Walking Water

Activity Overview

Representing and categorizing our feelings is an ability that young children develop over time. In the classroom, teachers give students many models to follow that enrich the vocabulary they use to describe their feelings. One of these models is associating colors with feelings. This helps children create a connection between the abstract concept and a medium in which young children feel they have expertise. This experiment sets the stage for children to explore chemistry, through the function of capillary action, while also allowing adults to open an opportunity to talk with children about colors that feelings elicit within us. The primary message we all want to get across is that all feelings are valid, and we acknowledge each and every feeling that comes up. We often feel many feelings within a day – some big, some small – and that’s perfectly normal!

What You Need

• Three cups

• Paper towels cut into half-sheets

• Water

• Green, yellow, and red food coloring

• My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss

• I Have Feelings template

• Watercolors and brush

Steps

1. To begin the discussion, read My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss. Remind your student about the caterpillar color key and how we used the colors green, yellow and red to represent how we were feeling - good, ok, and having a hard day.

2. Have your student fill three cups a third full of water (the more water there is, the faster the water will travel). Arrange the cups in a circle or a row.

3. Have the student put one end of a paper towel in each cup. Put the other end of the paper towel in the adjacent cup (creating a bridge, of sorts, between the cups). The student will then add a drop of the food coloring to each cup of water (one color per cup).

4. Take time to observe the dye climb up the paper towel via capillary action.

Guiding Questions

• What do you think will happen?

• Why do you think the water "walking" or "climbing?"

• How is this experiment like the caterpillar key? How is it different?

• What do the colors remind you of?

• What feeling do you have when you see the color green / yellow / red?

• What color makes you feel happy? Sad? Mad? Excited?

Extensions

• Add blue, purple, and orange to have all six colors of the rainbow represented and create six cups of walking water. Use this as an opportunity to talk about which colors we connect to more deeply – which ones we find happy or sad or exciting.

• Use the I Have Feelings template and watercolors as an opportunity to represent the color you are feeling today?