Experiment #4 : How solid substances can rise water level ?

During bed time, I read a story in English and Tamil to Katli. I narrate stories like thirsty crow, greedy fox in Tamil. Those were the stories I grew up listening to. On one particular night, he asked me how water comes up when thirsty crow throws stone into it. I said since stones are heavy and they settle at the bottom. He remembered the previous experiment we did on light and heavy object and said that's because they are heavy. I was so thrilled that he recollected it. 

I continued saying that water flows in-between the stones like how you squeeze through your caterpillar tunnel tent. He smiled. He asked whether we can try doing it at home. I was excited that he came up with the idea for our next experiment. So here we are testing with items from kitchen. 

Aim: 

To check how much water rises with three different sized items

Things needed:

• Three cups and three glasses
• Dry pinto beans, handful
• Dry mung bean, handful
• Dry mung dhal, handful
• Water as needed

Method:

1. Place the bowl and glass against each other as shown in the picture.
2. Fill the glasses with little water, make sure that they are all on the same level
3. Place the beans and lentils in the bowl
4. Ask the child to fill each glass. You can ask the child to count the beans / lentils as they add them. My son could count up to 30. You can go with whatever number the child knows. 
5. They will be excited to see the water come up. You can tell the thirsty crow story and explain it.
6. I left the beans and lentils in water overnight.
7. Next day, we made an easy microwave snack with moong dhal (Haldiram style - recipe here). You can ask the child to help as it involves no cooking. My son helped with this.
8. I plan to show the concept of germination with soaked moong dhal, that's what we do during Navaratri (Indian festival) - more details in the next post)
9. Lastly with the soaked pinto beans (recipe here), I made a simple curry for roti. 

Beans /Lentils are overnight soaking. My son said that they drank the water and became big

Tips to improvise the project:

1. They can learn counting through this experiment
2. Mix the bowls and glasses and ask the child to place it against respective colors
3. Teach them about sizes - small, medium and large
4. Remind them about our experiment on light and heavy object and keep reminding them that these solids settle at the bottom as they are heavy. Sometimes the skin might come of the bean and float, that's gives us a nice opportunity to say that light objects float. For kids to remember concepts, these things need to be said repetitively.