Who wants free worksheets for their preschooler? I’ve got a super cute pack of the The Very Hungry Caterpillar worksheets that are free to download. You can print them over and over again (for personal use) so that your child can practice writing their alphabet, numbers, and have some counting fun!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is a children’s classic! This picture book is a favorite many times over! This is a must read if you haven’t read it yet. Borrow it from your local library, watch this read-aloud from Brightly Storytime, or buy it on Amazon so you can read over and over again.
I love theming my books with worksheets, so here are 9 very hungry caterpillar themed worksheets for your preschooler! Included are alphabet tracing ( 2 pages), number tracing, fill in the missing numbers, counting, I Spy, spot the differences, identify sizes; color fruits page, and follow the line worksheets.
Preschoolers will love learning to count, practicing their ABCs, and working on their fine motor skills!
More Fun – Crafts and STEM!
Add some STEM fun into your little one’s learning with this adorable The Very Hungry Caterpillar Magna-Tiles set. This is the coolest building set! Children get to bring the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar to life while engaging their eye-hand coordination, understanding of magnets, and spatial awareness — plus they are stimulating their creativity. This building set is so much fun and perfect for families looking to add more STEM activities into their little one’s play as their are a lot of shapes and towers to be made!
There are a lot of homeschool myths out there, and the internet is filled with homeschool shaming. If you are thinking about homeschool, then you already have some good reasons in mind as to why this might be the best option for your family.
There are many reasons why a family might consider homeschooling their child. For starters, homeschooling allows for a more personalized learning experience for each child. With homeschooling, parents can tailor the curriculum to their child’s unique learning style and interests, as well as adjust the speed of learning to fit their child’s needs. Additionally, homeschooling allows children to learn at their own pace and explore topics in greater depth.
Another benefit to homeschooling is that it allows families to spend more time together. Instead of worrying about carpools and after-school activities, homeschoolers can spend quality time with their parents and siblings exploring new topics and developing their skills.
Finally, homeschooling can provide a safe learning environment, free from peer pressure and negative influences. Parents can be sure that the values and morals they are teaching their children will be reinforced in the homeschooling environment.
Homeschool Preschool Tips:
Homeschooling preschool can be an exciting and rewarding experience for both you and your child. If you’re looking for ideas and resources to help you get started, here are some helpful tips:
Make sure you’re familiar with your local homeschool laws and regulations.
Set up a learning space for your preschooler that is comfortable, engaging, and age-appropriate.
Find out what educational materials are available in your area and online.
My son has been learning nursery rhymes and he is really enjoying these cute little poems. He loves robots and these older Mother Goose rhymes just don’t have any robots in them. I made up this Five Little Robots rhyme for him so he could have a special robot poem to memorize. Turn this into a finger play by moving one finger per robot when they get to say their line. For more action rhymes, finger plays, and poems, check out my collection: https://imaginationsrunningwild.com/finger-rhymes-and-other-poems/.
I loved doing preschool with my son at home! This was a truly rewarding experience and I’m excited that you are about to embark on this wonderful journey! Here are some tips and 5 steps for homeschool preschool success.
STEP 1 — Set Goals
What do you want to accomplish by doing preschool at home? Take a look at your local school district’s kindergarten entrance requirements for a starting point. Typically a child entering kindergarten needs to be able to say the alphabet, be able to recognize some of letters, count up to 20, recognize shapes and colors, and write their first name.
STEP 2 —Lesson Plans
Now that you know what you want to do, let’s make that happen. You need to find a curriculum or make your own lesson plans. There are plenty of free options. Check with your local district, state education department, find a free curriculum online, or join up with a homeschool group in your area. I organized my son’s preschool lessons around learning one letter per week, with plenty of time for revisiting ones he was struggling with and lots of seasonal activities.
STEP 3 — Create a Schedule
Preschoolers thrive on consistency and routines. Once you start your homeschooling, you might need to tweak your schedule. Once you have a schedule that works for you, try your best to stick to it. Here is a link to the schedule I used: https://imaginationsrunningwild.com/preschool/alphabet/
STEP 4 — Make a Space
Now you know what you are going to do and when you are going to do it, so it’s time to decide where you are going to work on preschool activities. You don’t need a dedicated homeschool room. Find a space that is free from distractions (not in front of the TV or by the toy box). Gather all of your supplies and have them in this space ready to go.
