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Candy Science – Water Displacement Experiment

November 11, 2015
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by Nadia

When you have too much candy in the house it is time to get creative! We decided to try a candy science activity. This easy Water Displacement Experiment is a fun way to teach simple science principle to toddler, preschool, pre k, kindergarten, and first grade students.
When you have too much candy in the house it is time to get creative! We decided to try a candy science activity. This easy Water Displacement Experiment is a fun way to teach simple science principle to toddler, preschool, pre k, kindergarten, and first grade students with jelly beans.

Water Displacement Experiment

Whether you have leftover halloween candy, extra jelly beans after Easter, or you hosted a party and have way too many sweets in the house – it’s a great opportunity to sneak in a candy learning activity! This engaging Water Displacement Experiment is a great way to learn science with preschoolers, toddlers, kindergartners, and grade 1 students while having fun!

 

Water displacement experiment

Are you wondering what is water displacement?  Displacement (or moving of something, in this case water) occurs when an object is immersed in a fluid. This will result in the object pushing water out of the way and taking its place. The volume of the fluid displaced can then be measured.

Basically, in this experiment children can learn how things have mass and take up space. That when you add things to water the level of the water will rise because their is more volume in the water. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

To complete this experiment you will need the following supplies:

  • A clear glass/jar
  • Marker
  • Candy that will sink (we used one 125g packet of jelly beans)
  • Water

start my making a line where the water starts

Water displacement for kids

Add water to the glass and mark the water level with a dry erase marker if using a good glass. If you are using a clear plastic cup, you can use a sharpie marker.

Count out 10 jelly beans and add them to the water. what happened

Displacement experiment

We started with counting out 10 jelly beans and added it to the glass. Not much happened, so we added another 10 jelly beans.  I asked questions like:

  • What do you see?
  • What is happening?
  • Can you see the difference?
  • What do you think is happening?

At first my 5 year old thought the line moved(lol), but after explaining the concept of water displacement, she realized what was happening.

candy science experiment for kids

What is water displacement

Then, we added the whole bag of jelly beans and the difference in the water level was significant:

water displacement science experiment for preschool, prek, and kindergarten

This was a fun visual science experiment even my 2 and 5 year old enjoyed watching, although he won’t understand the reason yet.

 

Candy Experiment

One could change up the item you add to the glass and make predictions and comparisons too. For example:

  • How many jelly beans did we use to get the water to that level?
  • Then use bigger candy and guess how many you will need to get to the same water level. Do the experiment and see!
  • Why do you need less of a bigger candy? A bigger candy take up more space and therefor pushes the water up quicker.
  • For older kids, one can add a mathematical extension to the experiment. For example: make a graph recording how many jelly beans you throw in and then measuring the difference in the water levels.

candy experiment showing water displacement

This fun and easy candy science experiment is a must try with young learners.

 

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About the author

Nadia

Nadia is South African mom to two littlies, a former preschool teacher and currently working as a reading therapist at a remedial school. She blogs over at teach-me-mommy.com about easy and playful activities inspiring you to be your child's first teacher.

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