Magic Milk

It's magic milk, not Mike, I'm teaching toddlers here. My sons like food and painting, so I combined them today with some food coloring milk that they eventually painted with.

I have some garage sale food trays that we use for crafting time, which worked great for this. I poured some 2% milk in each of the tray compartments. The boys picked their food colors, and I had them add 3 drops to each of the corners of the milk pond. The food coloring does not blend with the milk. Q-tips were dipped in dish soap and then dipped in the milk food coloring, which is the magic milk. It blasts the color to the edges, and then as the Q-tip is moved around the color streaks through the milk. When the milk is completely blended with the color the magic is over. I gave the boys white sheets of paper and had them use the milk as paint. They used the Q-tips as brushes. This is also the same concept as milk paint that was popular in early 20th century homes, which our house still has remnants of.

The science behind the magic milk is that the soap goes after the fat in the milk, which causes the color trails. When it's all one color the chemical reaction is done, and the soap and fat have found each other. I explained this to the boys by simply saying they don't like each other, so the soap is trying to chase some parts of the milk. I don't expect them to remember that, so the real fun is in seeing them mix colors and find out what happens when more milk is added or when more soap is added. It's the simple wonder of what if when doing a science experiment. That's the real education. Well, that and having green hands all day from the Q-tip/finger painting.