Two Much Fun: Rainbow Snowballs

(4 Years)

This is so much fun!!! Have you seen what happens to a bar of Ivory soap when you put it in the microwave? We've been watching Sid the Science Kid, and Little Miss and Wild One love the science journals that Sid and his classmates use. "We can do that." I tell them. Little Miss, sadly says that we can't because we don't know how to write a lot of words. I rewind and freeze the movie, on the part where Teacher Suzie has the class write (draw) in their science journals. Wild One shouts, "Look it's all drawings! No words!" Little Miss smiled and cheered, "We can do it! We can do it!" Prep for this is quick- if you have Ivory in the house, I knew we would do this one day, so I already purchased two bars at The Dollar Store, I love The Dollar Store.

Materials needed:
Ivory soap (we cut ours in half)
Microwave-safe plate
Trays or baking sheets (to help contain the mess)
Liquid food dye or liquid water color
Ice cube tray or water color palate
Medicine droppers or pipettes

I've seen the Ivory Experiments all over the internet. However, I found this great journal idea on 5 Orange Potatoes (she even has a free booklet that you can download). I made a modified one for us, you can grab it here.

They were so excited that they were writing a journal entry, just like on Sid the Science Kid. When I asked, if they thought the bar will stay the same or change. They both said, "Change!" Little Miss said, "It will melt"; Wild One chimed in with a "Yeah, melt."

We cut our bar in half, because I've seen how large this thing will swell. We placed it on a dinner plate (microwave-safe). Pressed two minutes on the microwave and stood back. The first ten seconds, nothing happened. They looked at me with disappointment in their eyes,

and then

Once it starts expanding, it grows pretty quickly. We stopped ours around 45 seconds.

"I can't watch. It's too exciting!"

Wild One was hopping up and down so much, saying, "Look! Look!"

That she couldn't resist, first peeking and then smiling too.

That's a full-size dinner plate, with only half a bar of Ivory on it!

Be careful, it is HOT when it first comes out of the microwave.

It sadly also deflates, just a little, as soon as you stop the microwave.

While we were waiting for it to cool off, we finished our science journal entry.

They drew a picture of what the soap looks like after it came out of the microwave.

Once cooled off (it only took a few minutes for ours to cool off), I asked if they thought it will be hard or soft. They both said soft. It looks soft, just like shaving cream. They were surprised to feel that it was hard. We used some old medicine syringes to add just a little water at a time to the soap to shape it into mini snowballs.

Little Miss wondered out loud (I'm constantly thinking out loud - it's amazing how things I did in the classroom I'm still doing today) what would happen if we used a bowl of water instead of just the medicines (the syringes). You know what would happen, I knew what would happen, but for her it's a learning opportunity, so break out the plastic bowls.

"Ooohhh, it's getting gooey."

Her next wondering question that she asked with so much excitement, "What if we use seltzer water?" I asked her what she thought might happen. "It will get bubbly, because there are bubbles in seltzer water." Ok, I see that. Again, you know what will happen and I knew what would happen. It is another learning opportunity, so off I go to get her seltzer in a bowl.

"Nope. It's the same." Meanwhile Wild One was working so hard

on wetting and molding his snowballs.

While the kids washed their hands - no soap needed. I put a drop of liquid food dye into the well of the pallet, added some water, stirred carefully. By the time the kids were done washing their hands the next part of the project was ready. Now to make our snowballs into rainbow snowballs.