Teacher + Scientist = Bubbling Beakers

Howdy y'all.  I'm a scientist, wife is a teacher.  Together we have been creating really cool 'toys' for kids to play with where they are secretly discovering things for themselves.

We have spent a lot of time sitting next to the bathtub, so our first product was the Bathtub Laboratory kit, this kit is made for practicing volumes and pouring.  I (the husband/scientist) got talked out of food coloring as it made a giant mess in the bathroom.  However I did not back down from the syringe (it shoots water like 5 meters if you are not careful!)  All lab grade equipment!

Next we made a benchtop kit that does have food coloring (we wanted to see red and blue make green)- so the Starter Test Tube Laboratory Kit was born!  This kit is very fun, you can:

• mix colors- blending colors... make purple, green, all shades of brown  (refill with your own food coloring)
• grow seeds-  if you haven't seen roots grow, you will love to see them sprout in a test tube, quite intricate! 
• water density-  so if you are not an oceanographer (like me) you may not know that water of different densities do not mix.  Here we take advantage of that to make layers of different densities of water.... and color them!   I used to do this while teaching Oceanography at Hartnell College.  The challenge was to make as many different unique layers of color as possible.    You can use your own salt after you have used up the salt included in the kit.
• shape to volume investigation-  Most kids will tell you that the TALLER glass is has the most volume in it.   Here you can quantitatively demonstrate volume!   It is kinda geekie, but your kids will appreciate the effort!