What is the Fascination With Sticking Things In Water Bottles?

I had to chuckle the other night when my friend posted a picture of her water bottle with a piece of pink paper stuck inside.  Under the picture she asked, "What is the fascination with sticking things in water bottles?"  And I chuckled because she is so right.  Toddlers and preschoolers have this fascination with sticking whatever is accessible into bottles, whether there is water or not.  My theory?  Good old cause and effect.  What could possibly be more fun when learning about physics than figuring out if something will sink, float, make a noise, dissolve, mix, etc.?  I mean really!  I have fun with it.

It also reminded me of a science experiment the boys and I did the other day, involving baby oil, water, corn syrup, glitter, and water bottles.  Sounds messy and fun, right?  The experiment itself, is very basic science, but the process of going through it is what matters and helps the kiddos remember what they learn.

Start with the three water bottles.  Fill one all the way to the top with water, while only filling the other two half way with water.  I put out two clear cups, and filled one with baby oil and one with corn syrup.  My reasoning is that I wanted the boys to be able to manipulate what they were adding to the water later, and so they could guess what would happen to the water when the substances were added.  Think basic hypothesizing skills.

In the bottle full of water, I had them put glitter in using a funnel.  This way when they shake and roll the bottles around, it would be easier for them to see how the water moved.  The next bottle I had them guess what would happen when we added the corn syrup to the water, and Pierce guessed it would sink. Carter is too young to really guess at this point.  What Carter did enjoy was adding glitter and coloring the water prior to adding the corn syrup.  The logic behind coloring the water was again, to make it easier to see what would happen when the clear corn syrup was added.  The final bottle was done the same way as bottle #2, except we filled the rest with baby oil.

After the water bottles were all manipulated, I sealed the caps by putting duct tape around the top of all of our bottles, to avoid any sampling down the road.  And then the real exploring began; they went to town mixing the bottles, manipulating the bottles, and watching the swirls of glitter in each of the bottles.