What are the four states of matter?

That is Nicole's science question this week.  As we were practicing the answer today, I came up with a way to demonstrate at least three of states (I'm still not sure what the fourth state, Plasma, really is....that's next on my "to do" list)

After practicing the answer "The four states of matter are solid, liquid, gas and plasma" we spent a few minutes in the kitchen.

I plopped the girls up on the counter and gave them each some ice cubes to hold (I forgot to take a pictures of this).  We described the ice cube, cold, hard....a solid!

Then we put the ice cubes (along with a few more) into a pot on the stove.  I turned the stove on and asked Nicole what would happen to ice cubes if I heat them up on the stove.  She thought for a minute and explained that they would melt and not be cold anymore.  We spent a lot of time asking and answering questions about the ice turning from a solid into a liquid.  While the ice melted, I let them touch the water to experience that it wasn't instantly hot. We talked a little about the freezing point of water. 

While we were waiting for the ice to fully melt and start to boil, I asked her how I could make the liquid water into ice again.  We filled up an ice tray and I started to stick it in the oven. She laughed and told me that was wrong.  So, I tried to put it in the fridge because it was cold in there.  But, she told me that it needed to be in the freezer, because it's really cold in there.  so...we talked some more about the freezing point of ice.

By this time, the ice had melted in the pot and it was starting to boil. So, we watched the steam rise from the pot and we were able to talk about how the liquid water was turning into gas.  We carefully ran our hands through the steam.  Now, we started talking about the boiling point of water.

Then we used a small plastic cup and placed it over the steam.  The girls were surprised to find that the cup because wet when we took it out from the steam.  Because the cub is cooler than the boiling water, the gas turned back into a liquid. 

Finally, we let the water boil all the way down...and by the end of our little experiment, Nicole understood that the liquid water that was in the pot didn't just disappear, but that it became a gas and has now evaporated into the air. 

I'm sure there are many better ways to show these changes...but this was what I came up with as I winged it...and it seemed to work.:-)