We had an amazing beach trip to Perdido Key, FL a few weeks ago. Allie and Avery enjoyed the sand but Andrew was not so happy with the sand OR the waves. He preferred to go to the nearby pool and swim. At one point he asked us how he could turn off the waves and get rid of the sand!
Needless to say I thought he would appreciate this experiment by keeping the waves IN a bottle.
Here’s what you need:
- empty bottle (these are nice since they are only $1 at Target)
- vegetable oil
- water
- sea creatures (I used these…)
Here’s how to make your wave in a bottle:
- fill the bottle halfway with water
- put a few drops of blue food coloring in water
- place sea creatures in bottle
- fill the bottle the rest of the way with vegetable oil
- take super glue or a hot glue gun and seal off the lid (to prevent oily messes!)
What’s the science? This is a lesson on density and what liquids will float on top of each other. Like salad dressing, the vegetable oil floats on top of the water. Its fun to see where the sea creatures end up floating. Ours always tend to stay right at the water/oil interface.
Andrew thought this was pretty amazing to watch a wave this way…. Thanks to seeing “Finding Dory” early this summer he wanted to know where his favorite creature Hank the Octopus was!
I thought you’d like to see a few pictures from our Florida trip…
We stayed up late to catch sand crabs one night… Allie caught them with her bare hands! Andrew enjoyed checking them out in the bucket!
When the littles were napping, we stayed inside and played games. Allie loved playing Periodic Table Battle ship. Guess who was winning? You can find the instructions here.
And of course Miss Avery thoroughly enjoyed the white sand of Florida. It was a sensory experience at is finest!
This was a great experiment to remember the summer days… We hope you have an amazing start back to school.
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