Instant Science Lessons: Science Toys!

 I love toys!  They can teach, too!  Let’s put together some instant lessons with science toys. These articles, ‘The Joy of Toys’, Chemecology, and ‘‘The History of Toys’ offer a bit of background. Here  are several toy recipes.  I tried to combine a fun lab or activity with an article and video.  So many toys!  So many lessons!  So much fun!   

Magic Sand: Here is a Magic Sand lab lesson.  Here is a very old ChemMatters article about Magic Sand.  Below is a Mystic Sand video from Flinn.  Mystic sand and Magic Sand are the same.

Instant Snow:  There are many, many brands of Instant Snow.  Here is a lab lesson.  This article about artificial snow is more related to snow than polymer snow.  It’s still interesting.  

Drinking Bird:  The Amazing Drinking Bird has both an article and an activity.  

Hand Boiler: Here are several ideas to try with the toy.  Teaching with Toys explains both the Drinking Bird and the Hand Boiler-two toys with very short half-lives in any classroom.

Color Change Toys: The color changing duck contains thermochromic ink, ink which changes colors at different temperatures.  Buy a toy; there is no easy thermochromic experiement.

Grow Creatures: Here is a Growing Toys lab. We like to use water beads.  HST Water Beads has project ideas.

Mystical Tree:  You can copy this toy with Crystal Trees and Gardens.  Here is the original recipe with an explanation.  The crystals grow in a few days.  

Shrinky Dinks: These are #6 plastic.  Here are instructions.

Silly Putty:  Here is an easy to do DIY version of silly putty. Read all about The Science of Slime and watch this adorable video.

Self-Inflating Balloons: Here and here, and here are ACS lab lessons about self-inflating balloons with a video.  They have similar content; one version is much more detailed; another is a presenter’s guide for demos.

Density Bottles:  I had to order another Poly Density Bottle. Mine disappeared.  I use the bottle to ask teens to explain why they separate and finally settle in the middle.  It’s my intro to density.  Here and here are DIY versions of the density bottle. The white beads are UV beads, with a different density than ordinary pony beads.  What even more?  Here is an ACS article, ‘The Dynamic Density Bottle.’  It is a deep dive into the Density Bottle.  

Magic Rocks: Make Your Own Magic Rocks is expensive to make.  Trust me I’ve priced this experiment.  The rocks are salts in sodium silicate solution, also called water glass.  MEL Artificial Sea Chemistry Kit has sodium silicate solution. Just buy a Magic Rocks or Artificial Sea kit unless you happen to have the required chloride salts.

The Diving Submarine and Squidy are still available.  Here is Educational Innovations’ website with a description, explanation, and a video.

Squidy, above, is a Cartesian Diver.  Make an ACS Cartesian Diver or a Steve Spangler Diving Ketchup diver.  Both have mini lessons with explanations.