Mystery Powder

Today we did a little kitchen chemistry ...

we had planned to go out for some fun, but when an unexpected little bug hit The Boy (see how doesn't have his usual "spark"), we ended up homebound. So, I pulled together what we needed for this little investigation, and put the kids to work.

The King didn't really think much of the whole thing ... he's just happy to be here ("here" meaning anywhere within arms reach of Mommy)!

The experiment,

(which I saw on an episode of Fetch with Ruff Ruffman - yes, I watch kids' shows - I'm sure that doesn't come as any big surprise to anyone, though),

consists of gathering 6 ingredients:

baking powder

baking soda

flour

water

iodine

cabbage juice (from RED cabbage)

I made the cabbage juice simply by steaming a small head of RED cabbage until it was very tender. Then I just picked it up and squished out as much juice as I could. Nothing too technical, really.

The purpose of the experiment was to gather enough information from playing with the different powders and indicators so as to be able to figure out what a mystery powder was by using the three liquid "indicators" (water, iodine and cabbage juice).

We started by testing the three liquids on the baking powder, then the baking soda and finally, the flour. We wrote down on a little graph, what each reaction was like.

We saw some fun things, lots of fizzing and color changing ... the kids were full of ooohhhhs while they watched what happened when they put the two things together.

When it came time to guess the mystery powder, they did a phenomenal job! Looks like they just might pass Summer School!

A big thumbs up from everyone!