Friday, January 27, 2012

Acids and Bases

 This week was all about acids and bases. We had a blast with these three activities in particular:

1. Making Dull Pennies Shine

Need: dull pennies, lemon juice, lime juice, baking soda, water, tray, index cards to label, and cups
-Have child fill the cups with water, baking soda, lemon, and lime
-ask which one they think will clean the pennies
-add a couple of pennies to each cup
-wait 10-15 minutes
-discuss what worked and what didn't

(the lime and lemons, i.e. the acids, should make the dull pennies the shiniest. baking soda and water shouldn't do anything)




2. Adding Vinegar to Baking Soda


Need: water, vinegar, ice cube tray, baking soda and/or baking powder, transferring tools (a spoon and dropper work well), index cards to label

Directions: Have child add baking soda to each ice cube tray. Allow them to try different liquids and see what happens. Add baking powder to a few and see if there is any difference in the reactions. Talk about what happened. 

Extra to discuss: We learned that Baking Soda is considered a base and that Vinegar is an acid. We also learned that water is in the middle. Finally, when you add an acid and a base the result is a chemical reaction. (those were all new words for this week)


3. Building a Volcano

We cheated a little bit for this one and splurged on a volcano making kit from the craft store. I think in the end it was worth the couple of extra dollars...it included everything except for the baking powder and the vinegar. You can see in the picture that Bear wanted to have a cave for the animals so we left part of it open.


Linking up this week:
Living Montessori Now
TGIF Linky Party
Thrifty Thursday #8

6 comments:

  1. What a FUN science activity!!! So cool! I am sharing it with my Facebook readers. Thanks for linking up to TGIF! Have a GREAT week,
    Beth =-)

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    1. Thanks Beth! We had so much fun, I'm glad we were able to share it this week!

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  2. Great activities, Lauren! I love that they work on a number of skills in addition to being fun science experiments. Thanks so much for linking up with Montessori Monday. I featured your post at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/LivingMontessoriNow

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  3. OOhhhh volcanoes! Always wanted to make one. Love it! Thanks for sharing at Thrifty Thursday, hope to see you this week!

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  4. I remember putting pennies in coca cola to make them shiny. It was my mums way of saying 'don't drink that stuff - look what it does to pennies'. So I guess it means that coke is very acidic? I'm learning too! xx

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    1. I just saw an experiment on Pinterest where you can get mountain dew to glow in the dark. Makes me never want to drink it again!

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