun-things-to-do-with-my-kids-kinda mom.

Today's experiment is from Pop Bottle Science by Lynn Bunelle.

Science Experiment for Kids: Magic Finger

Materials

Bowl full of water
Black pepper
Bar of soap

Instructions

1. Sprinkle black pepper on water and then place finger in water to see what happens. See how the finger is covered with pepper?

2. Clean finger!

3. Rub finger on soap.

4. Place finger back into water and watch what happens.

The pepper actually goes AWAY from the finger instead of sticking to it like before. Why?

It may seem that the pepper was changed by the soap, but actually the soap changed the water's surface tension.

This is why soap works! It causes the water molecules to relax and not hold on to each other so tightly. This is why soap cleans you and gets stains out of your clothes.

Here are the full experiment instructions:

Publicity-Mad Science Club Experiments 1

Holly is a mad scientist at home. Pretty much everything she cooks in the kitchen turns out to be some sort of science experiment...and not in a good way.

She is the stay at home mom of three boys who partially homeschools. She is a Dallas area blogger who writes June Cleaver Nirvana and is the editor of She is Dallas. She can be found on FB and Twitter.