Exploring the States of Matter – Science in Action (and in the Kitchen!)

In the senior room, we have been learning all about the states of matter in science. To help us understand how solids, liquids, and gases can change, we carried out a very exciting (and tasty!) experiment — making Rice Krispies buns and white chocolate Corn Flake buns.
The children began by discussing the three states of matter:

• Solids keep their shape unless they are changed by force or heat.
  
• Liquids can flow and take the shape of their container.
  
• Gases spread out to fill the space they are in.
  

To see this in action, we used chocolate as our material of choice. Everyone could see and feel that the chocolate started as a solid. We then placed it in bowls, which sat over a saucepan of hot water. The steam from the boiling water heated the bowls and caused the solid chocolate to melt into a liquid. This simple process gave us the perfect chance to see a change of state happening right before our eyes.

Once the chocolate was fully melted, the children added Rice Krispies and Corn Flakes to the bowls. Mixing the cereal into the chocolate was great fun — and a little messy! The mixture then began to cool, returning from a liquid state to a solid one as the buns set.

Throughout the activity, the children chatted about what they were seeing, using science words such as solid, liquid, gas, melting, and cooling. It was wonderful to see how they connected the lesson to something hands-on, fun, and memorable.

Of course, the best part came at the end when everyone got to enjoy a bun (or two!) and taste the results of their scientific work.

​This activity showed us that science really is all around us — even in the kitchen. By combining learning with something practical and enjoyable, the children discovered how exciting it can be to explore the world of science together.