Cleaning Pennies for President's Day

For the past few years Olivia has had a little obsession with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  Such odd things for a little girl, but it was sparked with our trip to Mount Rushmore.

She was very excited when I told her it was President's Day and naturally she insisted that we decorate the house.  Not typically a holiday that I decorate for but I did have two cutouts of  Washington and Lincoln that the girls gladly hung on our livingroom wall for the day.  (The same cutouts that my two girls went and kissed goodnight before naps! And later insisted that we sing Happy Birthday to them!)

We read several books about Washington and Lincoln and decided to look at their portraits on our coins.  While examining the coins, Olivia notices how some of the pennies were tarnished and others were bright.  We then decided to do an experiment to see how we could remove the tarnish off the older coins.

Getting the pennies ready for our experiment.  

First mixture was 1/2 c vinegar with 2 tsp salt.  

Second we tried lemon juice and third a foil lined bowl with dishwasher detergent.

It was fun to see how the different 'chemicals' reacted with the copper.  We found that the vinegar and salt actually did the best job at removing the tarnish.  The pennies did not look brand new, but it did remove many years from them.