Solid, Liquid, Gas!

What you’ll need:

• Just the info below and lots of energy!

Duration:

• 15 minutes – or more depending on how much energy you have

1.

Explain to your child that everything is made up of tiny particles. And that these particles behave differently depending on whether the thing is; a solid, a liquid, or a gas. Give examples of solids, liquids and gases (Ice, water and steam is always a good example!).

2.

Explain that for this game, we are going to act like the particles for each state of matter. And this is how they behave:

In solids the particles are close together and have little energy, they stick to each other in a very tightly arrangement and vibrate just a tiny little bit.

Particles in liquids are still quite close together, but they have enough energy to roll over each other.

In a gas the particles are no longer packed in as they have enough energy to fly around in all different directions quickly.

3.

From here, the game is simple. Just call out the states of matter and your children can act them out. For solid, they should stand very close together and wiggle a little bit. For liquid, they can stay close together and roll around. And for gas, they should be bouncing off the walls!

As they get to know the states, change them up more quickly and try to catch them out with different orders or places you want them to do the action.

4.

To play the game with just one child, for a solid, they should stand still and wiggle. For a liquid they can roll along and gas is the same!

5.

If they get this quickly, you could add another level.

To help them understand why it’s easy to move through a liquid, but harder to cut through a solid, you (or one of the children depending on how many you have!) could become a “knife”.

Can you move through the child atoms when they are a solid? What about when they are a liquid and a gas?