E is a big fan of electricity - he loves cords, wonders how things work and tells us to go to the electricity box outside when the electricity in the house cuts out. The reason why he is so fascinated with it is because he knows that he is not allowed to go any where near powerpoints... He follows this rule, but it doesn't stop him pretending to be an electrician or telling us when things need charging.
Because of this, I wanted to provide him with a safe way to explore electricity... I googled it and stumbled on a kit on ebay called "Potato Clock Novel Green Science Project Experiment Kit" (only $3.25, no extra for postage - bargain!)
The kit came with 2 types of metal - copper and zinc - wires, a small digital clock and some plastic cups.
(E showing off one of the computer cords and the wires for the experiment)
We used two potatoes and put in a copper rod and a zinc rod in each potato - within seconds the small clock turned on - the kids were so confused and were asking so many questions about how it was working. They took out all of the metal pieces and did the experiment over and over - sometimes it didn't work because they put two of the same type of metal on one potato - so they had to use their problem solving skills to work out how to fix it. It took a while but they got there!
Setting up...
Look at the concentration on their faces... priceless
And the excitement when the clock started working!
The teamwork...
E asked about the cups - what were the plastic cups for? To be honest I had totally forgotten about them...We soon worked out that they were there to try experiment with different liquids - so we tried filling them with water, or salt or anything else that we could get our hands on, placed the metals in the cups and waited for the clock to turn on... Some of the time it worked and sometimes it didn't - it all depended on what was in there! The kids also noticed that when the metals were touching the clock turned off so they started doing this on purpose and had a giggle every time it happened!
I didn't really go into detail about how the electricity passed through the potatoes/water etc. - my kids are only 2.5 and 3.5 years - but I did explain it in really simple terms. I showed them that when all of the parts were together the electricity moved through each of the parts and that made the clock work. If we didn't wire it up properly it wouldn't work. E was happy with this explanation, so I didn't elaborate. If he asked more questions I would have explained it more thoroughly (the instructions explain the science of it so I would have used that).
It happened to be a public holiday the day we did this experiment, so husband J was around to see it too! He quickly got excited and tried to show us some experiments of his own.
First, J asked for a "canister" (after a few minutes we worked out what he was actually asking for was a sifter!! haha) ... Then he tried to show us how water doesn't go through the holes if you tip the bottle/ cup a certain way... umm.. It didn't actually work (even though he tried a couple of times), but we sure had a big laugh in the process... I'm still laughing!!! :)
That experiment was abandoned and he started on another -
All he needed was a plastic bottle and a tissue. He put the tissue at the top of the bottle and asked the kids what would happen to the tissue if he blew on it. E thought it would go inside the bottle and N didn't really know what to say!
J blew on the tissue and it shot right back out at him... the kids thought this was hilarious so we all had a go...
Such an easy experiment to do with the kids!
Then of course, kids being kids, they turned back to the potatoes, poured the salt all over them and started making "baked potatoes" for the oven! Yum, yum *cough*
I love how engaged they were in these experiments!
I would love to hear how your little ones go with these experiments :)
How much/ little do you explain the science behind the experiment?
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