STEP 5 — Find Local Resources
You are not alone! There are lots of other homeschool families, you just need to find them. Where to look? Try Facebook — this is a great way to connect with homeschool families around the country. Go to your local library. Homeschool families greatly rely on their libraries and often participate in the library’s activities. Your librarian can likely help you connect with other homeschoolers.
Get book-themed gifts to go with your child’s favorite book! The Kohl’s Cares program offers affordably priced books and plush toys each year around Christmas that are always super cute. There so many options beyond plush toys, although my child does love those too. If you are looking for book-themed gifts then check out my list of toys that are sure to spark your child’s imaginative and help bring their favorite books to life! As a disclaimer, this post may contain affiliate likes (more information about this at the end).
This is the coolest building set! Children get to bring the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Life while engaging their eye-hand coordination, understanding of magnets, and spatial awareness, all while stimulating children’s creativity. This building set is so much fun and perfect for families looking to add more STEM activities into their little one’s play! Add on these cute Very Hungry Caterpillar socks (which my son loved) and you will have the most adorable playtime.
Use these adorable finger puppets to bring Mo Willem’s Pigeon book series to life! These are perfect for reenacting the story, The Duckling Gets a Cookie?!My son loves pretending to be the Duckling and the Pigeon and makes up lots of other adventures for them!
My son has this cute Fly Guy plush and loves it! Hug this plush while you read Fly Guy’s Ninja Christmas and other Fly stories! Fly Guy loves to go on all sorts of fun adventures around our house 🙂
My family loves playing this Pete the Cat board game where we have to collect Pete’s groovy buttons. Preschoolers love Pete the Cat and will have lots of fun playing this game and counting all of their buttons. After you finish playing, read the book Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons together!
We love Anna Dewdney’s story, Llama Llama Red Pajama, and this Llama Llama plush is the cutest companion to the book. This plush toy absolutely adorable and perfect for bedtime cuddles!
This is the perfect bag for carrying all of your library books! We love our Elephant and Piggie Read tote bag and use it all of the time. It has strong, durable straps and features some of our favorite book characters! My son loves that the Pigeon snuck onto the bag too!
This plush and finger puppet set is a great way for preschoolers to get hands-on with the story. These toys let children be an active part of the storytelling and encourage lots of imaginative play! Pair this with the Child Play’s book that features fun illustrations and cut-outs in the pages.
Wow, this Brown Bear story projector is amazing! Not only to kids love playing with flashlights, but they love Brown Bear, Brown Bear, and now the two are combined into one awesome present. Bedtime has never been so much!
My son loves playing with felt boards and so do the preschoolers at the library’s storytime group! Now children can act out four of their favorite classic stories and make up their own endings for tons of fun. I love how imaginative my son is when he plays with his felt board and the stories he creates with the felt pieces!
I grew up with Richard Scarry’s Busy Town and I am so happy to see that my son likes these stories too. We read the little board book, Cars and Trucks from A to Z (featuring Lowly Worm driving an applemobile), so many times that it fell apart! The puzzle feature’s Richard Scarry’s cute characters and their silly cars! This puzzle’s large pieces are great for preschoolers to be able to manipulate and the bright colors are sure to draw their attention to puzzle pieces.
This puzzle set is so neat! My son got this for Christmas and he is really enjoying it. There is a book that tells you where to position the pieces and you have to figure out how to get Little Red Riding Hood safely to her grandma’s house. This game encourages critical thinking skills, problem solving, and spatial awareness development. There are several puzzles to choose from, which equals hours of entertainment!
My son loves wearing clothes with his favorite book characters on them! He thinks of them like dress-clothes and he wears them so he can pretend he is the character. This Curious George t-shirt set comes with 3 cute shirts for your preschooler to enjoy while getting into some monkey trouble!
Now you can read in the bath tub without fear of ruining a book with this special bath book featuring favorite books characters drawn by Eric Carle. Add tons of fun and creative play to bath time with these bath toys featuring storybook favorites the Very Grouchy Ladybug, Brown Bear, Mister Seahorse, the Very Hungry Caterpillar and more!
Kids love stickers and they love Pete the Cat, making this activity book a winner! My son recognized the stickers from different Pete the Cat stories and was really excited. This activity book is great way to keep your child entertained on the go without adding to their screen time.
Don’t forget books always make great gifts! Looking for book recommendations? Check out my book lists for ideas.
