Skittles Rainbow Science Investigation

We are currently learning about rainbows along with our St. Patrick’s Day activities.  As part of our exploration with rainbows, we decided to do a little investigative Skittles rainbow science.  I posed the question to my preschooler, What do you think will happen to the water when we add Skittles to it?  She hypothesized that it would make “colorful tasty water!”

Materials

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• 5 clear cups
• Skittles
• Coffee stirrer
• Room temperature water  

 Setting up the Science Experiment

Our first task was to sort the Skittles.  I asked my preschooler how she thought we should do this and she immediately said, “By colors!”  She carefully placed each color into separate piles, then decided how many Skittles would go in each cup.  I explained to her that we should choose the same amount for each cup so that our comparisons would be similar.

She decided on 5 Skittles for each cup because she’s almost five.  She loves to remind me of this every chance she gets! 

Once the Skittles were divided out, we added water at room temperature to the cups.  Almost instantaneously, the sugary color began to dissolve away.  My little one was amazed at how quickly the candies changed.  

She even pointed out how the “S” for Skittles separated from the candy and floated to the top.

After patiently waiting for some time, my little scientist then noticed how the color seemed to sink to the bottom of the cup, while all the sugar floated to the top.  We grabbed a coffee stirrer and stirred the water. 

This caused the color to move throughout the cups.  She continued to examine the physical changes to the candies, pulling some out and noticing they were significantly smaller.  

Now that it looked like a rainbow of colorful drinks, we confirmed her prediction and decided she could taste test her experiment.  As she described what her taste buds experienced with each color of the rainbow, I had to chuckle as she described red tasting like medicine, orange like orange juice, yellow like the sun, green like grass, and purple tasted like the moon!  Go figure! 

Any time we add our senses to learning, it’s a huge hit.  What are some of your favorite edible science experiments?

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Explore a rainbow theme with your preschoolers for St. Patrick’s Day or Spring. This pack includes editable lesson plans and hands-on activities for a week full of math, reading, & science learning activities. There are also many color activities included so that preschoolers can learn colors and be introduced to basic color theory. Watch this short video to see just a few examples of the types of activities and printables included in this set:

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