Science Experiments

🧪 Be a scientist at home! These experiments use everyday things from the kitchen. Tick each one when you’ve tried it and see how many you can do!

⚠️ Safety first! Always ask a grown-up before you start, don’t eat or drink your experiments, and wash your hands afterwards.

🌋 Fizzy Volcano

🧺 You will need:

  • A small plastic bottle or cup
  • 2 spoons of bicarbonate of soda
  • Vinegar
  • A squirt of washing-up liquid
  • Red food colouring (optional)
  • A tray to catch the mess!

📝 What to do:

  1. Stand the bottle on the tray and put the bicarbonate of soda inside.
  2. Add the washing-up liquid and a few drops of food colouring.
  3. Pour in some vinegar and stand back… ERUPTION! 🌋
🤔 What’s happening? (click to find out)

Vinegar is an acid and bicarbonate of soda is a base. When they mix, they react and make a gas called carbon dioxide. The washing-up liquid traps the gas in lots of bubbles, which foam up and out like lava!

🌈 Walking Water

🧺 You will need:

  • 3 clear glasses or cups
  • 2 sheets of kitchen roll
  • Water
  • Red, yellow and blue food colouring

📝 What to do:

  1. Put the 3 glasses in a row. Fill the two outside ones with water and leave the middle one empty.
  2. Add red colouring to one full glass and blue to the other.
  3. Fold each sheet of kitchen roll into a strip. Put one end in a coloured glass and the other end in the empty middle glass.
  4. Wait about an hour and watch the water “walk” – what colour appears in the middle?
🤔 What’s happening? (click to find out)

Water can climb up through tiny gaps in the paper. This is called capillary action – it’s also how plants drink water up through their stems! The red and blue water meet in the middle and mix to make purple.

🍇 Dancing Raisins

🧺 You will need:

  • A clear glass
  • Fizzy water or lemonade
  • A handful of raisins

📝 What to do:

  1. Fill the glass with fizzy water.
  2. Drop in the raisins.
  3. Watch them sink… then float up… then sink again!
🤔 What’s happening? (click to find out)

Bubbles of gas stick to the wrinkly raisins like tiny life jackets and lift them to the top. At the top the bubbles pop, so the raisins sink – then new bubbles stick on and up they go again!

🧂 Magic Pepper Escape

🧺 You will need:

  • A plate or shallow bowl
  • Water
  • Ground black pepper
  • Washing-up liquid

📝 What to do:

  1. Pour water into the plate.
  2. Sprinkle pepper all over the top of the water.
  3. Put a tiny drop of washing-up liquid on your fingertip and touch the middle of the water. Whoosh – the pepper runs away!
🤔 What’s happening? (click to find out)

The top of water acts like a stretchy skin. This is called surface tension. Soap breaks the “skin” where you touch it, and the stronger skin further away pulls the pepper to the edges.

🎈 Static Balloon Tricks

🧺 You will need:

  • A balloon
  • Your hair (or a woolly jumper)
  • Small bits of tissue paper
  • A tap

📝 What to do:

  1. Blow up the balloon and tie it (ask a grown-up to help).
  2. Rub the balloon on your hair for 10 seconds.
  3. Hold it over tiny bits of tissue – they jump up to it!
  4. Turn on a tap so there is a thin stream of water. Bring the balloon close (don’t touch!) and watch the water bend.
🤔 What’s happening? (click to find out)

Rubbing moves tiny particles called electrons onto the balloon, giving it a static electric charge. This charge pulls on the paper and the water, making them move towards the balloon.

🥚 The Floating Egg

🧺 You will need:

  • A tall glass
  • Water
  • An egg
  • Lots of salt (about 6 spoons)

📝 What to do:

  1. Fill the glass halfway with water and gently put the egg in. It sinks!
  2. Take the egg out. Stir in the salt until it disappears.
  3. Put the egg back in. Now it floats!
🤔 What’s happening? (click to find out)

Salt water is denser (heavier for its size) than plain water, so it pushes up on the egg more strongly. That’s why it’s easier to float in the sea than in a swimming pool.

🌱 Grow a Bean in a Jar

🧺 You will need:

  • A clear jar
  • Kitchen roll or cotton wool
  • A dried bean (like a butter bean)
  • Water

📝 What to do:

  1. Line the jar with damp kitchen roll.
  2. Slide the bean between the paper and the glass so you can see it.
  3. Keep the paper damp and put the jar somewhere light.
  4. Check every day and draw what you see. Roots first, then a shoot!
🤔 What’s happening? (click to find out)

A seed has a tiny baby plant and a food store inside. Water wakes it up – this is called germination. Roots grow down (towards gravity) and the shoot grows up (towards the light).

🔎 Secret Invisible Ink

🧺 You will need:

  • Half a lemon
  • A cotton bud or paintbrush
  • White paper
  • A grown-up with a hairdryer

📝 What to do:

  1. Squeeze the lemon juice into a little bowl.
  2. Dip the cotton bud and write a secret message on the paper. Let it dry – it disappears!
  3. Ask a grown-up to warm the paper with a hairdryer. Your message appears!
🤔 What’s happening? (click to find out)

Lemon juice contains substances that turn brown when they are heated, faster than the paper does. So your hidden writing shows up before the paper changes colour.