Thank you for checking out my list of book-themed gifts for children! I joined Amazon’s Affiliate program to try and help cover the costs of this site. If you buy something through one of my links on Amazon, then I get a small percentage of the sale (no extra cost to you). Thank you for your support! Happy reading 😉
There are so many wonderful Christmas picture books available! It was really hard to narrow down our favorites for this list, but I did not want an endless list 🙂 So here are my family’s 25 favorite Christmas picture books in no particular order because there is no way we could rank them! If these 25 aren’t enough, check out my list of Elf Books and Santa Stories!
Sweet Bear is supposed to be hibernating, but his friends want him to stay awake to experience Christmas with them! Bear gets to experience his first Christmas tree, bake cakes, hang up stockings, and sing Christmas songs. By staying up and participating in all of the fun activities with his friends, Bear discovers that giving is one of the best Christmas presents of all!
My kiddo loves lift-the-flap books! Being able to interact with the book, whether its a touch-and-feel or lift-the-flap, makes reading extra fun for little ones. This book tells the story of the Grinch, a Christmas-hating meanie, who tries to keep Christmas from coming to Whoville. The Grinch learns that Christmas isn’t about presents or a big feast for dinner, but about family, togetherness, and love. With this new revelation, the Grinch’s heart grows! He embraces the Christmas spirit and returns everything he stole. The citizens of Whoville welcome the Grinch to spend Christmas with them in this sweet ending. This is a long story, but being able to lift-the-flaps really kept my son’s attention throughout the book. He was excited to see what pictures were underneath the flaps!
In this bright, sparkly book, Santa is sick in bed and unable to deliver to toys to children! “Calamity” cries chicken, who rallies the farm animals to save the day. The bright, cheerful illustrations with touches of sparkles will capture your child’s attention as the animals nurse Santa back to good health and get the sleigh ready. With so much happening, Chicken forgets to get the reindeer ready. The reindeer say they can’t fly on empty stomachs, but it’s time to head out and deliver presents! Is Christmas ruined? Not to worry, Santa is feeling better and he uses a bit of Christmas magic to make the farm animals fly and they pull the sleigh full of toys!
In this sparely worded picture book, Duck attempts to come down Farmer Brown’s chimney but gets stuck! The other animals attempt to unstuck Duck, but get themselves trapped in the chimney too. Now Santa has arrived and needs to get down the chimney. Will he get stuck too? Get ready for giggles as Santa gets everyone successfully down the chimney and soot goes flying everywhere! Pay special attention to Duck’s backpack to find out why he was trying to get down the chimney in the first place.
In this sweet story, Excavator, Bulldozer, Crane, Dump Truck and Cement Mixer build a new home for fire engines. They get the job done just in time for the fire engines to spend Christmas in their new home. As the construction crew heads back to the yard to settle down for the night, they find that they get their own Christmas surprises. The rhyming story and great pictures will delight preschoolers, as will discovering the gift each machine receives.
This lovely books shows a young girl’s activities as she counts down the days of December from the first to Christmas Day. Each day she does something news: “Days 1, 2, and 3/ I paint, cut,/ and paste.” I love how the child wants to create home-made gifts and forgoes all of the commercialism associated with the holiday. She also remembers her animals friends and makes sure to have something special for the animals to enjoy on Christmas too! At the end, the author gives how-to instructions and recipes for the yuletide cards, popcorn-cranberry garland, spicy gingerbread cookies, and outdoor animal treats mentioned.
We’ve all read stories where children start to doubt Santa exists, but in this funny twist, Santa starts to doubt that a little boy named Harold exists. Santa has plenty of good reasons to doubt Harold. For one thing, the handwriting on the letter looks like an adult’s handwriting. And when Harold came to sit on Santa’s lap this year, he looked different than the last time Santa saw him. Seems pretty suspicious. So Santa decides to hide out at Harold’s house this Christmas and see if he really does exist. Kids will love the ending!
We are huge Bob Shea fans! We love his sense of humor and fun illustrations. In this story, Dinosaur is getting ready for Santa’s Christmas visit! Dinosaur has lots to do–decorating, making presents for Mom and Dad, trying not to be naughty. And since Dinosaur is determined to win, he defeats each task! ROAR! He’s doing great, but on Christmas Eve, he hears some rustling downstairs and sneaks a peek. Uh-oh, will he get caught and not get any presents? Check out this story from your library to find out!
