Our lesson in science today is about the scientific method. We had a sizzling experiment that perhaps many of you are familiar with yet it did not fail to draw the oohs and aahs from my  budding scientists  ;-).

The lesson is found in this book by Richard and Debbie Lawrence entitled Properties of Matter which is part of the series God's Design for Life, a biblical approach to learning elementary science.

We did the yeast-sweetener and balloon experiment.

Our problem is to identify which sweetener is best used with yeast to make bread rise. The older two kids made their guesses which are surprisingly contradictory with each other. One vouching on the brown sugar, the other on the white one. Lil Ruffin couldn't make sense of it and only wonder why, but she went along quite well.

Here are the materials we needed: some basic kitchen and toy items with 3 pairs of helpful hands and 3 thinking minds. Ha ha!

1. Equal amounts of water were poured in 3 identical soda bottles. The bottles were labeled 1, 2 and 3

2. We added a teaspoon of dry yeast in each bottle.

3. The, we added two tablespoons of sweetener in bottles 2 and 3. We added white sugar in bottle 2 and brown sugar instead of molasses on bottle 3. As a control variable, we did not add any sweetener on bottle 1. Bottles 2 and 3 sizzled with bubbles and ssssh noise... lovely!

4. Each child swirled a bottle for 30 seconds. After that, we place balloons on the bottles mouths and secured it with tape.

5. Observe what happens after 15 minutes.

Oops, these are bottles 3, 1, and 2.

We measured them and waited again for 15 more minutes (30 minutes after).

And after 15 minutes more ( 45 minutes after).

And after 15 minutes (an hour after).

The bottles 1,2 and 3 in the right order.

After noting down the measurements and filling up the science laboratory sheets which you can download here, the children have come up with a conclusion, written them down and properly included their findings in their science binder-notebook.

After two days, the balloons drooped and gas pfffft nowhere... and the smell wasn't very loverly... ughh.

What we have learned about scientific method study:

1. Make observations and learn about it.

2. Identify the problem.

3. Formulate a hypothesis, a good guess.

4. Design a way to test your hypothesis through experimentation.

5. Check if your results support your hypothesis. make a conclusion.

This experiment helped us learn and apply the scientific method in a way that is easy to understand.

Try it!