

Ask HN: Science for the very young? - timwiseman

My son is just about to turn 5 and I am looking for "science experiments" or projects we can do together to help get him interested (and give me an excuse to do some of them).<p>Any suggestions, especially on a budget?
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zoba
I think anything that "looks cool" will be good for getting a kid interested
in science. Once you've got him/her hooked, then you can start on the actual
scientific method. To that end, science things that look cool:

Cymatics: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iXY2BE1S8Q>

Ferrofluid: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpBxCnHU8Ao>
<http://www.gaussboys.com/ndfeb-magnets/FerroFluid25>

Non Newtonian Liquids: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5SGiwS5L6I>
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XQ97XHjVw>

Microcontrollers:
[http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=211799...](http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2117994)
(maybe not the best for a 5 year old, but in a couple years)

Make a Speaker for cheap (haven't done this one myself):
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m8fbnShPcw>

Electromagnets: <http://education.jlab.org/qa/electromagnet.html>

Finally, one project I did with my little brother that I thought was cool. I
got a frequency analyzer for my computer (
<http://www.relisoft.com/Freeware/freq.html>) and then filled glass cups with
varying amounts of liquid. Then we ran our fingers around the lip of the glass
to get it to "sing" and measured the frequency. We were able to come up with a
function for X amount of liquid gives you X frequency. I thought this was
great because: it was really appealing to my brother (he was 10 or so at the
time) because all kids like making cups make noise, we got to do scientific
method (hypothesis being more water in the glass) will make a lower frequency,
I got to teach him about graphing, how to get a forumla for a line on a graph,
and finally we could use that line to predict things to see if we were right.

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sga
You could have a lot of fun with an inexpensive microscope (look at a number
of different materials, bugs, etc..) or even a set of magnifying glasses. Get
your hands on some polarizers, play with the affect of one and your ability to
look into bodies of water (pool, lake, etc) show him that if you cross the
polarizers you can't see through. Couple the polarizers to the microscope and
do some polarization microscopy. You could also play with prisms and look at
the dispersion of light. Lots of good optics stuff out there. I would highly
recommend staying away from lasers until he's older.

You might also consider doing some crystallization experiments (google
"crystal projects for kids").

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Aron
Throw some pepper on a bowl of water, and touch it with a soaped finger.

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blender
Also Baking Soda + Vinegar, add some red food coloring for lava effect

~~~
timwiseman
Great suggestion. First one we did. He loves it. If you add a drop of dish
soap it gets more bubbly and looks more like lava.

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zck
Show him videos on youtube of various science experiments or lectures. When he
seems interested in an idea, work with him to create an experiment, find the
items, and perform it.

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aheilbut
That photosensitive paper that lets you make 'photographs' of objects (like
leaves and rocks) was pretty fun.

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aheilbut
Get him one of those one-volume kids' science encyclopedias to carry around.

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aheilbut
You'd have to build it, but how about model rockets?

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blender
Diet Coke + Mentos