🌈 Make Your Own Rainbow

🧺 You will need:

  • A clear glass of water
  • A sunny window
  • A sheet of white paper

📝 What to do:

  1. Fill the glass with water and put it on a sunny windowsill.
  2. Hold the white paper on the floor (or a table) in front of the glass.
  3. Move the paper and the glass around until a little rainbow appears on the paper!
🤔 What’s happening? (click to find out)

Sunlight looks white, but it is really made of all the colours mixed together. When light goes through water it bends, and each colour bends a slightly different amount, so they spread out into a rainbow. Raindrops do the same thing in the sky!

🥣 Oobleck: Is It a Liquid or a Solid?

🧺 You will need:

  • A mixing bowl
  • 1 cup of cornflour
  • About half a cup of water
  • Green food colouring (optional)
  • An apron – it gets messy!

📝 What to do:

  1. Put the cornflour in the bowl and slowly stir in the water (and colouring).
  2. Keep adding a little water until it is gloopy.
  3. Punch it quickly – it feels hard! Now let your fingers sink in slowly – it feels runny!
  4. Try rolling a ball in your hands, then stop and watch it melt.
🤔 What’s happening? (click to find out)

Oobleck is a “non-Newtonian fluid”. When you squash it fast, the tiny cornflour bits jam together and it acts like a solid. When you move gently, they slide past each other and it acts like a liquid.

🎇 Milk Fireworks

🧺 You will need:

  • A plate
  • Milk (full-fat works best)
  • Food colouring in different colours
  • A cotton bud
  • Washing-up liquid

📝 What to do:

  1. Pour milk onto the plate so it covers the bottom.
  2. Add drops of different food colouring near the middle.
  3. Dip the cotton bud in washing-up liquid and touch it on the milk in the middle. Watch the colours explode!
🤔 What’s happening? (click to find out)

Milk has tiny blobs of fat in it. The soap rushes to grab onto the fat and breaks the surface tension, which sets the milk swirling – and the food colouring gets carried along for the ride.

🚁 Paper Helicopter

🧺 You will need:

  • A strip of paper (about 20cm by 5cm)
  • Scissors
  • A paperclip

📝 What to do:

  1. Cut down from the top of the strip to the middle to make two flaps.
  2. Fold one flap forwards and the other backwards – these are the blades.
  3. Fold the bottom up a little and clip on the paperclip.
  4. Drop it from as high as you safely can and watch it spin all the way down!
🤔 What’s happening? (click to find out)

As the helicopter falls, air pushes up against the blades. Because they are bent in opposite directions, the air pushes them round and round, and spinning slows the fall. Try bigger or smaller blades – what changes?

🎈 Balloon Rocket Race

🧺 You will need:

  • A long piece of string
  • A drinking straw
  • A balloon
  • Sticky tape
  • Two chairs

📝 What to do:

  1. Thread the string through the straw and tie each end to a chair, pulled tight.
  2. Blow up the balloon but don’t tie it – pinch the end shut.
  3. Tape the balloon to the straw, with the opening pointing at one chair.
  4. Let go… WHOOOOSH! How far did it go? Can you make it go further?
🤔 What’s happening? (click to find out)

Air rushes out of the back of the balloon and pushes the balloon the other way. Every push has an equal and opposite push back – this is how real rockets fly into space!

🍬 Rainbow Sweet Swirl

🧺 You will need:

  • A white plate
  • Colourful round sweets (like Skittles)
  • Warm water (from the tap)

📝 What to do:

  1. Put the sweets in a circle around the edge of the plate.
  2. Carefully pour warm water into the middle until it just touches the sweets.
  3. Wait and watch – stripes of colour race towards the middle, but they don’t mix!
🤔 What’s happening? (click to find out)

The sugary colouring on the sweets dissolves in the water and spreads out. Each stripe is very sugary, so they push against each other instead of mixing straight away.

🧊 Ice Fishing with Salt

🧺 You will need:

  • A glass of water with an ice cube floating in it
  • A piece of string
  • Salt

📝 What to do:

  1. Lay one end of the string across the top of the ice cube.
  2. Sprinkle a pinch of salt over the string and ice.
  3. Wait 30 seconds, then slowly lift the string. You’ve caught the ice cube!
🤔 What’s happening? (click to find out)

Salt makes ice melt a little. Then the cold ice freezes that water again – trapping the string inside, so you can lift the ice cube up.

🥚 The Bouncy Naked Egg

🧺 You will need:

  • A raw egg
  • A jar or glass
  • White vinegar
  • Patience – it takes 2 days!

📝 What to do:

  1. Gently put the egg in the jar and cover it with vinegar. Watch the tiny bubbles!
  2. Leave it for two days (ask a grown-up to change the vinegar after the first day).
  3. Carefully rinse the egg. The shell has gone, and the egg is squishy and see-through!
  4. Drop it from just a few centimetres onto a plate – it bounces! (Not too high, or SPLAT!)
🤔 What’s happening? (click to find out)

Eggshell is made of calcium carbonate, and vinegar is an acid that dissolves it, making bubbles of carbon dioxide gas. What’s left is a thin, rubbery skin called a membrane that holds the egg together.