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easy experiment

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food experiments

Write secret messages to your friends and family and then let them decode it with any source of heat - like a candle or an incandescent light bulb!Keep exploring what acids can do with <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/dp/planet-bath-bombs/3702" target="_self">Planet Bath Bombs</a> from the <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store" target="_self">KiwiCo Store</a>! Mix citric acid, the same acid that makes lemons sour, with baking soda to mold planet-inspired bath bombs, then drop them in water and watch the fizz take off.

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Squeeze the juice of the lemon into a small bowl.

Some seeds may fall in, but you don’t need to fish them out.

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Using the cotton swab as a pencil, write a secret message on the paper. Then, let the paper dry completely.

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Bring your heat source close to the paper and watch as your secret message magically begins to appear! 

Lemon juice is mostly made of a variety of sugars, acids, and water. Normally, lemon juice is mostly clear, so when you dilute it even further in water, and paint that mixture onto some paper, you can't see it. However, heating up lemon juice causes some of its sugars to react with oxygen in the air (oxidation), which turns these sugars brown. Acids in the lemon juice can also react with fibers in the paper to make more sugars, which again turn brown in the heat. Your invisible ink might seem like magic, but really, it's all just chemistry.

lemon (1/2)

Small Bowl

cotton swabs

Paper

heat source (like a candle or an incandescent light bulb)

Invisible Ink with Lemon Juice

indoor project

launcher

food play

toy design

engineering

winter

winter crafts

sweet snacks

Create mini marshmallow launchers with everyday household items. Get extra cozy with some hot cocoa and see how many marshmallows land inside your mug!

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Carefully cut out the bottom of the plastic cup. If needed, your grownup assistant can do this for you!

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Leaving the balloon deflated, tie a knot to close the opening. Then, cut about a quarter inch off the top of the balloon to create a large opening.

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Stretch the balloon over the bottom opening of the plastic cup. Give the knot a tug to make sure it is on securely.

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Now your marshmallow shooter is ready! Load up the marshmallows and give the balloon a tug to see how far they go!

balloons

mini marshmallows

plastic cups

scissors

Marshmallow Launcher

experiment

science experiment

physics

sound science

music

learning activity

Discover how music creates vibrations you can see using salt and a portable speaker! Then try experimenting with different genres of music to see which ones make the salt dance more. What's going on? Speakers, like your Bluetooth speaker, produce sound by creating vibrations in the air. Normally, we only hear these vibrations, and we can't easily see them. Plastic wrap, though, is lightweight and thin enough to vibrate in response to the sounds coming from the speakers. These vibrations move through the plastic wrap unevenly, pushing and shoving the salt around in interesting patterns. As a song progresses, these vibrations change, and the salt moves as if it were dancing. If you can find a YouTube video of a pure tone (like a single, sustained note), observe what happens to the salt when you play that tone through the speakers. A pure tone will create a consistent, unchanging vibration in the plastic wrap. Instead of dancing around, the salt should collect in places in the plastic wrap that aren't vibrating, making patterns that depend on the frequency of the pure tone. Try a few other pure tones, one at a time, to see some other interesting patterns!

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With the speaker facing up, tape six popsicle sticks around the outside of the speaker. 

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Cut a piece of plastic wrap large enough to cover and stretch tightly over the top of the popsicle sticks and secure with a rubber band.  

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Sprinkle salt onto the plastic wrap. Then, connect the speaker to the cell phone, play a song, and watch the salt move to the music! Troubleshooting: If the salt isn’t moving, first try increasing the volume. If it still isn’t moving, try moving the plastic wrap closer to the speaker by shortening the distance between the top of the popsicle sticks and the speaker. Optional: To see the salt more clearly, try dyeing it with food coloring! Simply combine salt and one or two drops of food coloring in a sandwich bag and shake the bag until fully mixed.

speaker (bluetooth)

cell phone

popsicle stick (6)

tape

plastic wrap

rubber band

salt

food coloring (optional)

Dancing Salt

chemical reactions

science project

food science

When you have three little curious boys running around your house and a free afternoon, why not get a little messy and do some kitchen science? We did ours in the backyard and let the whole thing become a super sensory experience. When they inevitably try and find the remains of their apple in the mound of foam, be sure to ask them what it feels like.Want to explore more kitchen science experiments? Explore the tastier side of learning with <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/dp/science-of-cooking-bread-butter-project-kit/5463">Science of Cooking: Bread &amp; Butter</a> from the <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/store">KiwiCo Store</a>!

