Everyone likes experiments, especially easy ones that can keep a child engaged. In this activity your child will be able watch water walk. Yup, you heard that right, they will be able to participate in an experiment that shows how water can transfer from one paper towel to the next.
What You’ll Need:
- Small plastic cups or bowls
- Paper towels
- Food coloring in Primary colors
- Water
Let’s Get Started:
- First, place 6 cups/bowls in a row and pour water in the 1st, 3rd, and 6th cup. My cups were about 3/4 full.
- Next, you will add food coloring to your cups of water. This is a great opportunity to discuss colors with your child. Name them out loud as you go. Allow them to help stir in the drops. Here, they will be practicing their self help skills as they stir!
- Add 5 drops of red food coloring to the 1st cup.
- Add 5 drops of yellow food coloring to the 3rd cup.
- Add 5 drops of blue food coloring to the 6th cup.
- Next, take a half sheet of paper towel and fold it in half lengthwise and in half again lengthwise.
- Trim off some of the length so that there isn’t too much excess paper towel that will stick up in the air between each cup. This will make the water walk more quickly. (Keep any scissor or sharp object away and out of reach at all times. If you want to avoid using scissors, you can simply keep them longer or tear an end off with your fingers).
- Next, place one half of a rolled paper towel in the 1st cup and place the other half in the cup next to it. Then another paper towel from 2nd cup and into the 3rd cup. This continues until you have placed the last paper towel that drapes over from the 5th cup to the 6th cup.
- Now you can stare at the cups and watch what starts happening. You should quickly be able to see the colored water begin to crawl up the paper towel.
If you want to make this activity a learning experience about experiments you can have your child create a prediction on what different colors might be made with red, yellow, and blue being mixed together. It will not only help children to understand how plants drink water, but it will also help them to learn what colors to mix to get a non-primary color (purple, green, and orange). This will also encourage your child to think about what will happen and understand what the words prediction (TO MAKE A GOOD GUESS) and observation (WHAT YOU SEE HAPPEN) mean.
Clean Up:
Simply pour out the water and hang your new colored paper towels up to try outside or in a space that would allow some dripping of colored water.