Toddler Chemistry Lab

This is something I've been wanting to try for a long time now. When I was a little girl, I used to play "chemist" in the bathtub, pouring one cup of water into another. I knew Margaret would get a kick out of a chem lab setup, but let's be honest here, I'm the one who really wanted to play with test tubes and petri dishes and pretty colored liquids.

I purchased the test tubes and stand from Amazon. The tubes hold (l-r): vinegar with liquid watercolor, water with liquid watercolor, olive oil, dish soap, straight liquid watercolor.

The petri dishes are also from Amazon. They hold: crushed Alka Seltzer tablets, food coloring,

baking soda, corn starch,

food coloring, (not pictured) bath tablets, and (not pictured)shaving cream.

Tools: whisk from Ikea kitchen play set, droppers, coffee stir sticks, measuring spoons from Dollar Tree. I also offered empty glass baby food jars, not pictured.

Vinegar bottle from Dollar Tree holds white vinegar. Salt and pepper shakers, also from Dollar Tree, hold baking soda and corn starch.

When Margaret woke up from her nap, I told her there was a fun surprise waiting outside. She ran out and got straight to work. She was very focused throughout the activity, and she didn't speak much. I offered some vocab and descriptions, "Whoa, that made it thicken!" "When you stir it quickly, the bubbles grow!" but she was just too into it to respond. She did let out a few "Oh my!"s, though! I didn't guide her as to what would react to what, preferring to let her freely explore and find out for herself.

By pure chance, she chose to add the vinegar to the baking soda first thing!

Water in corn starch

Dish soap with Alka Seltzer

Oil on shaving cream (liquid watercolor on bath color tab beside it)

She broke out the vinegar and poured it into each dish.

She always wants to shake salt into her food at restaurants, so using the shakers was a big treat for her.

Then she moved into the droppers and transferred the liquids between the dishes.

The shaving cream was my favorite.

She said she was measuring the powder like Daddy does when he's cooking.

Then she began transferring the liquids into jars and back into the tubes with droppers and spoons.

She got braver as she went on and started overflowing the dishes with explosions.

This is the last picture I got before my camera battery died, but she kept going until all the solutions were gone.

I was worried this activity would be a once and done sort of thing, but she was enthralled until the very end, a good hour and a half. She likely would have kept at it if the liquids had held out longer. Now that she's familiar with the concept, I'd like to try some extension activities I was dreaming up while she played. There are so many more substances that can be used for this, and now that she knows the properties of the ones we've already used, we can build on that. I'm also planning to do a glowing "mad scientist" extension sometime soon.