Science Experiments Water Displacement

Have you ever heard to the fable of the Crow and the Pitcher by Aesop? In the story a very thirsty crow finds a pitcher with just a little bit of water in it. Oh! How he wants to have a sip of that water! This science experiment follows the story of how the crow gets to the water in the pitcher. Rather than literally repeat the science experiment the crow did we used supplies that would be a little bit more kid friendly.

 

You start this experiment by adding water to the cup. We held the cup up to the faucet and eyeballed the amount of water and guessed it was 1/4 of the way full. You could place a mark a 1/4 away from the bottom of the cup. Your children could fill the cup up to that line.

 

Then it is time to start adding the beans with the chopsticks. We found that we could add one big bean or several small beans at a time with the chopsticks.

At first there seemed to be very little change in the water level as the beans were dropped in with the chopsticks. As we added more and more beans the water slowly started to rise. It took a little patience on our part.

Your children will notice that the water level is rising, but there isn’t a huge pool of water at the top. There is some, but much of the water is nestled in the beans.

Hint 1: If you want to see the water rise faster, you may want to use a measuring cup to add bean and not chopsticks. Chopsticks are great for working on fine motor skills though. We use them a lot.

 

When the experiment is complete you will want to talk about what your children noticed during the experiment. You may even want them to summarize what happened on paper. They might even add a crow to their pictures.​

Deirdre is the author of JDaniel4’s Mom where she shares other learning activities, printables crafts, and food creations. She loves growing and learning beside her son. You may enjoy her Summer Reading punch card and water discovery center. She can be found on Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram.