Oil & Water Rainy Day Summer Science Experiment

A rainy afternoon leads to adventure of the science kind around here. I like when I hear Liam say, “Yay a science experiment!” I wish I could let you hear the way he pronounces it and draws out different words to show true excitement! We were a little late starting lessons this week, so I knew I had a list a mile long of lessons I wanted to accomplish and a science experiment was one of them. Delivered right to my inbox was a brand new post featuring a science experiment using oil and water. One of my favorites, B-Inspired Mama (click here) was featuring this post written by Mom’s Crafty Space (click here) had a great idea that we could also do our spin on!

Here’s what you need:

• As many empty containers with lids as you want to make  (look through your recycling)! We had water bottles from vacations but definitely mason jars or glass juice jars or pickle jars too!
• Oil
• Water
• Food Coloring
• containers to mix food coloring and water (we used our science set of test tubes)
• hot glue gun (optional to seal lids, we did not seal them and it seems to be okay)
• funnel is quite helpful depending on container opening size
• the ever faithful dollar store try to make a neat work space!

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Liam is expected to wait patiently for the materials to be assembled. He is also expected not to dig in until the instructions are given. This keeps him calm and focused as his little body is always in continuous motion whether he means to or not. Some activities, like sensory bins or sensory play, I let him test about before requesting anything of him. However, science experiments are a bit more precise and require attention to detail and careful movements so we talk about this and work together slowly, but he can’t really try anything out before we start. He is fine with this!

Step 1:

Pour Oil into container (funnel helpful)! This is also great for developing practical life skills and fine motor skills!

Step 2:

Pour colored water into container (again funnel helpful!) feel free to have your child help you mix the water and food coloring as well since that is a great preschool experiment all in itself and can help lengthen the time spent on the project but in an interesting and engaging way!

Step 3:

Discuss what you see the happening! The water is heavier than the oil so it sinks to the bottom and the oil floats on top! After a little bit, you can really see a clear separation between the two.

What happens when you shake it? What happens if you turn the bottle over?

Liam was very attentive and excited with this very cool and simple science experiment! I think he would have done another 6 bottle if I had enough oil or 6 more bottles!

What have you done for a science experiment lately? Maybe we can try it next week! Leave me a comment about it or a link your post!

Also check out Teaching Mama and her post on Making a Homemade Lava Lamp (here) She has tons of great stuff to look through as well