7 Fun Activities and Experiments for Kids with Air

The first contact that the child has with the outside world is with light and air. And it is precisely the air among all the natural elements, the one that most escapes the child’s knowledge. In fact, children always need a concrete contact to know things and the air, for its incorporeal and immateriality, is something not very concrete and almost magical. In fact, the air cannot be seen and cannot be touched, but we are able to explain it to children through fun activities and small experiments.

Starting from small experiences such as blowing air on the skin and in the hair, paying attention to the breath that comes out of the mouth, observing everything that moves in the air, making things vibrate and playing musical instruments, you can make children understand many things about this element so important that is air.

Today, for example, I show you some fun activities and experiments in which to discover some characteristics of the air.

Activities and experiments for children with air

The dancing candle

To prove that in the absence of air (oxygen), fire can not burn, a candle and a glass jar are enough. By lighting the candle and covering it with the jar, when the flame has burned all the oxygen inside it will go out.
To make the experiment even more interesting, do it with two candles and two jars of different sizes and ask the children which candle will burn faster. It will be that of the smaller jar that having less air will consume the oxygen. The gas that remains in the jar is only carbon dioxide, which does not allow combustion.

The jellyfish in the bottle

If you want to show your child that air is lighter than water, do this simple experiment with him. Insert a balloon into a bottle, inflate it just enough and close its end. Fill the bottle with water and cap it. It will be easy to observe how, even if the bottle is turned upside down, the balloon will always be positioned in the highest part. If you want you can have fun creating characters and various decorations. In this case inside the bottle there is a cute jellyfish! Tutorial →the jellyfish in the bottle

The flying saucer

To prove that the speed of movement of an object on a surface depends on the friction force, you can build this cute flying saucer. An old CD, the cap of a perforated bottle and a little glue will be enough to create a simple overcraft that, thanks to the air cushion created by the air that comes out of the balloon, will move easily on the table or on the floor.

The scale

In this experiment a sort of scale was built which will be used to “weigh the air” contained in the balloons. You can recreate the same situation by taking a clothes hanger and hanging the same number of balloons on each end.
By inflating the balloons more or less, you will see that the hanger will take the least inflated part of the air. The experiment shows that air has weight.

The jet boat

With this experiment it is possible to demonstrate to children that air has a lot of force .
Make a hole in a sponge through which to pass the end of a balloon. Inflate the balloon and place the sponge on the surface of the water.
The compressed air that will come out of the balloon will create a thrust and cause the advancement of the sponge as if it were a motorized boat. Explain to the children that even planes and rockets work because they are propelled forward by compressed gases which suddenly expand.

The balloon that inflates and deflates

By placing the balloon on the neck of an empty plastic bottle and placing it on a bowl with hot water, the balloon will inflate after a few minutes. In fact, the air contained in the bottle expands as it heats up and, needing more space, rises upwards inflating the balloon. If, on the other hand, the bottle is placed in a bowl with cold water, the air contracts as it cools, requiring less space and the balloon then deflates.
The experiment shows that while the mass of air remains constant, warm air takes up more space and is less dense than cold air. The hot air balloon works the same way.

The hot air carousel.

With a very simple and nice experiment it is possible to show children that  hot air is lighter than cold air because it is less dense and rises. It involves building a simple carousel made from small paper pinwheels hung with threads from a hanger (or other support). By placing the carousel over a heat source, such as a lighted light bulb, the heat it gives off will heat the air around it which, as it rises, will make the small paper pinwheels turn.

That said, I always advise you to explore and observe things and phenomena, to explain them in simple words from an early age. But as soon as children are able to understand more complex things (generally from three years onwards) throw yourself into doing experiments for children because they are really useful. Use the formula of play, observation and direct experience and use poor materials that you find at home.
For this you may find these books on experiments useful:

• Science experiments for the whole family
• Little science experiments

You will have a lot of fun!