- a few stems of bright, white flowers such as chrysanthemums, gerberas or carnations
- jars filled with water and various shades of liquid or gel food colouring
She then went back to her original observational drawing and added the colours where they had appeared on the flowers. We talked about comparing the pictures and how they represented the changes we had seen.
We have stuck this drawing, along with some annotations made by me, into a new scrap book to keep track of our investigations and activities. Cakie is very excited about it and wants to show it to everyone at the moment!
What they are learning while they play:
science/ knowledge and understanding of the world: performing a simple science experiment, making predictions and observations, understanding the parts of a plant, learning how water moves through a plant, drawing simple conclusions
creativity: drawing from observation and noticing changes in appearance
Cakie: 4.6
Pop: 2.11
Bean: 12 mos
Enter your email address:
Delivered by FeedBurnerJoin us on The Imagination Tree facebook page for daily play ideas and conversation with the early years community!
See our huge range of Spring play and creative activities here!
We did this with white tulips this week, it’s lots of fun. Have you tried spliting the stems and putting them in different pots? Our tulips didn’t split well so that part didn’t work out.
This looks fantastic. I tried to be clever and use some rather tired carnations for this experiment-it didn’t work as either the xylem was full of air or the flowers had just given up! This reminds me to try this again with fresh flowers!
This flower experiment is very neat with young preschool students. They love seeing the colors: http://www.brennaphillips.com/colored-flowers-update
oh this is going to be such a fun one to try
I remember doing this as a child and being amazed! Love Cakie’s Before and After drawings.
did you use A LOT of food coloring? We tried this and it didnt work – so disappointing! The only thing I can think of is maybe we didnt add enough food coloring? After 3 days they were slightly changing – but nothing dramatic
The nature detective site suggests adding 5 tablespoons of food colouring. We used blue “professional food colouring” about half a teaspoon and it worked great. The regular food colouring I added about a tablespoon (all we had left) and they took a few days to colour.
Fab! I’m going to buy some chrysanthemums on the weekend and do it with The Boy next week, thans! This is why you just got my vote in the MADs.
What an interesting way to teach. I love that drawing of this little kid. Seems like he had understood his lesson very well.
oh…….so cooool omg lol
jk
What flowers did you use