Hot vs. Cold

"Are we going to do the water again?" was one of the first questions asked this morning as our day started. Absolutely, we can try the water colors again! As kids settled into different small groups around the room, E & B sat at the table staring at two separate vases full of water. 

"Wait, this one feels kind of hot."

"This one feels cold!"
"Why is one hot and one cold?"
"Where did the hot and cold water come from?" 

This morning the Pine kids not only focused on just one drop, but also the difference in how the food coloring spreads in the water in hot and cold water. 

B noticed that the food coloring in the cold vase was moving slowly. 

"It kind of looks like an octopus!" 

He continued to put drops of color into the water. A group of kids surrounded the vase watching as the colors swirled around slowly. 

E began dropping water colors into the hot water. The colors were moving a little faster, but they were spreading all throughout the water. 

"Look look, it's turning purple!"

"Wow, it's like really dark and all of the colors are going to the bottom!"

The kids noticed something different about the cold water... the colors were only staying at the top. 

"The blue and red is just like at the top and not moving anywhere."

"Yeah the color is just at the top and doesn't really move."

"The other one is all purple and this one is just blue up here."

"Why won't the color go down?"

Everyone seemed to notice how the colors reacted in both hot and cold water. What we did struggle to grasp was why the colors reacted that way. We will continue to experiment with the food coloring in water and hopefully find an answer to our questions.