“Do you want to do an experiment?” the teacher asks, holding up a bag of water balloons.

The children squeal with delight as they nod vigorously.

The teacher laughs, her dark curls bouncing as she hands each of the children a balloon and tells them to blow it up as big as it could go.

The children, all aged six to eight, gulp in large breaths and then blow into the balloons. Their rosy cheeks pucker and their eyes bug out as they blow and blow and blow.

“Alright now,” the teacher says, clapping her hands to draw their attention. “Release the air!”

They all follow her instructions, laughing as their balloons make funny sounds.

“Okay. Now for the good stuff.” The teacher holds up a box of food coloring. “Pick a color and I’ll add a drop to the inside of your balloon.”

One little girl gasps at this, “but won’t it be messy?” she asks. She glances down her white dress. “I don’t want to get dirty.”

The teacher smiles and says, “Before I add the dye, go put on one of the aprons.”

Obediently, the children lay their balloons on their desks and march to the storage containers at the back of the room. They knew exactly where to go to find the aprons since they used them quite frequently for other experiments.

Once the children had returned to their desks, the teacher when one-by-one and added drops of color to the balloons.

“What do we do next?” a freckled boy asked. He jiggled his balloon.

“Next, we fill them up with water and set them outside.”

“But won’t they freeze?” a little joy asks. He shoves his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looks to the child next to him for confirmation.

“Yeah! It’s cold and snowy outside! These will freeze!”

The teacher smiles broadly at the children. “You’re exactly right. They will freeze. Now, who here want to take a stab at telling the rest of us their hypothesis on what will happen once they freeze?”

“What’s a hypo? Hippo? What was that word you used?”

“A hypothesis.”

“Yeah! What’s that?”

“A hypothesis is what you think might happen, but aren’t sure of. It’s something you have to test—by performing experiments!”

The children formed little ‘Os’ with their mouths, their eyes widening.

“I think the whole water will turn purple! I love purple so much,” and little boy in a checkered shirt said.

“That’s not what’s going to happen!” another boy says. “I think it’s going to explode!”

“Those are both very good hypotheses,” the teacher says. Thank you for sharing them!” The teacher beams at the children. “Anyone else have additional ideas?”

“What if it grows and it doesn’t growing? Doesn’t water grow when it turns to ice?” A little girls says, narrowing her eyes at the teacher as if this some sort of trick.

“Oooh, wouldn’t that be something to see!” the teacher says.

“How could it keep growing if it’s inside a balloon?” Another child asks.

The conversation continued on in this way as the teacher helped each child fill and turnoff their water balloons.

“Now,” she said. “We going to take them outside and place them in the snow!”

The teacher led them to a nice, shay spot under a giant oak tree in the middle of the playground. Snow swirled around them, dancing on delicate winter breezes. Kneeling down, she used her fingers to dig a small nest to rest her balloon on.

“Each day for the next week, well come out here and turn our balloons. Every day we’ll record the changes until the experimenter is over.”

The teacher helped the children dig their little nests and nestle their balloons into them.