Water filtration experiment

We learned about water this week, as part of our homeschool preschool and kindergarten lessons. As part of that we did an experiment seeing what we do to make water safe to drink. This water filtration lesson was a great science lesson.

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What you need for this water filtration lesson

I’m betting you have almost all of this already in your house. Though, I can never find a rubber band when I need one.

rocks or small objects, dirt, a couple of glasses, colander, coffee filter, rubber band, and water

All right, let’s start filtering water!

Real quick, before you get seriously started on this water filtration lesson, you need to make it very clear, that the water won’t be drinkable after your filtration, because you can’t filter out as well as the water plant does.

1. Get everything together, and put all of the rocks, dirt, and such stuff in the glass. My kids had a blast searching the backyard for the stuff to put in. Later I found out they grabbed the dirt from my garden……

2. Pour the water from the cup into the colander (with a bowl underneath). This will sift out the large objects and some of the dirt. The kids loved this step.

Quick interruption of the water filtration experiment

I mentioned this was part of a water cycle unit. Future Ticia 2023 wrote a water booklist so you could know what books we actually used for our water cycle unit. What I never wrote on was the other activities we did during that unit. Luckily for you, I did find a great water cycle experiment, so if you want to do that, then head over there.

Oh, and I have a water cycle song I learned sung to the tune of Oh my Darling Clementine.

Evaporation, (Push both palms up, palms parallel to floor.)
Condensation, (Push with arms straight out to the side.)
Precipitation on my head. ( Pretend to “rain” on head.)
Accumulation, (Make arms sweep back and forth in front.)
Water Cycle, (Arms rotate in circle in front.)
And we start all over again. (Turn around in place in a circle.)

It’s kind of funny that one single word can be an entire line of the song.

Now back to the water filtration experiment

Oh, you probably want a towel on hand to clean up the mess, I just thought of that. Or, if it’s summertime do this activity outside.

3. Pour the water SLOWLY into the cup with the filter. I discovered the hard way this step drips a lot, and it is very slow. So, we just did a little of the cup and let them see how the filter works.

We followed this up by talking about how after these steps the scientists at the water treatment plant use chemicals to get rid of more stuff, and to make the water taste good.

We got this experiment (and there are a few more in the book we didn’t try) from the book: Drip Drop How Water Gets to Your Tap!. We read this book about 5 times last week because the kids liked it that much. I’d say it’s appropriate for about through second grade. There’s a Magic School Bus book that talks about the same topic for older kids.

So, how about you? Anyone else have some great science stuff this week?

More great early learning science!

And because when the kids were older we did another experiment similar to this water filtration lesson.

• Why do people float in saltwater?
• Can you drink the water from your tap?
• How does chromatography work?
• 5 senses kindergarten activity
• What happens to my shadow as the sun moves?