Clever Activity Teaches Kids about Refraction

$playing with refraction with water and light$ This is a super simple activity that you can do anywhere you have a glass of water and some paper and a pen. Go Science Girls has a full rundown of different options and ideas for playing with refraction, starting with as simple a thing as drawing two arrows and then looking at one or both through a glass of water.

The arrows seem to change direction depending on how you look at them. Likewise, other things you draw will change position or how they look based on how you look through a glass of water at them and the position of the glass relative to the paper and your eye.

She explains how this works thus:

What we are seeing here is a physics concept called refraction, or the bending of light. When light passes through transparent objects (in this case, the front of the glass, the water, and the back of the glass), it refracts or bends. When the glass is full of water, it acts as a cylindrical convex lens, and produces an inverted image. The inverted image may appear larger, smaller or the same size, depending on where you position the paper, the glass, and your viewpoint. Another variable is the size (diameter) of the glass.

This is such a clever idea and it’s sure to keep even little kids entertained while waiting for food at a restaurant or whenever else you need a little activity to fill time. Older kids can draw their own pictures and observe how they change when looking through the glass. So fun.

[Photo via Go Science Girls.]

Next Plan Idea:

How to Draw a Bird

We don’t really have any travel to speak of planned this summer, and my daughter is old enough that any lengthy time in the car is usually spent with an audiobook or watching videos. But I remember the struggle of keeping little kids entertained on long trips, especially if you don’t want them on a screen the whole time.

I recently saw this post from Creating Really Awesome Fun Things, which is a roundup of 26 road trip games, ideas and activities that kids can do. From stringing beads onto pipe cleaners to felt busy boards, travel journals and using a pizza box to contain colors, trains (or cars) and more, there are lots of fun and easy ideas here.

I’m a big fan of printable road trip activities, and even have a whole post all about printables for road trips. I used to always do some kind of license plate game, a map, mazes and I-spy style scavenger hunts, which are fun for everyone in the car to play along with. (You can also find some patriotic road trip mazes here.) If your road trip includes a camping trip, check out these camping themed printable games and activities.

Productive Pete has a super cute map of the United States (pictured above) that kids can use in lots of different ways while on the road. They can color the states you travel through, or all the states they’ve ever visited, or use it to give the license plate game an extra challenge as they try to find each state on the map. You can quiz older kids on the state capitols, which you might need to brush up on yourself (guilty!).

Do you have particular games or activities that you always have on hand when you are doing a road trip with kids? I would love to hear about them!

[Photo: Productive Pete.]

Next Plan Idea:

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