Inspiring toddlers with chemistry
175 minutes for chemistry
Michael Reynolds spent his Time4Chem at his son’s nursery in Jesmond, Newcastle, recruiting them as their own research group and getting them involved with science.
On 12 December I went to my son’s nursery to do some chemistry-based activities with his playgroup – the Dolphin group, aged 28–32 months. For one hour they became the Dolphin Research Group.
First I gave each of the children and staff a sticker with the research group logo that they could put on their shirts. I then had some disposable lab coats, which most of the kids wore at some point – the stickers and dressing up was a great way to get them excited.
We then did a few experiments that I led with the help of the nursery staff. The first (and what seemed to work best) was playing with red cabbage-dyed paper and squirting it with pipettes of lemon juice or baking soda. The fun happened when they switched solutions and saw it fizzing on the paper. I used filter paper and standard A4 printer paper and the results went home in the form of a chemis-tree bauble.
The second experiment was wax-reveal painting. First they drew some shapes and pictures on a piece of paper using wax crayons (any colour, including clear). They then painted over their crayon artwork with watercolour paints. The trick to this is using really diluted paint so the wax shows up underneath. It didn't work as well as planned but the kids loved getting creative and as I said to the staff "a messy lab is a busy lab".
The third experiment was chromatography baubles – using felt pen to make drawings and scribbles on filter paper that was then folded and "developed" in a cup of water. This also didn't work as well as I'd hoped, but again, the kids really enjoyed themselves.
The fourth and final experiment was dipping a washing-up liquid tipped cotton bud in milk dosed with food colouring. The food colourings I had reacted with each other so I had to do one colour at a time. Although they were interested, they'd been sitting down a long time by this point and were itching to get active.
Finally, I left some of the bits and pieces behind should the staff want to try something themselves with any of the other groups. I had also prepared instructions to pass on to the parents so they can repeat the experiments at home, with explanations of the chemistry going on and where chemists use these phenomena today.
In summary: stickers, dressing up, painting and creative activities worked really well. All the experiments captured their interest and curiosity but the red cabbage dyed paper was by far the best received. I'd recommend limiting the whole activity to 45 mins as after this they're itching to be active again – maybe a chemistry-themed dance to finish off? Finally, and I think the most important for this age group – the fact sheets for the parents and encouraging them to try this at home. I think it makes a great rainy-day activity that inspires their creative and curious natures.
My son often talks about his "Dad the scientist who researches things" and his friends were pestering their parents to do chemistry at home. The nursery staff were impressed with the activities and would like me to go back and work with the other age groups when I have time.
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175 minutes for chemistry
As the oldest chemical society in the world, we celebrated our 175th anniversary in 2016. We wanted to mark this milestone by recognising the important contributions our community makes to the chemical sciences. We asked our members and supporters to dedicate 175 minutes to chemistry in 2016 and share their stories with us. We featured these stories throughout the year on our website, in print in RSC News, and on social media using #time4chem.