Science activities for preschoolers: 12 experiments you can do with kitchen stuff

Preschoolers are natural scientists. They poke, pour, taste (when they shouldn't), drop things and ask "why?" about everything. A simple experiment just gives that curiosity a bit of structure.

These 12 activities use ordinary kitchen supplies and take 10 to 20 minutes. Each one has a question to ask and a few words to explain what happened, without turning it into a lecture.

Before you start

• Supervise closely. These experiments are safe when an adult is right there, but several involve small parts, water or ingredients that shouldn't be eaten.
• Do it on a tray. A baking sheet or a plastic tub keeps the mess in one place.
• Guess first. Ask "What do you think will happen?" before you try anything. The guess is half the science.
• Don't worry about the right answer. Describing what they saw matters more than the explanation.

Water and floating

1. Sink or float. Fill a tub with water and test spoons, corks, coins, leaves and toy cars. Sort them into two piles. Ask, "Which things do you think will sink?"
2. Boat building. Try to make a boat from foil that holds the most coins before it sinks. Test, adjust, test again.
3. Ice melt race. Put ice cubes in different places: in the sun, in the shade, in a cup of warm water. Which melts first?

Colors and mixing

4. Color mixing. Put a few drops of food coloring in cups of water, and mix red and yellow, blue and yellow, and red and blue.
5. Walking water. Place seven cups in a row, fill the first, third, fifth and seventh with colored water, and link them with folded paper towels. Watch the colors travel and mix over an hour.
6. Rainbow in a jar. Add layers of water with different amounts of sugar and food coloring for a rainbow that stays separate. It takes patience, but the result is great.

Fizz and reactions

7. Baking soda volcano. Put a spoon of baking soda in a cup, add a drop of dish soap and some food coloring, then pour in vinegar and watch it fizz.
8. Dancing raisins. Drop raisins into a glass of clear soda or sparkling water. The bubbles lift the raisins, and they sink again when the bubbles pop.
9. Lemon fizz. Squeeze lemon juice onto baking soda and listen to it fizz.

Feel, push and pull

10. Oobleck. Mix two parts cornstarch with one part water. It's a solid when you squeeze it and a liquid when you let go. Keep it out of the sink drain.
11. Static balloon. Rub a balloon on a sweater and use it to pick up tiny pieces of paper, or make hair stand up.
12. Shadow tracing. Put a toy on paper in the sun, trace its shadow, and come back an hour later to see how it moved.

Quick safety notes

• Don't let children taste anything in these experiments, including oobleck and fizzing mixes.
• Keep balloons away from very young children, and discard broken ones right away because they're a choking hazard.
• Check for allergies before using food items, and wash hands afterwards.
• Never pour oobleck down the sink. Scrape it into the trash.

What to say

You don't need to give a science lesson. A few simple lines go a long way:

• "What do you notice?"
• "What do you think will happen next?"
• "That's surprising. Let's try it again."
• "I wonder why."

If it stalls

If it doesn't work, that's science too. Ask, "What could we change?" If they lose interest, let them play with the materials, and try again another day. Pouring and mixing is learning on its own.

More ideas

Looking for more? See our list of preschool activities, our guide to activities for kids by age and our big list of things to do with kids.