Materials needed
- Liquid soap
- Food colouring
- Cotton buds
- Milk
- Shallow and wide dish
Method
1- Pour milk into shallow dish
2- Add approximately 5-6 drops of food colouring
3- Try and dip the cotton bud (without soap) into the milk and food colouring.
Observe the milk and colours and see if anything occurs?
4- Dip another cotton bud into the liquid dish soap and place it into the centre of the milk and colouring dish.
What happens now? Ask the children to describe what they see!
5- You can repeatedly remove and re-dip the cue tip into the sections with colours to see what happens. It is mesmerizing to watch!
The food colouring begins to expand, swirl and move around in the milk. It feels like magic and is fascinating to watch as the colours begin to entwine with one another and expand revealing the silky white milk beneath.
Extension ideas:
- Colour mixing- use this experiment to learn more about primary colours mixing with one another. Start with the following combinations- Yellow and blue, red and blue, yellow and red. The swirl and movement will mix the colours together to create new colour combinations.
- Try this experiment with different milk options- skim, soy, rice, etc. Does it still work? Can we compare and contrast the different reactions?
- Is there a difference in reactions if the milk used is cold, warm or heated up?