Dissolving Sweethearts

Well, Valentine's Day has come and gone (happy belated, everyone!) and, yet again, we have a stash of candy that we are slowly/quickly working our way through.  My girls are not especially fond of the ubiquitous Sweethearts candy (nor am I, to be honest) - you know the powdery ones with the messages on them - so we've been brainstorming things to do with them.  Here's what we came up with...

Materials Needed:

• Sweethearts candy - at least four of the same color, as well as a few additional of other colors
• bowl with water
• four clear liquids - we used water, tonic water, vinegar and sparkling water
• four containers - we used Wilton's Love Potion Sprinkles containers (okay, I have to admit that I bought these because I really liked, and wanted to reuse, the test tubes more than because of the sprinkles themselves) but plastic cups would have worked as well.

Oobleck!

Welcome to our first experiment! This is an old standby of mine; I first did it when I was teaching Comprehensive Science at Newark's Arts High School right after I graduated from college. It was at the beginning of the year and we were talking about the phases of matter. I wanted something to capture their interest (and messy things tend to do that!) and also where we could discuss some of the basic principles of science investigation. (At that point, I didn't have any textbooks so I was flying a bit by the seat of my pants, but that's another story.) The kids loved it; the janitorial staff, not so much (although I tried to make it up to them later with baked goods).

So, yes, this experiment is messy, very messy. There are a few ways to modify it so that the mess is limited but just be forewarned. And, as always, emphasize to your kids that nothing in the experiment should be eaten! (In this one, these are all basic kitchen items, but uncooked rice is not a fun thing for little tummies.)

Materials Needed:

• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 3+ tablespoons water
• spoon
• food coloring (optional)
• plastic sandwich bag (optional, this is one of the ways to reduce the mess level!)
  
• plastic cups (I bought a sleeve of cups at the grocery store that I plan to wash and reuse for other experiments but you could also use your regular kitchen cups or bowls, although it is a bit better if they all look the same)
  
• a variety of solid and liquid kitchen items (I chose three liquids (grape juice, water and oil) and three solids (sugar, beans and rice))
• science journal