Sneezy is Melting....I mean Dissolving???

If you know anything about me, you know I love books. You know that I can't stop myself when the Scholastic fliers come into my mailbox. There are so many great deals in there. You can find wonderful picture books for $1 or $2. With prices like that, I can fill my whole bookshelf. Wait a minute, I already have done that.

Well, this month's fliers are filled with snowy wonder. And since we live in the south where snow days are measured in millimeters, not inches, I have to read about snow to my children. So when I found this new funny story for only $1, I had to order it.

"Sneezy the Snowman" has become a household favorite with my children. They are amazed that he continues to do things that will make him melt all throughout the story. They actually yell at the picture of Sneezy telling him to stop. Even my southern boys understand that heat and snow don't mix.

Now my boys are like their mother, they love to try out a new experiment. They wanted to do something with melting snow. And since there was no snow to be found around our home, I decided to try something different. I had them make their own snowmen out of packing peanuts. They turned out rather cute if you ask me. Of course, packing peanuts won't melt, but if you get the biodegradable ones, they will dissolve. So we decided to see if the temperature of the water would affect how quickly Sneezy dissolved.

For our experiment we needed biodegradable packing peanuts, markers to draw the snowmen faces, bowls of water, a thermometer, a ruler and our lab worksheets and pencils.

The boys started by using room temperature water. They measured their "snowman" and recorded their observations about him. They placed them in the water and waited 3 minutes to see what would happen. When the timer buzzed, they removed the snowmen and recorded the changes. At first the snowmen appeared to be okay, but when you looked at the side that had been in the water, you realized how much they had dissolved.

The boys repeated the experiment using ice water and water that had been warmed in the microwave. They were not surprised by the results. Just as hotter temperature will melt snow, hotter water will dissolve the packing peanut more effectively.

What did surprise them was how "mushy" the packing peanuts became in the hot water. My youngest pulled his snowman out of the water thinking it was fine. It still had it's shape after all. But as soon as he touched it, it just "mushed" in his fingers. All he had to record was a slimy streak on the table cloth where he wiped his fingers on it.

I hope you have some fun with this experiment. If you would like to have the lab worksheets for this experiment and one more science experiment to go with "Sneezy the Snowman", check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store, Under One Roof. The packet also has 4 no prep literacy worksheets to go along with the story.

Have a wonderful winter,