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Add 1 cup of baking soda, 1 tablespoon of soap, and 1 teaspoon of water to a small bowl. Start mixing them together with your hands. 

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If you want to make a colored apple, add about a teaspoon of liquid water color (we used one pipette of lime green or red). Keep mixing until it comes together and you can shape it into a ball.If it is too crumbly, add a little bit of water at a time to bring it together. If it is too mushy, add more baking soda to make it firmer.

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When you've got a nice doughy consistency, scrape the mixture out of your bowl and roll it together into a ball. Add a leaf to complete your apple.

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To make your apple erupt, put about a cup of vinegar into a squeeze bottle and place your apple into a bowl. This will get messy so make sure everything is in a tray to catch anything that overflows. Now squirt some vinegar onto your apple and watch it erupt!

What's going on?
What you see happening to the apples is a chemical reaction, and in a chemical reaction, the molecules change! Vinegar reacts with baking soda and one product of that reaction is carbon dioxide gas. This is explains the fun fizzy bubbles that erupt from your apples!

1 cup baking soda

1 cup vinegar

1 tbsp water

1 tbsp liquid soap - (baby shampoo / dish soap)

tray - (something to contain the mess)

squeeze bottle

pipette - (optional)

liquid watercolors - (optional)

Erupting Apples

egg experiment

egg projects

quick experiment

Impress your friends and family with this simple, quick, and super-cool 'egg in a bottle'&nbsp;science trick! You'll learn how to harness the power of expanding and contracting gasses to suck an egg into a bottle in which it would never normally fit.Discover everything that eggs have to offer with <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/dp/eggsperiments-project-kit/2979">Eggsperiments</a> from the <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/store">KiwiCo Store</a>! Use the scientific method with a series of egg-based experiments that explore chemistry, physics, and biology.

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Gather the materials for your egg in a bottle experiment!

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Gather the materials for your egg-in-a-bottle experiment!

Carefully peel the shell off your hard-boiled egg. The smoother your egg, the better this experiment will work!

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With some parent help, light the end of the strip of paper and place it inside the jar.

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Quickly place the egg on top of the jar before the paper burns out. If you look closely, you should be able to see the egg vibrate ever so slightly as the paper burns.

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The flame will quickly go out, and when it does, don't blink! Your egg should start to compress and will get sucked down into the bottle. Ta-da! You've successfully managed to get your egg in the bottle. So what's happening? As the flame burns inside the bottle, it heats up the air around it, causing it to expand. If you saw your egg vibrating slightly, this was because the air was escaping from the bottle. When the flame goes out, the air in the bottle cools and shrinks. This is what sucks your egg into the bottle! To get your egg out of the bottle, simply cut it into a couple of smaller chunks by poking it with a knife. Then tip the jar to dump out the pieces.

hard boiled eggs

jar (opening slightly smaller than width of an egg)

paper (roughly 1/2" by 4")

lighter

Egg in a Bottle

household craft

edible experiments

eruptions

Are you in for a surprise treat to share with your friends and family? This homemade version of the classic pop rocks will get you fizzy with baking soda and citric acid! Personalize this candy with your own flavor and experience this chemical reaction in your mouth!Want to explore more kitchen science experiments? Explore the tastier side of learning with <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/dp/science-of-cooking-bread-butter-project-kit/5463">Science of Cooking: Bread &amp; Butter</a> from the <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/store">KiwiCo Store</a>!

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Spread the powdered sugar over a metal baking sheet. Sprinkle 1 tbsp of citric acid over the powdered sugar. 

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Measure out the other 2 tbsp of citric acid into a small bowl and set it aside. 

