If you are in Canada you may be crying gently into your cookies and milk over the END of the penny.

That’s right, the last minted Canadian penny rolled off the thingamagig months ago. How old do you feel now, right? You are a generation that USED pennies. Dear Lord.

Anyway, if your kids are anything like me and my kids, they’re going to enjoy cleaning change. I don’t know what it is, but cleaning pennies and making them sparkle is fun! Especially if you get all scientific–then you feel grown up, smart, and cool as well!

Here’s what you need to know about cleaning pennies

First, copper reacts to oxygen forming copper oxide. That’s the stuff that makes pennies less bright and shiny.

Until 1997, the Canadian penny was almost entirely copper! That means lots of copper oxide. But–more recent pennies still have a copper plating so you still get copper oxide forming on them. Whew. (More on that in the post that will magically appear here in a few days.)

And, um. Yeah. I guess that’s about it unless we are going to go all super technical sciencey. And I don’t usually do that. On to the next step.

Cleaning Pennies: The How-To

1. Grab some pennies from Grandpa’s coin jar.
2. Grab 1/4 cup of vinegar and toss it in… well, just leave it in the measuring cup.
3. Sprinkle 1 tsp salt into the vinegar.
4. Stir.
5. Drop a pile of pennies in the solution.
6. Swish.
7. Wait a minute or however long your kids’ attention spans are.
8. Rinse and dry the pennies.
9. Compare them to some dirty pennies. Can you see the difference? Cool, eh?

So that’s an easy way of cleaning pennies. There are other methods as well. Have you tried them? What do you think? A penny for your thoughts in the comment section. (Yes, I just dated myself with that expression. <sob!>) .

If you liked this post, spread the word:

The Canadian penny is no longer being made: a simple science experiment to clean them up. (& US pennies) http://t.co/6UXMhCSQ

— Jean Oram (@KidsPlay) September 8, 2012

Here are a few fun things she did (and learned about) with soap, food colouring, and water:

Which makes more bubbles?: Liquid hand soap or liquid dish soap?

Does warm water make a difference when trying to get bubbles?

Can you get more bubbles if you mix with a fork instead of a stir stick?

What about mixing food colouring? What colours can you make? Can you make a colour lighter? How do you do it?

What happens to the bubbles? Will they still match the water’s colour?

What happens when you add food colouring to bubbles?

Obviously play is one of the coolest ways to discover new things as I had no clue you could make something as cool as a flower using food colour in bubbles! And without play, we wouldn’t have discovered this (coloured bubble flowers!):

How about you? Have you and your kids just played for the heck of it lately? Here’s your chance. Grab some food colouring (and maybe a smock of sorts), water, liquid soap, a jar, or glass, and something to stir with. See if you can make bubble rain clouds, and more!

Enjoy!

This activity is not only  fun, it’ll teach your kids about mixing colours, and all sorts of science.