Plastic egg science experiment!

I saw this sound-memory game idea on pinterest (sorry the link to the original post went bad) and decided I could tweak the idea a little for a twist on teaching Gi about the scientific method. Now, when I was a kid in grammar school I remember those science projects happening every year like clockwork and from what I recall they were boring and I didn't understand the purpose of them nor did I ever work up any excitment over choosing a topic to "study"--aka procrastinate to the last day and then whip up a tri-fold poster board full of encyclopedia Britannic facts and littered with big fat lies about all the work I did during the course of the semester. It was only later in life, during college, that I understood how much we owe to the scientific method and from it the kind of hypothesis-driven entrepreneurial quest for more efficient ways of doing things. I think any preschooler can be taught to think about the world around her from this perspective and it would greatly enhance the imagination to wonder aloud about things, form theories about the observable and then test them out. Okay, so I also think my kids will come to this line of thinking naturally given their very dorky mom and dad. 

So, on to the experiment! I rummaged in my all-things-I-don't-know-what-to-do-with closet and found 4 plastic Easter eggs left over from last year and then since it was snack time anyway, I pulled out four shakeable food items to have Gi put inside the eggs. I must not have been thinking straight because I chose, popcorn, pistachios, M&Ms and raisins. Only three of which were edible and two of those were healthy. But let's not judge a momma by her snack offerings when there's important science work going on!

Then I told Gi we were each going to make hypotheses (hi-paw-the-sees) <--that was for Gi's benefit not yours dear reader, about which egg would sound the loudest and the quietest when we shook them. She wanted to write her hypotheses down and was asking me here how to spell what she wanted to write. She's very disciplined looking here

but this is what happened when I told her it would be Mommy's job to write and her job to shake and eat. I think she must have been excited for those M&Ms.

Anyway, the kiddo guessed, I mean hypothesized, correctly that the raisins would be the quietest egg to shake. And, she wasn't far off when she guessed that the popcorn would be the loudest. We had a shake off between the popcorn and the M&Ms for first place loudest egg and she gave it to the M&Ms. Touche since we had agreed to eat the egg snacks from loudest to quietest. Here I kicked myself for a second and third time.

The experiment went so well Gi decided we had to have another round and try different foods and maybe she was still just a little hungry (and hoping for more candy I'm sure). So I obliged, but found it a little more difficult to come up with foods that would have varying sonorous qualities.

Here, we ended up with goldfish crackers, yogurt melts, baby cereal puffs and Trix cereal. Rinse, lather, repeat the scientific method.

 And don't forget to include the very littlest of scientists too! Noa had a great time eating her egg experiment snacks and making notes about our discoveries. I'm sure the Journal of What Not to Feed Your Kids Before Dinner will be publishing our work asap. Ah, but what fun it was!