Fireworks in a Glass
Red, yellow, green, blue food colouring
Warm water
Oil (vegetable, olive – any will work)
1. Fill a glass 3\4 full of warm water
2. In a separate glass add a few table spoons of oil and a drop
each of the food colouring
3. Using a fork, give the food colouring mixture a good mix to
break up the ‘colour beads’ into smaller ones
4. Carefully pour the oil and food colouring mixture into the glass
of warm water and wait for magic to happen!
How it works
Food colouring dissolves in water but not in oil. Oil is less dense
than water, so the oil will float to the top of the glass. As the
colour drops sink to the bottom of the oil, they mix with the
water. The colour defuses outwards as the heavier coloured
drop falls to the bottom.
Sinking and floating
When your child is bathing give him/her various objects that
sink and float. Talk about how everything is made up of
molecules and the tighter they are packed together the heavier
they are.
We talked about molecules last week in relation to heat/cold
and will be discussing them this week.