What do you do when you have tons of candy canes that you know will not get eaten??? Why, experiment of course.
We put the candy canes in each cup and then Max poured vinegar (dyed red for a more Christmasy effect) over the candy cane on top of the baking soda. The kids LOVE the fizzies it makes.
The baking soda, candy cane, and vinegar fizzing.
The cup with the water and candy cane (left) turned the water pink. It took about an hour for the candy cane to fully dissolve. The cup with the vinegar and candy cane (right) didn't change color at all and took almost two hours for the candy cane to fully dissolve.
The coolest was the baking soda, candy cane, and vinegar combo. It didn't take quite an hour for the candy cane to fully dissolve and it left this behind. The kids all thought it was really cool to see the shape of the candy cane after it had dissolved.
That concludes our daycare equivalent of science class (which is what Max requested we have during the day). Definitely a fun experiment to do with the kids. I had them draw pictures of the experiment too, which was a good way to talk about what was happening with the candy canes. I did this with kids ages 1 to 5 and they all enjoyed it!