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In a medium saucepan, add the granulated sugar, the water, and the corn syrup. Place the saucepan of the medium heat. 

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Stir the mixture until it boils. Then stop stirring and wait until the mixture just starts to turn brown at 305 degrees F. This will take about 5 minutes.

Watch this step very carefully - once the sugar starts to brown, it will burn very quickly.

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Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool for 3-5 minutes, or until the bubbles subside. While it's cooling, measure out the baking soda, food coloring, and flavoring oil into a small bowl.

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Add the baking soda mixture to the pan and mix until combined. Be careful, the sugar mixture in the saucepan is still very hot. Then immediately pour it out onto the powdered sugar you spread on the baking sheet. Sprinkle the remaining 2 tbsp of citric acid over the hot sugar. Let it cool to room temperature.

Break up the cooked candy into small pieces with your hands or by crushing it with a rolling pin. Pop some in your mouth and feel the fiz! For maximum fizz, crunch the candy and then hold it in your mouth for a few seconds. Do the bubbles tickle your tongue?

What's going on?
This recipe keeps the citric acid and baking soda separate until you eat it. When these two ingredients combine with the saliva in your mouth, it creates carbon dioxide gas. It doesn't "pop" like the fizzy candy sold in stores, but you are still experiencing a chemical reaction in your mouth!

powdered sugar (1/4 cup)

canning citric acid (available on amazon) (3 tbsp )

granulated sugar (1 cup)

water (3 tbsp)

light corn syrup (2 tbsp)

baking soda (1 1/2 tsp)

flavoring oil (of your choice) (1/8 tsp )

food coloring (3 drops)

Fizzy Candy

spring

Is a square egg possible? Not in nature - but you can re-shape a hard-boiled egg in just a few easy steps!Discover everything that eggs have to offer with <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/dp/eggsperiments-project-kit/2979">Eggsperiments</a> from the <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/store">KiwiCo Store</a>! Use the scientific method with a series of egg-based experiments that explore chemistry, physics, and biology.

When you hard boil an egg, molecular chemistry is at work. Eggs are made up mostly of two kinds of molecules: protein and water. The proteins in a raw egg are like twisted and folded strings, floating in a watery soup. They’re held that way by weak chemical bonds within the protein (and by the water, which pushes on different parts of the protein).
 When you heat up the egg, though, the proteins start moving and shaking. They shake so much that they break their weak bonds and unfold. As they unfold, the proteins end up making new, stronger chemical bonds between each other. That turns the egg into a latticework of protein, with water trapped in between. This is what’s going on when the boiled egg turns from transparent to white.
 
Once the boiled egg cools down, the proteins settle and the bonds solidify to make the rubbery egg we’re familiar with. When they’re still hot, though, the bonds between the proteins are moldable, kind of like clay. What would happen, then, if you molded an egg before it cooled down? Try it out in this project and see for yourself!

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Make a 1 ½-inch square box out of the cereal box. Fold it together inside out, so the waxy outside of the cereal box is on the inside. Tape the box together. 

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Place two eggs in the bottom of the pot and cover with water. Bring the water to a rolling boil. Continue boiling for 10 minutes. Then, remove from heat. You may need a grown-up to assist you. 

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Use the slotted spoon to remove one egg from the pot, and set it aside. Then, remove the second egg and use paper towels to peel it. 

The eggs will be very hot! Be careful when handling them. 

Dip the peeled egg back in the pot to remove any remaining egg shell. 

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Place the peeled egg into the box, pointy end down. 

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Carefully close the box and wrap a rubber band around it. Then, leave the box in the refrigerator for about 2 hours. 

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After two hours, take the box out of the refrigerator. Remove the rubber band, and take out the egg. 

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Peel the first egg. Then, cut into both eggs and compare them! What other shapes can you make? 

There are lots of other egg-citing projects you can do with eggs! See what happens when you leave an <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/diy/Science-Projects-for-Kids/3/project/Egg-in-Vinegar-Experiment/2765" target="_blank">egg in vinegar</a>, or search “egg” above for more ideas!

44 creative food experiments projects for kids

Screen-free fun!