Easy Montessori Science Experiments to Do at Home

Easy home science projects are a simple and fun way to do something educational at home with your kids. Even if your child is currently attending their Montessori daycare program, it’s likely that many or most of their favorite extracurricular activities are on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fill up the time with science experiments you can do with what you probably already have lying around the house. Here are 5 few Montessori-inspired activities to try at home with the kids:

Materials:

• Bucket or tub of water
• A variety of small objects can get soaking wet. Ensure that you have a somewhat equal number of objects that will sink and those that will float

How to Do it:

1. Choosing an object, you know will sink and one you know will float, demonstrate placing it into the water to see whether it sinks or floats.
2. Let your child test the remaining collected objects.
3. Send your child on a “hunt” around the house for more objects to test (check first that they are OK to be dropped into a bucket of water!).
4. Optional: Create a T-chart to record the results.

Materials:

• A variety of small objects can be broken. Ensure that some of them will snap in two (like a piece of dry spaghetti) and some of them will only bend (like a plastic straw).

How to Do it:

1. Choosing an object, you know will bend and one you know will break, demonstrate slowly folding it in two at the midpoint and note whether it bends or breaks.
2. Let your child test the remaining collected objects.
3. Send your child on a “hunt” around the house for more objects to test (check first that they are OK to be bent or broken!).
4. Optional: Create a T-chart to record the results.

Materials:

• Celery sticks, as fresh as possible
• Food coloring (blue or red work best)
• Small vases or glasses of water to put the celery into

How to Do It:

1. Cut the celery into 5-to-8-inch pieces and place the stalks into vases or cups of freshwater. Be sure that the bottom end of each stalk has a fresh cut before putting it into the water.
2. Add several drops of food coloring to the water.
3. Wait overnight.
4. Bisect the celery stalks with a knife.
5. Observe the cross-sections. The food coloring will have colored only the xylem, the tubes through which plants bring water up. The other part is the phloem (the fibrous pieces that are not colored). The phloem is tubes that bring “food” down the plant via photosynthesis.
6. Optional: Allow kids to further dissect the plant parts, with safe tools

Materials:

• Glass
• Pitcher
• Water
• Coins

How to Do It:

1. Have the child fill the glass nearly to the top, using the pitcher. Finish up yourself to make sure the water stops nearly at the rim.
2. Demonstrate carefully (to avoid splashing) dropping a coin into the glass and observing the water’s surface.
3. Have your child continue to drop one coin at a time into the water, each time observing the water’s surface at the glass’s rim. You will notice that the surface tension keeps the water from spilling, even when it passes the top of the glass.
4. Repeat the experiment, counting how many coins it takes for the water tension to break and for the water to spill out.