As we enter the holiday season it’s important to remember it isn’t just about family and kids circling toys in the store ads, it’s also a time to give back.

You can easily use leftover Halloween candy to teach kids to give back to the community.

It’s a super simple after Halloween activity that will leave you smiling.

It all started with two very full buckets of Halloween candy.

There is no way we could ever eat it all.  Rather than letting it go to waste, we found a positive use for it.

Teaching Kids to Give Back

This year when the kids sort through the candy stash,  put some aside to make thank you bags for the local police and fire department.

It’s so simple!

• Fill sandwich bags with 8-10 pieces of candy.  We tried to include a variety:  several different mini candy bars, Twizzlers, and a lollipop.
• Add a short note to personalize it.

Use the filled bags to give back to local police and firemen.

You can drop them off to a local fire or police department.

This is also a great chance to show your kids that those men and women in uniform aren’t scary!

If you have a local military base near you, you could also keep some bags in the car to distribute to soldiers you may see when out doing errands.  We’ve given bags to members of our local Air Force National Guard unit that we’ve seen when out to lunch.

This year my kids will get a chance to toss a bit of spare change into that red kettle at the grocery store.

They’ll also get a chance to thank our local heroes for keeping us safe each day with this simple way to give back with left over Halloween candy.

You may also like:

• Teaching Kindness with the Elf
• 14 Days of Love Notes 
• Candy Cane Hunt (Our most popular post!)

Originally published on November 23, 2015.

The post Simple Way to Teach Kids to Give Back first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Those little pink boxes of candy hearts are once again adorning store shelves everywhere.  I’m going to admit it, I really don’t like them.  But the kids do.  And every year we buy a few boxes, having fun with some simple candy heart activities, like this candy heart science experiment, before they gobble them all up.

(Related Post: Dissolving Candy Experiment)

Candy Heart Science Experiment

To conduct your Valentine’s Day science experiment you will need several clear glasses or small jars.  You can use plastic, too, if they are clear and easy to see through.

You will also need plenty of candy hearts (conversation hearts).  If your kids are anything like mine you will need at least one full box because they seem to disappear, leaving no evidence of where they went except for a couple giggling kids.

Now comes the fun part.  Give each child one candy heart and ask them to put it in their mouths for a minute or two, without chewing it.  What happens to it?

Your child will probably notice that the words disappear from the candy, and it gets smaller.  They may have other observations to make, too.

Ask your child what they think will happen to a candy heart when put in a glass of water.   (Over time it will dissolve.)

What affect would hot water have?  Would it dissolve faster?

For younger children this may be enough to experiment with.  Place one candy heart in each of two cups.  Fill one cup part way with room temperature water and one with hot water and observes what happens.  (It will take a few minutes, which is perfect for snuggling up with a favorite book.)

Older children may want to test the affects of other liquids on the candy.

My kids opted to try vinegar (they love using vinegar in experiments) and some apple cider we had.  Your child might want to try soda pop or a fruit juice.

Label the glasses with each liquid and be sure to put the candy hearts in at the same time so you can see which one dissolves first.  Want to take it further?  Use a timer and record how long it takes for each candy heart to dissolve.

Encourage your child to jot down observations during the candy experiment.

One thing we noticed was that the clear liquids turned the color of the candy heart.  Also, when we sniffed the containers the two with water smelled like the candy — the yellow especially did, smelling a bit lemony.

We were surprised to find the hot water dissolved the candy much faster than the vinegar.  And even more surprised that the apple cider took the longest.  (Which may be because it was cold.  We have a whole new hypothesis to test.)

Even though I am not a big fan of the tiny candy hearts, we always have fun with them each February.  This simple candy heart science experiment is one of our favorite candy heart activities so far.

You may also like:

• Cherry Explosion: Fizzy Valentines Science
• Candy Learning Activities 
• Melt the Frozen Heart Valentines Science 
• Melting Snowman Winter STEM 

The post Dissolving Candy Hearts Valentines Science first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we have been having fun learning with candy!   Since science is always a hit here, we’ve done several candy experiments.

The easiest candy science experiment we have done this week was seeing which candy would dissolve first.

We chose four candies to test:  Skittles, Smarties, Pixy Stix, and Gobstoppers.

Before trying our experiment I let the kids examine each type of candy.  We looked at how thick they each were, whether they were chewy or hard, and several other factors.

Then I had them each make a hypothesis for how long it would take each candyto dissolve in room temperature water.

They both agreed the Pixy Stix would dissolve quickly, guessing it would be a couple seconds before the flavored sugar disappeared.

They guessed the Smarties would take 5 minutes; the Skittles a half hour and the Gobstoppers an hour.

We wrote these predictions down on a piece of paper so we could compare our results at the end of the experiment.

Then I had them carefully pour 1/4 cup water into four different clear glasses.  Finally, they added the candy to the glasses and we labeled them.

The Pixy Stix dissolved in 7 seconds, with a little stirring.

We discovered the Smarties took quite a bit longer than expected; they actually took an hour to completely dissolve, not just 5 minutes.

The Skittles took an hour and 20 minutes; the Gobstoppers took 2 hours!

Even though their predictions were a bit off when it came to how long it might take, I was impressed that they were right in which order the candies would dissolve.

If you want to take it a bit further you could set up the experiment to test ways to make the candy dissolve faster. (How does hot water affect the candy versus room temperature water?  What about different liquids, like vinegar?  Will crushing the candy ahead of time help speed up the process?)

For more candy experiments check out our Candy Heart Experiment!  

The post Dissolving Candy Experiment first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.