Clubhouse Science: The Art of Melting

Today our fun with water beads continued. First, let's rewind to yesterday when we filled up a couple of ice cube trays to put into the freezer...

One with water,
and one with water beads.

We talked about what we thought might happen. Will they both freeze?

The kids all agreed they would.

"Water freezes when it's cold!"


Lo and behold, this morning they found out they were right:

"They both freezed!"

On to part two of this little experiment. 

Will they both melt?

Which one will melt faster?

Getting the ice out of the trays was a fun little activity in fine motor skills, bonus!

One Clubhouse Kid twisted the trays, poked at the cubes, and eventually got them out, one by one. 

Another twisted and turned the tray and then realized he could just dump the whole thing and get it over with. 

Time to fill the vases, and record our observations throughout the day in our Clubhouse Science Journal. 

"The regular ice will melt faster."

"The beady ice will!!"

"My blue icebergs will melt all the way!"

A little healthy Scientific debate was well underway, and the kids returned to the vases frequently to keep checking on the "blue icebergs".

I'll spare you a montage of photos, because trust me.. the kids wanted me to snap a picture about every 4 minutes to track the progress. The print outs will go into our journal, since they are absolutely certain every picture shows progress. For you, I will simply share the end result:

They both melted, and at about the same pace. Even the kids were able to agree that neither was faster. They moved them around, swished them, smelled them, touched them, everything we do around here for proper observation.

"This is perfect, cold water!"

"This is wet water!"

"This is MUSH!"

"This is cold and gross!!"

"This isn't water!"

Simple, fun, and another day of keen observations. Neither mixture was really colder, nor did either stay colder longer. The vases are still in the classroom, still full of their fully melted substances. Around here, that happens. We don't toss an experiment until the Clubhouse Kids are certain that they are done, and they decided they need to take another look at these tomorrow... ;)

So much can be done with water beads, check out how Here Comes The Sun and Child Central Station use them on their light tables! So beautiful, and what a great way to combine light and water play. Also, check out how Smiling like Sunshine adds a slide to her water bead sensory bin, and how The Imagination Tree creates a picture perfect seaside sensory tub. Last, but not least, many of you have asked if these could be used during bath time... Play at Home Mom did just that, check out the bath time fun!

For more ideas, visit our Adventures in Water Beads page here!

If it freezes.. it will melt,

Ms. Liz :)