Floating Egg Science Experiment-Comparing Eggs

This week’s theme for Discover & Explore is science experiments. We love to do simple science experiments! I’m excited to see what everyone has to share so we can try a few new ones soon.

In the classroom the kids were always amazed to see this egg trick I found at Funolgy.  It’s simple and quick, but there’s a lot of learning involved too. Lovey and I recently tried a variation of the traditional experiment. We were boiling eggs for breakfast, and Lovey noticed that the eggs in the pan sink to the bottom. I decided to set up this experiment so we can do a little learning before breakfast.

Materials

• Two glasses 2/3 full of water
• Two containers of salt (Lovey measured 3/4 of a cup, but you could do the experiment with a bit less.)
• One raw egg
• One hard-boiled egg (Mark one egg so you can tell the difference.)

Predictions

Based on Lovey’s observation earlier that morning. We discussed what we thought might happen. She predicted that the hard-boiled egg would sink and turn the water hot. (We had cooled it by running cold water over it, but it was still warm.) She predicted that the raw egg would float and turn the water cold.

Procedure

First she dropped the raw egg into the water.

Then she dropped the hard-boiled egg into the water. Both of them sank to the bottom.

Then she slowly poured the salt into the glass with the raw egg. She didn’t think anything was going to happen.

But WOW was she surprised when that egg popped to the top!

Why? Adding salt changes the density of the water, so the egg floats to the top.

Then she added salt to the glass with the hard-boiled egg to see if it would float, too.

And it did!

After finishing the experiment, she wondered whether she could make the egg sink again. She poked at it a bit and had fun watching push its way back to the top each time.

After doing this activity she showed what she had learned in various ways. While cooking with my mother she mentioned they could add water to make things float in their pot. And while playing with pumpkins in the water table, she noted that they float even if there was no salt in the water. I see even more explorations with water density in our future!

Get a Full Week of Egg Theme Learning and Play

Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.

This set includes active hands-on learning ideas and the following printables:

1) Egg Beginning Sound Sorting Activity
2) Uppercase and Lowercase Egg Puzzles
3) 0-35 Egg Number Cards
4) 1-20 Number Basket Sorting Mats
5) Numbers and Sets Matching Puzzles (2 variations for differentiated instruction)
6) Oviparous Animals Emergent Reader (2 variations)
7) 4 Math Game Cubes
8) Egg Cards (for patterning, sorting, and ordering by size)
9) Oviparous and Non Oviparous Animal Sorting Activity
10)Oviparous animal word cards

Get Your Lesson Plans

Home Preschool Egg  Theme Lesson Plans

Preschool Classroom Egg Theme Lesson Plans

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It includes 40 educational projects and 20 printables including a set of build-your-own 3D shape blocks, engineering challenge cards and a range of math games.

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