Magic Milk Experiment

[Inspired by Reggio]

We are exploring the letter M sound this month so I did this with the crew this afternoon!

Just wanted to share that they were mesmerized with it for over 20 minutes ... 4 boys under the age of 4 excited about dancing milk!

I :wub: when you can do something so simple and yet so magical that at pick up time all they can talk about to the parents is how the milk dances and went 'bluum bluum' as they show with their hands how it exploded in the bowl ... 20 minutes well spent this afternoon!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-bn9zssak

[KingstonMom]

I've never heard of magic milk! What is it? Do you have a link or anything? Thanks!!

[Inspired by Reggio]

Dose the imbedded Youtube video I shared not show up for you ~ it is there for me when I look?

Just in case here is link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-bn9zssak

[sunnydays]

Thanks! I am definitely going to do this tomorrow :) Looks like a snow day...my 4.5 year old will be home...this will definitely be fun to keep he and his friends busy ;) Did you give them each a dish to do it themselves? I am thinking of giving each a small bowl to try after demonstrating...

[Inspired by Reggio]

....Did you give them each a dish to do it themselves...

Yup ... I role modeled with all of them and than they each got their own turns except the 10 month old ~ he just watched the rest of them giggling ... we did choose to do it 'one at a time' and take turns with the bowl and so forth ... for two reasons ~ I have one almost 4 year old whose working on 'waiting his turn' so this was something exciting to keep him focused while waiting for his turn and shamefully the second reason is you use quite a bit of food coloring and with 4 boys I did not want a dish of food coloring going flying in the kitchen while I was looking one way or another between them all .... but if you think your crew can manage with their own bowls I would so go for it ... outside I would but inside I admit I am a bit more cautious with the messy stuff cause we've just renovated our kitchen last year and my spouse will kill me if I stain our new cupboards with craft stuff cause he wanted to wait until I retired and I pushed to do it now :o

[daycaremum]

Does anyone know the science behind this so I can explain it to my school age children?

[Inspired by Reggio]

I kept it simple for the preschoolers with just the soap added to the mix makes the milk feel relaxed with less tension and allows the food coloring to dance around through it bouncing into each other and the relaxing soap ... but the more complex language and descriptions as to why for older kids ....

http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryhowtoguide/a/magicmilk.htm

Milk consists of a lot of different types of molecules, including fat, protein, sugars, vitamins, and minerals. If you had just touched a clean cotton swab to the milk (try it!), not much would have happened. The cotton is absorbent, so you would have created a current in the milk, but you wouldn't have seen anything especially dramatic happen.

When you introduce detergent to the milk, several things happen at once. The detergent lowers the surface tension of the liquid so that the food coloring is free to flow throughout the milk. The detergent reacts with the protein in the milk, altering the shape of those molecules and setting them in motion. The reaction between the detergent and the fat forms micelles, which is how detergent helps to lift grease off of dirty dishes. As the micelles form, the pigments in the food coloring get pushed around. Eventually equilibrium is reached, but the swirling of the colors continues for quite a while before stopping.

[mimi]

As usual another great idea from Reggio:) Thanks I'm going to do this tomorrow

[bright sparks]

Thanks for sharing. This is a wonderful activity ill be sharing with my kiddos

[KingstonMom]

I couldn't wait and did it with my kids (and husband) before the kids went to bed. It worked pretty good, but not the same, amazing results like in the video. I was using Sunlight detergent, so I may pick up some Dawn sometime! Also, since Reggio, you said it affects the fat in the milk, I am curious if it would work better in Homo milk! Ill be experimenting with this some more! Thanks again! :)

[apples and bananas]

That was the greatest thing that I've ever seen! Thanks.

[Inspired by Reggio]

...I am curious if it would work better in Homo milk! ...

Yes I believe they mention that near the end of the video ~ I used homo and the boys 'colors' kept dancing in their bowls for 20 minutes before finally turning to brown/green mess!

Also their food coloring looked like the 'high quality' stuff in that video the stuff in the baking shops verses the 'cheap stuff' in the grocery store that might make a difference to the vibrant colors they got ... our yellow was not nearly that 'wow' for example?

[Dreamalittledream]

Thank you so much for posting this! We had fun with that this morning! Not as wow results (still cool though!) as in the video but as usual the process was 80% of the fun...definitely pick up some homo milk to try with.
They also loved painting their paper towels with the colored milk & Q tips afterward:)

[Inspired by Reggio]

....They also loved painting their paper towels with the colored milk & Q tips afterward:)

Glad it was enjoyed ... if you do this on actual paper it dries very cool ... with like a 'shiny' texture.

[kidlove]

Thanks Reggio, can't wait til we get to letter M!!!!!! so cool! ;)

[sunnydays]

We tried it this morning and it worked really well :) The kids loved it and it helped pass a snowy day stuck inside (too cold to go out...yet again!). They were a bit impatient and moved their q-tips too early, so didn't get 20 minutes out of it, but they really enjoyed swirling the colours with their q-tips after the initial explosion of colours...it made really beautiful designs in the bowl :) Mine worked pretty much like in the video. I wish I had thought of painting with the q-tips afterwards...it seems like such a waste of milk to just throw it out after! Oh well, next time!

[Inspired by Reggio]

...it seems like such a waste of milk to just throw it out after! Oh well, next time!

I agree ~ do you have daycare children who always leave that 'ounce' behind in their cup at meal time cause if so you could so 'recycle' that into a container in the fridge that says 'do not drink for an experiment' and save up for a few days to get enough so you are not really 'wasting' it cause we end up tossing those little bits down the drain anyway ;)

[sunnydays]

Thanks Reggio! I never thought of this, but I throw milk out every day...I am totally going to have a container going now so we can repeat this experiment again and again...and next time we will paint with it as well :)

[Inspired by Reggio]

Waste not want not ~ my mother is a 'hoarder' so I come by the reuse thinking naturally ;)

[MonkeyMamma]

This is a GREAT idea!!!!!

[jodaycare]

We did something similar to this a couple of weeks ago except we didnt use the q-tips, we just dropped a drop of the dish soap into the food colouring, same effect though. The kids loved it. We used homo milk and it worked just fine.

[cfred]

OMG! I remember this from college! I did it in a placement and had it in my resource file (which I threw out during my move). So going to do this with daycare kids when they're a little bit bigger. Thanks for the reminder of this great activity Reggio! I had completely forgotten about it.

[mamabearto3]

this is awesome im going to try that with kiddies right now!:woot: