Bored? Try science!
Parents are finding creative new activities to pass the hours in isolation with their children — from rainbow and teddy bear scavenger hunts to buying tons of toys and re-creating their favorite Disney rides.
But there are plenty of pre-pandemic options for having educational fun indoors which can still be done in isolation: namely, science experiments.
Here are a few ways to learn about chemistry, physics and all the things you can do with random kitchen items while entertaining cooped up kids — before or after home-schooling hours.
This funny physics display requires no more than a bar of Ivory-brand soap and a microwave oven. The high air content of Ivory soap causes it to expand into a big fluffy cloud of sorts when put into the microwave for 1 to 2 minutes. Once microwaved, you can let the kids play with it — although this may result in a crumbly mess — or use it to make laundry detergent.
Get a wide bottle, food coloring, vegetable oil, water, an Alka-Seltzer tablet — and then, get groovy. Fill the bottle with oil, then water — leaving 2 to 3 inches at the top — then add 10 or so drops of color, and finally, drop in the tablet. The resulting DIY lava lamp-like visual is both pretty and a lesson in the density of water, oil and carbon dioxide gas bubbles.
Perhaps the most iconic of elementary-school science experiments, the baking-soda volcano is a tried-and-true way to get a kick while learning a little.
The first step is to build the volcano — wrapping a jar in Play-Doh will do the trick, or use papier-mâché for those feeling a bit more ambitious. Decorate it with whatever scraps you have, or some natural items from a park or yard, like pebbles, grass and flowers. Make the lava with baking soda, detergent, vinegar and warm water, add it into the volcano — and watch it erupt.
An even more simple-to-make, contained natural disaster than the baking-soda volcano is the tornado in a jar. For this, you’ll again need a mason jar, but fill it to an inch below the top with dish soap, vinegar, water and — for some extra pizzazz — glitter, and close the lid good and tight. Now, spin the jar for five seconds, and watch as a twister forms.
Here’s a way to make music without investing in a pricey instrument. Fill as many mason jars as you’d like with varying levels of water and food coloring to create a liquid rainbow. And then, have fun making sounds by tapping them with wooden sticks. (Bamboo skewers work well.) Keep one jar empty as a constant.
