Quick Melt

Materials:

• Salt
• cereals
• rice
• other common foods
• ice cubes
• small bowls

Your kitchen has just been transformed into a world-class laboratory. And the experiment is one of great concern to humankind!

For this kitchen chemistry experiment, place one ice cube in each of five small unbreakable bowls. Then have your child sprinkle the ice cubes with the following: flour, rice, a spice, salt, and corn starch (you can use anything you want, as long as one of the items is actually salt, and the other items contain little or no salt).

Now ask your child to observe if any of the items sprinkled on the ice cubes seem to affect how fast they melt. The salted ice cube will melt the fastest, because the salt lowers the freezing point.

Have your child experiment with other "melting agents," such as cereal, sugar, or other ingredients in your cupboard. Who knows—your child might come up with an environmentally sound way to melt ice and feed the birds at the same time.

More on: Activities for Children Ages 6-10

Excerpted from:

© 2005 by Steve and Ruth Bennett. Excerpted from 365 Unplugged Family Fun Activities with permission of its publisher, Perseus Books Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

To order this book visit perseusbooksgroup.com.