The water-candle experiment is a great early science activity to try out with kids. We tried it with our almost 3-year-old many many times and he insists almost daily to repeat it.
If you want to know more about the science behind, you can read here (Harvard.edu).
Safe science experiments at home are a great way to ignite the natural curiosity of your little one early on. We chose this one, because Aiden loves water and fire. And it did not include any explosion or mess.
So, well worth to try it out! Here is what you need.
Materials for the Water-Candle Experiment
To do it at home, we used few things from our kitchen:
- A clear glas bowl filled with some water.
- A tea light
- Small glas jar
- Lighter
Instructions
And that’s how it worked.
First, we placed the clear glas bowl with the water on his activity table. We divided the responsibilities – I was the one responsible to light up the tea light and place it into the water and Aiden was the one who covers the burning candle with the glas jar. Perfect!
After some seconds, the candles starts to dim and goes out. When the candle goes out, the water rises into the glas jar. The water level stays up for few minutes more, if your impatient toddler does not take the glas jar first and asks you over and over to repeated it again.
This simple science water-candle experiment for kids, has at least two aspects – a chemical and a physical one. Both a chemical and a physical reasoning are needed to explain what we can see. I found it a little bit challenging to explain it to my toddler, so we just enjoyed the science in action over and over again.
Here is a short video of one of our scientific sessions.
Happy Experimenting!
If you need more activity ideas, here is where you can find them!
