You Should Do this....

 One of the things we're making a point of doing this summer is....Science Experiments!!

We have some friends who are going to be spending a day with us twice a month, so that's when we're going to do our experiments. I figure, if I'm going to do all the work to set it up, I want as many kids as possible to get something out of it. My goal is for them to have a decent understanding of the scientific method by the end of the summer.

This experiment was super fun, so easy and left them so excited about the next experiment we're going to do! All you need is a bar of Ivory soap and a bar of whatever soap you use...we use Olay & Dove.

The older kids filled out a printable Scientific Method Worksheet from HERE.

Our questions were:

Will the Ivory soap sink or float?

What happens when I put the soap in the microwave?

Everyone wrote out a hypothesis (educated guess) after making some observations about how much lighter the Ivory soap felt.

The Ivory soap floats. It's the only soap that floats. You can tell it's going to float when you hold it because it has a different texture and it's lighter than any other bar of soap. When Ivory soap is made they inject air into it during the process of making it so it is less dense.

Real Life Connection:

It's great to make science applicable to real life....so we talked about how we should put Ivory soap in Operation Christmas Child Shoes boxes, because it floats and the kids who will be using it are probably taking baths in a stream, river or lake. If the child drops their soap (which we all know easily happens) then it won't be lost forever. Great thing to keep in mind this fall!

Then is was time to put the soap in the microwave.

The regular soap melted and that's what they guessed would happen to the Ivory soap too, but remember...Ivory soap has tiny little air bubbles in it and hot air expands (cold air contracts..shrinks). So we cooked our Ivory soap for 2 minutes (we could have done it a little longer). After about 30 seconds the soap begins to grow like a cloud and the kids begin to squeal in amazement. Even I was impressed. Each kid got to "blow up" their own bar of Ivory soap and they got to keep it to use in the tub. It looks soft and fluffy, but it's actually hard. It's such a strange texture, you have got to try it!!

Such a fun and easy experiment!