A very special baby is born in a manger and all of the animals are excited to welcome the new baby . Each animal takes a turn saying hello, but donkey is too shy. However, baby Jesus welcomes donkey with his own sweet smile. The donkey brays, hee-aw, making the baby laughs with joy! This book is a sweet and beautifully illustrated story celebrating the first Christmas.
Gingerbread Baby and his friend, Matti, take his gingerbread band to the town’s Christmas Festival. The gingerbread band are a huge a hit! Everything is going great until the children start smelling the yummy gingerbread and get hungry. Yikes! Run away, gingerbread band! Matti uses snow to disguise the gingerbread instruments while Gingerbread Baby leads the audience on a merry chase. Gingerbread Baby finds a great spot to hide in the Christmas tree where he is safe from the hungry crowd. Fantastic pictures and lots of humor make this book a great choice for Christmas stories.
My son loves Adam Wallace’s “How to Catch ” series! In this Christmas book, Santa’s helper elf is target by the children. They set all sorts of traps, but with Santa on his side, no one catch this elf! Better luck next Christmas! Kids will giggle at the silliness and enjoy the bright, engaging pictures.
A little girl and her mom are out and about during the holiday season. The little girl takes in all of the noises and sights around her, and picks up on the rhythm of the season. The author does a great job of highlighting the sounds that the girl hears– CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH!–and the flashing lights in the store windows–BLING! BLING! BLING!–giving readers not only an opportunity to make some noise and participate with the story, but also plants the idea to be more thoughtful about their own surroundings. Throughout the story the little girl sees and spreads joy and imparts a lovely message for the reader to do the same.
The rhymes, sweet message, and Christmas tree countdown make this a perfect choice for preschoolers! Blue and Toad deliver trees and joy to their animals friends. Will there be a tree left for Blue? Preschoolers will love the light-up tree at the end of the story!
Llama Llama books are so relatable for preschoolers! Each story features an emotion/struggle that young children also face. In this story, Llama Llama is finding it hard to wait for Christmas. Even though he is plenty busy shopping for presents, baking cookies, decorating the tree with Mama, Christmas is not coming fast enough. With mounting frustration, Llama Llama just can’t wait any more! Mama knows just what to do –a warm cuddle and a gentle reminder that “Gifts are nice, but there’s another: The true gift is, we have each other.”
Little Critter books are always so cute and funny. My son just loves these books! In this story, Little Critter writes his letter to Santa and awaits Santa’s visit. Little Critter and his family do lots of fun things together. Children can lift-the-flaps throughout the book and learn more about Little Critter’s fun Christmas season activities!
You just have to read the Clement C. Moore’s poem, The Night Before Christmas, as part of your Christmas stories! In this beautifully illustrated edition by Jan Brett, readers will love seeing Santa and his elves delivering Christmas presents while the children are tucked into bed. Each page’s illustrations are a treasure trove of detail that perfectly compliment the poem.
My son loves the original Pout-Pout Fish story so he was excited to read this Christmas tale. Mr. Fish learns that Christmas is bigger than store-bought gifts — it is all about giving from the heart and bringing joy. With sing-songy rhymes and detailed pictures, this picture book is a fun Christmas-time read. We love pouring over the pictures and seeing all of the fun little details.
It’s preschoolers’ favorite story character, Pete the Cat! This time Pete has lend a paw to Santa who is too sick to deliver the presents! This is one of the original Pete the Cat stories and has great rhymes and a fantastic message of giving your all. I love that this book reinforces the idea to little kids that you don’t have to be big to make a huge impact! As it says in the story, “Small is Cool!”
My son is obsessed with this book! He loves the epic snowball fight. This book is a lot of fun and captures the excitement of a good snowball fight. It’s ninjas vs. a snowman army led by a samurai, who turns out to be Santa in disguise, making this the best Christmas present ever for little Yuki.
We love the Mother Bruce series and just adore Bruce, the grumpy bear, the clueless geese, and the happy-go-lucky mice. In this Christmas book of mistaken identity, the woodland animals think that Bruce is Santa! The illustrations throughout the book will crack your kids up! Since all of the animals think they told Santa their wishes, Bruce, the geese, and the mice set to make sure everyone gets something for Christmas!
Julia Donaldson is one of my family’s favorite authors! My husband randomly chants, “Oh Stick Man, oh Stick Man, it’s me. How I long to be home in the family tree!” Can you tell we’ve read this one a lot!?! Stick Man gets separated from his family and longs to go home. Travel along with Stick Man on his crazy journey, as one thing after another keeps him from making his way back to the family tree. On Christmas Eve, Santa arrives to grant Stick Man’s wish and takes him back to him family. The rhymes and repetition really hooked my son and he couldn’t wait to see what happened to Stick Man.
