The Magic of Water Beads

This week I brought in a mysterious package.  The students closely examined the bag and wondered what the contents might be.

 Here are some of our predictions:

In JK:

• I think they are magic
• They are very small
• They are soft
• Shiny
• Beautiful

In SK:

• round, very tiny GR
• look like tiny marbles DJP
• soft LR
• like eggs TT
• like the sugar you put in your coffee ER
• they feel funny, weird RP
• look like stars TB
• fish eggs ZW
• tiny round bubbles LB
• squishy SK and TK
• frog eggs CP
• tadpoles JR
• baby frogs GB
• tiny caterpillar eggs DRP
• shiny EK
• silvery CD
• tiny bird eggs MK

We then put them in water and made predictions about what we thought would happen to them in the water.

In JK:

• If we put them in water they will grow into a plant
• They will grow into a flower, maybe a bean stalk!

In SK:

• they'll hatch in water
• they'll change colour
• the water will turn sparkly
• they will turn into tiny golden marbles
• they might get bigger and explode
• the water might go away and soak into the round things
• I think they'll be more shiny

After several hours we looked at them again and were amazed by what happened.  Everyone was fascinated with the texture of the water beads:

• soft
• cold
• shiny
• slippery
• like huge bubbles
• I can see myself in them!

We poured the water beads into the water table and then added fresh water and guess what happened?  The beads disappeared.  We couldn't see them anywhere but we could feel them when we put our hands in the water table.









We added some submersible lights for even more fun.  The lights reflected off the water beads making them a little bit easier to see. We like it best when the classroom lights are off and then the lights really GLOW.