Growing Halloween Creatures

Today was a windy rainy day so we were all stuck inside.  We decided to do an experiment with Halloween tablets. They are these tablets that if you put them in water, they will dissolve into different objects or creatures. These happen to be Halloween related. So we chose to use black, green, orange and blue. As we put the tablets in the water, I asked each child to guess what the object inside might be. I did this for each color. Guesses included a pumpkin, a ghost, a jet, an A, purple beans, green beans, flowers, trees, a witch's hat and a W. I don't know where the letters came from. The jet was a little out of place too, but it makes things interesting. It took a while for the tablets to dissolve so we kept ourselves busy by singing songs, reading a story and rolling a ball back and forth. Eventually, the capsules had broken and spongy Halloween creatures emerged. The kids were excited to see them. Since the objects looked a bit strange, I went around the room and asked what the kids thought grew in the jars. A couple of them were correct and could see a pumpkin. Others saw jets, skulls, skeletons, a witch, a sea horse and others were not sure. After closer inspection, we discovered that three out of the four were different shaped pumpkins and the fourth was a bat. Overall, I'd say this activity was a success even with rowdy kids who just finished eating cake for snack!