Witch's Potion Lab

What you need

• a big mixing bowl, half full of water
• a drop of green food colouring
• small bowls of oats, dried pasta and dry leaves, for bat wings, spider legs and dragon scales
• a spoonful of bicarbonate of soda and a splash of vinegar
• a big spoon and a small spoon
• a sheet of paper and a crayon for the recipe
• a tray or a wipe-clean mat

How to do it

1. Set the bowls out on the tray. Draw the recipe together: a picture of each ingredient with dots beside it for how many spoons.
2. Let your child read the recipe and add each ingredient, counting the spoonfuls out loud.
3. Stir it round and round while you both say a spell, then drip in the green.
4. Finish with the bicarbonate of soda, then you pour in the vinegar and watch it fizz.

Why it matters

A recipe with dots to count puts them in charge of the potion, and the fizz at the end is the reward for following it through.

What they're learning

Counting spoonfuls

One number for each spoon, matched to the dots on the recipe.

Following a recipe

Doing things in order, one ingredient at a time.

Watching a change

Green water, then a fizz: adding one thing changes another.

What to look for

Notice them touching each dot on the recipe as they count the spoons in.

A tip

It's a potion to stir, not to sip: keep spoons out of mouths and faces back from the fizz, wipe drips as you go so the floor stays dry, stay beside them the whole time the water is out, and tip it away as soon as you finish.

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