Children Love Simple Experiments

Help your child build critical thinking skills and have fun at the same time! Here are a few safe experiments to try with children that don’t require many materials you don’t already have at home.

Sink and Float

Gather some waterproof items together and fill a sink, tub, or bucket with water. Let your child predict and experiment!

The Floor is Lava Challenge

Rescue as many bears as possible from the lava by building a structure with only these materials: 3 plastic cups, 5 popsicle sticks, and counting bears (or other small objects). Bears cannot be at the table level, only above it, so that the lava doesn’t get onto their feet or bodies in any way!

Move Pompoms with Air Pressure

Understanding the idea that air can have enough force to move objects can be a little challenging. Use a straw to blow pompoms, crumpled paper balls, or other small objects and talk about what things move faster or slower. You can compare this movement to wind blowing things around outside.

Which Shape is Strongest?

This is an easy, fun experiment to find out how strong different shapes are. Fold a sheet of paper into different shapes and see how much they can hold. Try a triangle, square, and cylinder.

Grow a Paper Towel Rainbow

1. Fold a paper towel in half horizontally.

2. Cut off about 1/3 of the paper towel. Save the smaller section for later.

3. Draw the rainbow colors with a marker on one end of the paper towel in rectangular blocks. Make sure to go over the colors a few times with the markers so there is enough dye to travel up the paper towel.

4. Repeat the same on the other end. Make sure the colors line up on both ends.

5. Pour water into two glasses until they are about 3/4 full.

6. Place the two ends of the paper towels into the cups. 1/2 of the rainbow blocks should be in the water. Do not fully submerge the entire colored portion of the paper towel in the water.

7. Watch the colors travel up the paper towel! How long it takes for the color to travel up the paper towel will depend on how much dye from the marker you used and the absorbency of the paper towel.

Build a Toothpick Tower

Use apple pieces or mini marshmallows as the connector between toothpicks. This is more of a challenge than an experiment, but still a great experience!

Mix up some “magic” milk

Begin by pouring milk onto a plate. You will need to ensure you have enough milk to cover the base of the plate.

Add a few drops of food coloring to the milk. This will give you a great opportunity to talk about colors and point out if any of them mix together to form new colors.

Carefully add one drop of dishwashing liquid to the middle of the milk.

Quickly a chemical reaction will occur, which will see the colors begin to spread away from the dishwashing liquid drop and begin mixing and churning the colors.