I love doing simple science activities in therapy– one of the main reasons being that even some of my hardest-to-engage kids would almost always be interested and engage with me in simple science activities like baking soda and vinegar mix variations.
Science experiments are a great way to work on turn taking, requesting, core vocabulary words on AAC devices, engagement, verbs, predicting, following directions, sequencing, and retell!
Below are 4 science experiments that go with one of my favorite winter books, “Sneezy the Snowman.”
1. Instant Snow: Mix together 3 cups of baking soda and a 1/2 cup of white conditioner
2. “Exploding” Hot Cocoa: Pour baking soda into a cup and pour hot cocoa powder mix on top of it. Pour in vinegar and watch it “explode”
3. Melting Snowmen: Make 3 big “snowballs” out of a mixture of 1/4 cup water and 1 cup baking soda (add a little more water or baking soda if it’s too wet or too dry). Optional: Add googly eyes if you want, and wrap in cling wrap to hold their shape.
Freeze overnight or at least a couple hours in advance. When you want them to “melt,” squeeze/pour vinegar on them!
4. “Exploding” Ice Cream Cones: Scoop baking soda onto cake cones, squeeze some food coloring on top, then squeeze vinegar on top of it and watch the colors “explode”/bubble over! This is a fun one to do in the summer, too, with an ice cream theme!
If you want visuals for these (sequencing steps/instruction sheets, retell pieces, icons for requesting, speech/language goals (including verbs and other core vocabulary words) to target with each experiment, and book pairing suggestions for each experiment), you can find them in my Simple Science Experiments pack on TPT!
Want to read more about Sneezy the Snowman? Check out this post here.
What are your favorite experiments to do in therapy?
[…] I love doing simple science activities in therapy to practice following directions, requesting, predicting, and sequencing/retell! Click here for a blog post on easy science experiments to use with Sneezy the Snowman. […]