I love this book about Suzy Goose who wants a star for the top of the animals’ Christmas tree. Suzy sees bright star, high in the sky, and no one can stop her from trying every possible way to get it! Preschoolers love telling Suzy that her ideas won’t work. Though all hope seems lost as Suzy loses her way, her animal friends guide her home where she finds the perfect star. This beautifully illustrated story captures the magic of the season and strength of hope.
My son and I love the Ten Minutes to Bed series! In this Christmas edition, Santa needs Twinkle, the little unicorn, help to deliver presents. With only ten minutes until bed, Twinkle and Santa combine their magic to zip around the world and deliver presents. Kids will love this rhyming, brightly colored book and be delighted by Twinkle’s cuteness! Twinkle makes it home with one minute to spare and gets into bed right on time. When she wakes up the next morning, there’s a special present just for her.
This book is so funny! Get ready to laugh your way through this updated gingerbread man story, featuring a tough cookie. Cookie claims to be a delicious sugar cookie, but he isn’t sweet and cookie isn’t fast. Cookie taunts Fox, who immediately catches Cookie. Fox tries to take a bite, but hurts his tooth! What a tough cookie! An unlikely friendship forms between the two and Fox sets out to help Cookie be his best cookie-self in this hilarious picture book.
This a lovely story for a parent to read to their child. Each page reaffirms a parent’s love for their child, highlighting different aspects of how special their child is to them. Read these sweet rhymes and nurturing words while cuddling close with your little one this Christmas season.
Check your library for these and other Christmas picture books. To help cover the costs of this site, I joined Amazon’s Affiliate program. If you buy a book through one of my links, then I get a small percentage of the sale (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for your support! Happy Reading 🙂
Add some STEM fun into your preschooler’s learning with this bug graphing activity!
Bug Graphing Activity:
Start by printing this free template. The bug graphing template includes the di, colored tiles, and graphing chart. I used regular printer paper; however, if you use cardstock, then your dice will be much sturdier.
Begin by cutting out the dice. Gently fold the gray tabs inward. Then begin to fold your squares into a cube shape. Add some glue to the tabs and glue them onto the underside of the squares as you form your cube. The very last tab is hard to glue and might require tape. Once your cube is formed, set it aside to dry.
Cut out all of the colored tiles. You will have 4 of each color–red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Each color corresponds with one of the bugs. My printer’s ink turned out to be darker than how it looked on my screen, so the blue and purple on the bugs were a little hard to distinguish. Here’s the color scheme: ladybug=red, butterfly=orange, bee=yellow, grasshopper=green, dragonfly=blue, and ant=purple.
Now it is time to begin bug graphing. Ask you child to gently roll the di. What color bug is on top? Is it a yellow bee? Take a tile of the same color and set it on the graph above the corresponding-colored bug. Keep rolling the dice and setting tiles in the correct columns until you reach the top of the column. Since you are not gluing the colored tiles to the chart, you can use this activity over and over again. The grasshopper was the first to reach the top for us. Which bug made it to the top of your graph first?
Why STEM?
STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math. It is important to introduce these concepts to preschoolers in a fun way so that as they get older, they are excited about STEM subjects. What are preschoolers learning in this activity? Preschoolers are learning their colors (science)! They have to identify the color on the di, find the same color on the chart, and then correctly add the same color tile to the graph. Preschoolers are learning how to graph, an important math concept! Add some extra math into this activity by counting how many of each color tile is on your graph and how many tiles your have altogether. Preschoolers are also learning about engineering as they help build the di!
More STEM Activities
If your child enjoyed this graphing activity, I made a free blank di template so you can customize it with your own pictures. You can add computer images, stickers, or draw whatever you want on the dice and graph for your child to practice more graphing skills.
My son is really interested in bugs and I’m sure a lot of your kids are too! We have made some great bug crafts together and enjoy playing with these bug finger puppets. The finger puppets look pretty life like and allow us to exam bugs without having to hold real ones! You can your own set through the Amazon Affiliate link posted above. I joined Amazon’s Affiliate program to help cover the costs of my site. If you buy a product through one my links, then I may get a small percentage of the sale at no additional costs to you.
