Your child may have fun being a scientist like the girl in the book Jobs of a Preschooler with a potato maze experiment.
To make the maze, follow the steps below.
- Gather the needed supplies: potato with an eye, shoebox with a lid, cardboard, scissors, a knife, and tape.
- Cut a large circular hole in one side corner of the shoebox. (I found the knife worked best for this.)
- Tape two pieces of cardboard (cut to fit) inside of the shoebox on opposite sides to create a maze.
- Set the potato with the eye in the shoebox on the side away from the cut hole.
- Close the lid and put the shoebox in a spot where the sun can shine through the hole. (You want light to only come in where the hole is.) Have your child hypothesize what will happen.
- After a few days, see if there have been any changes to the potato.
As you can see above, the eye of the potato sprouted and started to make its way through the maze to the hole on the opposite end of the box. It should continue to make its way through the maze as it grows towards the light. This is a fun experiment to show how plants grow towards light.
For another similar science experiment to show how plants grow towards the light, you may want to check out the shoe-box maze as seen on Plants for Kids with step-by-step photo instructions.
Here are more simple science experiments you may want to try with your little ones.
- More Potato Fun
- Simple Science Experiment: Density
- Simple Science Experiment: Chemical Reaction
- Simple Science: Do Molecules Move Faster in Cold Water or Hot Water
Brigitte Brulz 