Oil and Water Fireworks -- Science Experiment

LD was itching to do some of his old science experiments this morning.  We had all of the directions collected on a 3X5 ring (from when we did them a year+ ago). LD leafed through and chose several experiments.

Here is the first one he and the girls did. It's been over a year since we last did this experiment, but it still had a real "wow" factor for all of us. The kids each took turns doing it (LD did it four times!)

1) fill a glass jar with water
2) put 2 Tablespoons of oil in a pitcher and add 3 drops of food coloring each of red, yellow and blue (not too much or the color will drop out of the oils when you pour it into the water)
3) stir the oil and food dye well to break up the dye into small droplets
4) pour slowly into the water and after a few moments you'll see the fireworks begin as the food dye slowly drops out of the oil suspension.

You can see we had a bit too much yellow dye, but all the other photos turned out blurry.

Here is an example from when we did this another time:

We did a similar experiment with shaving cream that was just as spectacular! See this post: Shaving Cream Fireworks

You may also be interested in these preschool science posts:

Free Science Experiment Pack (at our new location, homeschoolden.com)

Chemistry Experiments and Activities for Young Learners: You'll find a half-dozen chemistry experiments my youngest did during our chemistry unit (she's 7). Some of these make good science activities for preschoolers too even if they don't understand the complex science behind it! 

 

Animals Around the World Montessori Cards

Preschool at Home: This link takes you to 20 or 30 of our preschool posts... everything from science experiments, math activities and games to letter activities, phonics games, activities for small more skills and more!

You might be interested in these related posts as well:

• Science Activities for Ages 4 to 6 or so
• Beat the Cold with these Science Experiments about Ice, Blubber and More!
• Science Experiments: Water Molecule Attraction
• Summer Science Experiments – Tasty Lemon Soda
• Preschool Science at Home

See you again soon! Remember our blog has moved to homeschoolden.com and we update our Homeschool Den Facebook Page a couple times a day during the weekday! ~Liesl