Bubbles and baking soda fun!

We had a weekend of fun working with baking soda! No, we didn’t use if for baking delicious cakes or cookies. Instead, we were using it for experiment with different solutions.

Smarties have always been curious and love being scientists. We have always been using all the materials we can find at home to do science experiment and to satisfy their curiosity. For this experiment, you can easily find it at your own home too!

Ingredients:
– baking soda (in our case is expired)
– vinegar
– whatever solution you can find, in our experiment we used detergent and milk (expired milk is being use here)

Instructions:
1. We prepared all the materials in a container. Solutions to be tested are poured into the bowls and vinegar in recycled Yakult bottles.

2. We stirred the baking soda into different solutions and observed what happened. Nothing…

3. Now is time to pour in the vinegar and voila! The mixture starts bubbling up! Look at how beautiful it was…

4. If you have older kids, let them observe and write down their observations.

Smarties got really excited and went in search for more solutions to test it out. They tested it with some fizzy or carbonated soft drinks and juices because they wanted to know how it reacted as well. How fast it bubbled and how much it bubbled. It was a fun weekend afternoon experimenting together with the smarties.

To see exactly how all the ingredients reacted, check out our short video over here!

So what are the learning objectives here?
1. Cognitive development
Kids get to measure and count while pouring out the ingredients. They learn about the concept of more/less when pouring the vinegar. They observe the cause and effect (what happened when you pour a lot or small amount of vinegar to the solution)

2. Langauge development
Kids get to describe and talk about what they did and what they saw. Older kids who know how to write will get to write down what they observed. A good pre-writing practice skill for younger kids when they do pouring and stirring with the work on eye-hand coordination.

3. Creative development
Kids are free to find more solution to be tested (in my case here).

4. Physical development
Kids get to reinforce and practice their motor skills while pouring, measuring, stirring. While performing the tasks, they are also learning to control their bodies especially their hands and eyes to accomplish tasks as they explore and perform the experiment.