A Toddler and Early Years STEM experiment – Travelling Water
Sandra Beale is a BBC STEM Freelancer, Toddler STEM Contributor to Nursery World, STEM Ambassador Silver Badge holder (200+ hours), and Britain’s leading toddler STEM expert, sharing playful, hands‑on science activities for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. Her book 50 Fantastic Ideas for STEM Activities won the Creative Play Learning Resources 0–3 Award, and her work has been featured across BBC platforms and national early‑years media.
Sandra has been running Toddler and Early Years STEM for 11 years, delivering sessions at the Cambridge Science Centre, Saffron Walden Museum, local schools and nurseries, and community venues across the country.
And now a fantastic blogger with MMB Magazine.
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A Toddler and Early Years STEM experiment to try- Travelling Water
I thought a fun experiment that you could try over the Spring Term in your Early Years setting or at home could be watching water travel down a string. Its great fun and the children at my sessions love it!
Ask your preschoolers or Key Stage 1 children to gather around. They could either sit around the table or stand. I always find being flexible with seating arrangements makes for more enjoyable experiences for children and their Care Givers.
Materials Required
- Glass or Jar
- Packing Tape/ Strong sticky tape
- Wool
- Liquid food Colouring (any colour)
- Tape Measure or Ruler
- Scissors
Method
- Cut a piece of wool 12 inches long.
- Stick one end of the wool inside the jar or glass, at the bottom or at the side using the packing tape or any other strong sticky tape.
- Half fill the jar or glass with water.
- Squirt in a couple of drops of food colouring.
- Then soak the entire string in the water for a minute or two.
- Then take the string out ensuring that one end is still secured to the inside of the jar/glass
- Gently pour out the water and watch as it travels down the string.
The Science
- Water droplets follow other water droplets (hydrogen bonds). Soaking the string enables the water to flow down the string.
Taking it Forward
You could try different types of string such as thread, ribbon, thin rope etc and ask the children to experiment with them and predict which one would work better.
You could ask the children to predict what might happen to the water if the string was not soaked in water for a few minutes.
Try another experiment A Toddler And Early Years STEM Experiment – Lava Lamp
A Toddler And Early Years STEM Experiment – Making Snow