What you need:
- 6 cups flour
- 6 cups salt
- large shallow pan
- cinnamon
- marbles of different sizes
What to do:
- Fill a shallow pan with 6 cups each of flour and salt and mix them together.
- Smooth out the top, and then shake cinnamon on top.
- Invite your child to drop different sizes of marbles from a height of 12 inches onto the flour mix one at a time.
- Measure the width of each resulting crater.
- Record and compare the numbers. What effect does marble size have on the width of the craters? What other factors might affect the crater size — width or height? Challenge your child to design an experiment to test his theory.
Learning benefits:
- promotes comparison
- encourages observation
- develops experimentation skills