Incorporate STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) into your preschooler’s learning activities with this fun (and yummy) Froot Loops tower! My son really enjoyed this activity, so much so, that we’ve done it a few times. Not only is this fun to do, but it is great for for kids’ fine motor skill development too! While you are your child are making this tower, take the opportunity to talk about colors and making patterns with the Froot Loops. Patterns and sequencing are important math components for preschoolers to learn. By making Froot Loop Towers, they can experiment with patterns by putting the cereal on the spaghetti noodle in different sequences.
Supplies Needed:
Froot Loops cereal
spaghetti noodle
Play-Doh
How To:
Start by making a mound out of your Play-Doh to use as the tower’s base. Then stick the spaghetti noodle into the mound. Make sure that you smush the Play-Doh around the noodle so that they noodle stands up straight.
It’s Froot Loops time! We dumped some Froot Loops onto a paper plate for my son to use for this project. He decided to make a rainbow tower. He did a fantastic job getting his rainbow colors in the correct order! Pick colors and a pattern you like. Now that you have a pattern in mind, take your Froot Loops can carefully drop each piece down the noodle, building a tower as you stack cereal pieces.
This looks like an easy activity, but little kids are still working on their fine motor skills, so getting the Froot Loops onto the noodle and building the tower is really work for them. And then add in making patterns, and they are really working hard. Fortunately they are having fun creating their tower and munching on the cereal as they go along!
Cut the vines and free the toy! This a fun scissor skills activity for preschoolers to practice cutting. Preschoolers love using scissors, so let’s give them constructive opportunities to practice cutting. I told my 3 year old son that the dinosaur was trapped in the vines and that he had to save him! I gave him scissors and told him to carefully cut the vines off and free the dinosaur. He really enjoyed this scissor skills activity and took his job of freeing the dino so seriously!
supplies
To do this activity you will need green construction paper, tape, safety scissors, and a plastic toy that won’t get damaged from scissors.
1. First cut the green construction paper into strips to be the vines. Mine were roughly 1/2 inch wide.
2. Wrap the vines loosely around the plastic toy and tape the ends of the vines hold them in place. I used a dinosaur because I like that it had legs and a tail that I could wrap the vine around.
Dino wrapped in vines
3. Have your preschooler free the toy from the vines by cutting the vines off!
free the dino
Yay, the toy is free! Great job using scissors!
Another scissor skills activity that I did with my son was a Paper Plate Hedgehog Craft. He got to use his scissors and cut the plate to the make the hedgehog’s quills! This craft was easy to pull together, but tons of fun.
Let’s find out if gummy bear candy grows larger in water with this fun (and yummy) gummy bear experiment. In this experiment, we will see if gummy bears grow in plain water, or in salt water, or not at all. What do you think will happen?
Gummy Bear Experiment
Supplies Needed:
supplies
gummy bear candies
2 glasses
water
table salt
ruler (optional)
pencil/pen
piece of paper
How To:
Pick 2 different colored gummy bears for this experiment. We picked 1 green one and 1 red gummy bear.
stir the salt
Fill both glasses with enough water to completely cover the gummy bears (and leave some room to grow). We added 3/4 Cup water to each glass. In one of the glasses, add one tablespoon of salt. Stir the salt so that it mixes with the water. Leave the water in the other glass plain.
Drop one gummy bear into each glass. Write down which color gummy bear is the salt water and which color gummy bear is in the plain water.
Ask your child what they think will happen to the gummy bears. Will one or both of them grow? My son guessed that the salt would make the red gummy bear shrink and that the green gummy bear would grow in the plain water.
Wait about 4 hours before taking your gummy bears out of the water. BE CAREFUL when removing them as they can easily fall apart. I fished them out with the tablespoon and carefully wiggled them off the spoon onto the table so that we could measure them.
Experiment results
DO NOT EAT THE GUMMY BEARS FROM THE EXPERIMENT!
RESULTS: One of our gummy bears was larger than the other! Drumroll please. . . the green gummy grew a lot in the plain water and the red gummy bear grew a little bit larger in the salt water. We placed fresh gummy bears from the bag next to the experiment ones for a comparison. OPTIONAL — To introduce rulers and measuring to my son, we did hold up the ruler next to the gummy bears from the bag and the ones from the experiment for him to see the difference in measurements.
More STEM Activities:
Incorporate more STEM activities into your little one’s learning with more fun activities. Check out my STEM Page for more ideas and experiments to try together: https://imaginationsrunningwild.com/stem/
