Watercolour and Salt. Science and Art exploration for kids

Watercolour paper, salt and watercolour paint come together to create some incredible results. What makes the best results? That's what you'll need to explore!

My clever friend, Asia, from Fun at Home with Kids has been at it again and produced her 2nd fabulous children's book, "The Curious Kid's Science Book." We were thrilled to receive our copy and began pouring over it immediately.

The book is set out beautifully with bright, bold imagery, just waiting to entice you and the kids into creating, exploring and experimenting. 

Whilst specific recipes and experiments will lay out all the step-by-step instructions that you need, I love that much of the book encourages you to actually do the experimenting and exploring yourself, which is so important!

We were drawn to the beautiful salt and watercolour exploration and decided it would be our first activity from the book. 

With this style of activity, we had the material list and a basic idea of what to do. 

As for an exact method, well, that bit was up to us and required us to actually think about the different ways and amounts of water and salt, in order to achieve different results. 

It also allowed us to talk about and reflect upon our observations whilst creating and formulate our own conclusions. 

All very scientific and more interesting than being told exactly what to do to create an exact result.

Here's what we came up with.

Materials: Squares of watercolour paper, salt, watercolour paint (we used liquid watercolour here), brushes.

"Where to start Mum?"
"Just go for it! Use the materials, see what happens."

Should you put the watercolour/water down first or the salt? My kids discovered the answer to that pretty quickly.

 What if you use barely any water? Why do you think it doesn't work?

What is happening to the salt? My kids remembered the word "absorption" here! Yes, it is absorbing the liquid.

 

Can you use the salt to draw certain colours across your pattern?

What colour changes do you see occurring? What is happening?

How will they look when they dry?

Beautiful! Time to reflect on what gave our favourite results and what method we used to obtain them.

The Curious Kid's Science Book. 100+ Creative Hands-on Activities for Ages 4-8,  would make a fabulous gift (especially if you combine it with a few goodies required for creating and exploring some of the scientific concepts covered in the book). It's available worldwide and you can get it with free delivery here from the Book Depository. (Or look out quality bookshops near you).

Check out the fun we had this awesome activity from Asia's first book, "150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids."

Happy playing,

Debs :)

Disclosure: I was sent a complimentary copy of this book to review. All thoughts and opinions are, as always, my own.  This post contains affiliate links. (Book Depository) Thanks for your support.

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