Saturday

Clubhouse Thank You, and some Bead Science!

We started our adventures in water beads about a month ago, and we are thoroughly enjoying all of the fun ways they can be used in the Clubhouse Classroom for everything from sensory play to Science!

We want to take a moment to thank Rainbow Water Beads for hosting our recent water bead giveaway. We were incredibly excited when we received this in the mail to distribute to our winners.

They have a variety of packages, and 15 different colors to choose from.

Our favorite option is the Designer Water Beads Sampler Bundle which brings 15 packets of water beads, one in each color. The cost is only $18.95, making it about $1.27 cents per packet. The best part, free shipping!!

The colors are labeled clearly, and I have found that just half of one packet makes for enough beads to engage in a great sensory experience, or plot another Science experiment...

Which leads us to our most recent experiment with water beads. We know they grow in water, but do they grow in anything else?

We took two jars, filled one with water and one with vinegar.

Will the beads in the vinegar jar grow?

"Yes, they will grow... but not big."


"They won't grow, they are waterrrr beads and that is not waterrrr!!"

We added blue food coloring to both, and decided to use the white color beads for an added element.

Will the white beads absorb the blue color?

"They will all turn blue!"


"Maybe a little blue, but not a lot."


We recorded our theories into our Clubhouse Science Journal, and then added the water beads to the jars.

Now all that was left to do was wait.

The Clubhouse Kids are great with time lapsed projects. We go about everything else we have planned for the day, with the added excitement of "Can we go check on our beads?!" every 10 minutes. They also enjoy how all of their thoughts, ideas and theories are recorded into our journal as the process unfolds.

On to the process. The jar filled with water is on the right...

"They are both growing, but the water ones are growing fastest!"

"The ones in vinnygurr stopped growing!"

At this point we moved the jars, for viewing purposes. 
The water jar is now on the left...
"The water beads only growed big in the waterrr. Told ya!"

Closer observation was required to see if the beads had in fact changed color. We started with the ones that had been soaking in blue water.
"They did turn a little blue!"

On to the vinegar beads, where we noticed an interesting "side effect" that we never guessed...

"THEY'RE STICKY!!"

They did grow, slightly. They did absorb the blue color. They were also sticky, sticky, sticky! They stuck to each other, to little hands, to anything they touched. If you have played with water beads before you know that once "full grown", they are bouncy and slippery. Not in this case. The Clubhouse Kids enjoyed that interesting reaction. They went on to ask, "Do you think they will grow if we put them in water now?" So we did, and they sat... and sat... and sat. Three days later, even in the water, they still hadn't grown. Our experiment was then concluded. Once added to the vinegar, the beads will not grow again even if soaked in water. 

The final consensus?

"Don't put waterrrrr beads in vinnygurr, they don't turn out right!"

Another successful water bead experiment, enjoyed by all.

In case you missed it, read about how we studied dehydration by shrinking water beads, what happened when we froze water beads and observed how they melted, and how much fun we had simply by putting water beads into a squirt bottle.

We will continue or Clubhouse Adventures with water beads, so join us! We would love to hear all about what you are doing with water beads in your home/classroom. Also, if you try any of the experiments we have done, let us know your results! Just stop by Fit Kids Clubhouse on our Facebook page and share. We will be tracking all of the fun!

If you still haven't gotten your hands on these little sensory wonders, be sure to head over to Rainbow Water Beads and place an order! Tell them Fit Kids Clubhouse sent you, and who knows... maybe we'll have another water bead giveaway in our near future ;)

Did I mention I'm done with vinegar for the month?

Ms. Liz

Linked up with:

Science Sunday

No comments:

Post a Comment