Candy Experiments

So..... the weather was horrible for Halloween.  We still went out in our neighborhood, but we were one of the few groups, so we got tons of candy, plus I had candy at home that didn't get given out.  Needless to say, we had way too much candy in the house and I needed to find some way to get rid of it.  I found some fun experiments on pinterest and also an idea for a fun game.  Archer didn't have school on Monday or Tuesday so he got to do some of the projects too.


Monday

Train game.  We found some candy that represented things that I could write out that would be easy for Archer to read.... balls, kids, corn, little logs, big logs... we sorted it and then set up the train track with stations.  We had station cards and cargo cards at each station and a dice so that the boys could go to a station and draw two cards and roll the dice to see what their mission was.

sorting candy

setting up the track.  the candy was scattered throughout.

reading the cards

take big logs to station B

marked station

take one little log to station D

Archer was totally into it.  Drake had a little harder time.

they still played together nicely

Tuesday

Today we did acid tests.  I picked out a few different kinds of candy, some that I thought would be acidy and others that I knew would not.  I also chose a couple that I didn't know.  We let them soak in a little bit of water for a couple of hours and then we mixed in some baking soda to see if they would bubble.

seven different candies.... lemonhead, sweettarts, smarties, fruit roll up,
chocolate, fruit chews, candy sticks

adding the baking soda to the candy sticks... nothing...
they didn't even dissolve in the water

baking soda in the sweettarts... it did bubble up a little when we stirred it

the best was the lemonhead... just what I thought

checking them all out.  most of them bubbled up at
least a little or got foamy, there were two that didn't
do anything... the candy sticks and a fruit chew

Drake just had to taste it.... yuck

as a reward for the little scientists, we did a baking soda, soap, and vinegar
volcano.... always a big hit

Wednesday

Today we did lots of different experiments.  Some were wait and see and others were immediate.  The first thing we did was find some gross gummy body parts and we put them in water to see what would happen.  Drake was fascinated by the yuckiness of the gummies and not really so interested in what was going to happen to them, although he did check in with them quite a bit.  It was all kind of a letdown.  I was very scientific about it and we measured them before we put them in and then checked on them over the next few days.  Nothing really happened... except they got grosser.

looking at the gummies

plopping them in the water

our outlines of the gummies... a brain, a foot, and an ear.

they just started dissolving, I thought they might expand.

 The next project was pretty cool.  We took m&ms and put them in warm water, letter side up.  As the candy shell started to dissolve the m would float to the top of the water.  I don't know why this happens.  Maybe the letters are stamped with wax rather than the candy.  It was pretty cool.

the m&ms were very tempting.  I had to let him eat a blue one.

the candy coloring dissolves immediately

it takes a while but eventually the m will float to the top of the water.

Drake actually thought this was pretty cool.

The last project was to make a scale to compare weights of different candies.  Unfortunately, there is no really good reason to throw the candy away after doing this one.  We did unwrap some stuff so that we would have an excuse.

our homemade, not very scientific scale.  this was Drake's favorite part.

comparing one candy bar to mini bars.  we made some predictions
and then weighed them out.

comparing m&ms to Reese's pieces

they weighed the same

how many lollipops does it take to weigh the same as a ring pop

Thursday

Today we tried to make paint with skittles.  We used skittles and corn syrup and let it sit to let the dyes leach into the corn syrup.  It was a mess, but the boys loved painting with it.  It took a few days to make a good paint.  I have to admit, it was really pretty.

sorting colors

adding corn syrup

waiting for the dye to leach.... it took much longer than I thought that it would

finally painting

Archer got to do it too

making a rainbow

Archer decided to do a rainbow too.

Friday

We didn't do a project today because Drake had his developmental testing this morning.  He did really well.  He went right with the teacher that gave the test and did everything that she asked him to do.  I even peeked in and he was snuggling with her.  I saw her after the test and she said "I am so disappointed that he won't be in my class... I want to snuggle with him all day."  He knocked the test out of the park.  He did three times the required score in motor, concepts and language, and above average in self-help, social, and behavior.  He did have a low score in articulation.  It wasn't that low, kind of borderline, so we got some intervention practice sheets to work on for the next 6 weeks and then he will get retested to see if he qualifies for preschool.  I am not real hopeful, but you never know.