M is for Magic Milk

Today’s letter M project was magic milk! This is one of our favorite science experiments to do at home. It’s super easy to set up and so much fun for the kids! As you might know, we are focusing on the letters in Mack’s name and building our projects around those letters. I like to teach phonics this way as so that the sounds are more meaningful. I feel like Mack will learn and remember more if I center things around hands-on learning. 

So, for this experiment you will need:

-Whole milk

-Dish soap

-Food coloring

-Q-tips

I like to let the kids measure and pour as often as they can. It is great motor practice!

Ava (12 months) is excited about these new responsibilities!

Once you have a thin layer of milk in your container, add some food coloring in different areas.

Dip the q-tip in the dish soap and place the tip in the milk. You don’t need to swirl the milk around to see the magic happen, just hold it there and watch it work! I know the pictures don’t do this much justice but it is so cool. The reaction between the milk and the soap makes the milk ‘move’ around the container. The only need for the food coloring is really so that you can see how much movement there is in the milk. And any time you tell kids that something is magic, it is instantly cool. 

I like to choose primary colors when we do this so that we can also talk about color mixing!

Once we had finished with the experiment I gave Mack some paper and let him paint with his milk-covered q-tips. The green color that we ended up with inspired some really great Ninja Turtles!