Preschool:
You need: three white carnations, food coloring, two vases.



Put water in vases and add food coloring
Cut the flowers stems  half way up. See picture
Put flowers one flower in each vases and place one flower with a stem in each vase.
Leave the vases in an undisturbed area.

Wow! Ask your child "What happened?" or "What changed?"

Extensions:
Study the flowers with a magnifying glass.
YOu should be able to see the color in the veins of the flower petals.
Draw a before and after picture.

Today we will learn about Sink and Float

Toddler:
Give them a group of bath toys and drop (plop) them in the water one by one. Be very animated as you announce wither each items "sinks" or "floats".

Preschooler:
Ask your preschooler to help you fill a small basket with household objects that you don't mind getting wet. Ask them to guess if they will sink or float in water. Explain that floating means they stay at the top of the water and sinking means they will stay at the bottom of the tub (bucket, pool, container etc) After you have gathered objects bring them into the tub.

Experiment by dropping them one by one in the water. Ask them if it sinks or floats. Do they notice anything? Do you??

Advanced: After their bath, have your child  draw a line down the middle of the paper and make a list or pictures under the headings :SINK FLOAT

Toddler:
Be sure to watch carefully or only use very large magnets with your toddler. You do NOT want them to swallow these! Toddlers can try to stick them on different objects or just repeatedly take them on and off your refrigerator.  Most likely they will lke to pull them off, have YOU put them back on and do this over and over...

Preschooler:
Give your preschooler a few magnets and kep a few for your self. Jump righ tin and start going around your kitchen and checking EVERYTHING to see if the magnet sticks to it. Announce loudly "It is magnetic" when it sticks or "OOPS, it is NOT magnetic" when it falls on the floor and does not stick. Soon your preschooler should be joining in and sticking them to different objects, if they just watch encourage them to try it too. Try your refrigerator, dishwasher, pots and pans, cookie sheets, silverware, table legs, try wood and plastic objects as well. This game had two highlights at our house. 1st when the magnets did not stick and fell on the floor (very funny stuff!) and 2nd when the magnets stuck to a butter knife it was super exciting!!

Advanced:
Get your science notebook or piece of paper out. Draw your "observations" or pictures of part of the experiment.

Preschooler:
Collect between 10-20 rocks.
You can take a nature hike and make a big deal of finding them or simply go outside and collect them with your preschooler.

Put half of them in the freezer. We left them over night.

When you are ready to actually do the experiment put the other half of the rocks in hot water. (NOTE: we boiled them and the rocks were way too hot, we had to let them cool down before we could sort them.) Rocks hold cold and heat very well.

Now put all the rocks in a pile and sort them into hot and cold. Ask your child a lot of questions. Which are hot or cold? How did they get that way? What else do we make cold in the freezer? What else do we make hot in water? Have them guess before they pick up the rocks which will be hot or cold. Remember to use the words experiment and scientist!

Advanced: Is your preschooler able to write? Draw? Record your “observations” on paper or in a notebook.

Toddler: Ramps
It is easy to build a ramp from materials in your house. You can prop a book on top of a block and let cars and other objects roll down it. If you have a large book prop it on the couch and send your cars down. This is simple to build and use. Look around for other  materials to build a ramp with, get creative! You may find your toddler building their own ramps all over the house.

Preschooler: Levers
You need one round object shaped like a stick and one ramp shaped object. Our favorites are a rhythm stick and a shimmy. This is wild and crazy fun. Place the stick down and the rectangular object on top. The official names here are fulcrum and lever. I love hearing my preschooler ask for his fulcrum and lever (it cracks me up!) You could also call this a catapult. We place little people on one side and see if we can catapult them to the ceiling by hitting the other side with our hand.

Preschooler:
This is an activity that takes time and patience, good things to start to learn at this age.

Take your child outside with a small paper cup. Fill the cup with dirt and plant a few small
seeds. Explain that seeds need three things to grow; dirt, water, and sun. It is a good time of year to start your seed because you will be able to transfer it outdoors into a larger container or garden in a few weeks.

Then put the cup in a window sill. This will take some explanation, especially if they have seen a seed grow in a few seconds on TV. (like my son had) The concept of time and waiting is developing in your child and they will need help to understand why it didn't grow "right now".

We used sunflower seeds and had small buds in a few days. We also needed to discuss how much water a small seed needs. :-)