The Frog currently at the midst of the 'why' stage and was asking 'Why plants need a drink?'. So I thought it might be a good time to do this experiment to show him that they do drink (I am aware that that it didn't actually answer his question but after a day of 'why' it seemed a welcome distraction!). I remember clearly do this experiment with my Dad (although we used celery not flowers).
Using language to predict what might happen next is a useful skill. Some children find this hard and hands on science is a great way to practice this skill.
We added food coloring to water, placed some flowers in the water and waited. We asked questions to help us think through what might happen, 'What colour is the water?', 'I wonder what will happen?' etc These are simple questions but help to encourage higher level language skills such as reasoning and prediction.
The results were clear after a few hours. We did the experiment just before bed and by the morning the flowers had changed colour. You can find more details about the science behind the experiment here at Science Sparks a fab kids science website. There are tonnes of other great experiment there too why not try some out- don't forget to ask 'I wonder what will happen....?'