7 science experiments for kids

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Scientific experiments are useful and very exciting. Everything you need to demonstrate spectacular chemical reactions and physical phenomena can be found in any home. In your hands, the simplest objects will acquire magical properties, and you yourself will become a real superhero in the eyes of a child.

1. Tame Lizuna

A remake of Ghostbusters is coming out very soon, and this is a great excuse to revisit the old film and explore non-Newtonian fluids. One of the heroes of the film, the silly ghost Lizun, is a good image for visualization. This is a character who loves to eat, and he also knows how to penetrate walls.

We need:

• potato,
• tonic.

What do we do

Cut the potatoes very finely (you can grind them in a food processor) and fill them with hot water. After 10-15 minutes, drain the water through a sieve into a clean bowl and set aside. A sediment will appear at the bottom - starch. Drain the water, the starch will remain in the bowl. Basically, you already have a non-Newtonian fluid. You can play with it and watch how it hardens under your hands, and itself becomes liquid. You can also add food coloring for a vibrant color.

Now let's add some magic.

The starch must be dried (left for a couple of days). And then add tonic to it and make a kind of dough that is easy to take in your hand. It will retain its consistency in the palms, and if you stop and stop kneading it, it will start to spread.

If you turn on the ultraviolet lamp, then you and your child will see how the dough starts to glow. This is due to the quinine in the tonic. It looks magical: a radiant substance that behaves as if it violates all the laws of physics.

2. Get superpowers

Comic book characters are especially popular now, so your child will love to feel like a powerful Magneto who knows how to manipulate metals.

We need:

• toner for the printer,
• magnet,
• vegetable oil.

What do we do

From the very beginning, get ready for the fact that after this experiment you will need a lot of napkins or rags - it will be quite dirty.

Pour about 50 ml of laser toner into a small container. Add two tablespoons of vegetable oil and mix very well. Done - you have a liquid in your hands that will react to a magnet.

You can attach a magnet to the container and watch how the liquid literally sticks to the wall, forming a funny "hedgehog". It will be even more interesting if you find a board on which it is not a pity to pour a little black mixture, and invite your child to use a magnet to control the drop of toner.

3. Turn milk into a cow

Encourage the child to solidify the liquid without freezing it. This is a very simple and impressive experience, however, to get the result, you have to wait a couple of days. But what an effect!

We need:

• a glass of milk,
• vinegar.

What do we do

We heat a glass of milk in the microwave or on the stove. Do not boil. Then you need to add a tablespoon of vinegar to it. And now we start getting in the way. We actively move the spoon in the glass to see how the white clots appear. This is casein, a protein found in milk.

When there are many clots, drain the mixture through a sieve. Everything that remains in the colander must be shaken, and then put on a paper towel and dry a little. Then start kneading the material with your hands. It will look like dough or clay. At this stage, you can add food coloring or glitter to make the white mass brighter and more interesting for the baby.

Invite your child to mold something from this material - a figurine of an animal (for example, a cow) or some other object. But you can just put the mass in a plastic mold. Leave to dry for a day or two.

When the mass is dry, you will have a figurine made of a very hard hypoallergenic material. This "homemade plastic" was used until the 1930s. Casein was used to make jewelry, accessories, buttons.

4. Control the snakes

Getting the vinegar and baking soda reaction is one of the most boring experiences imaginable. "Volcanoes" and "pops" will not be of interest to modern children. But you can offer the child to become a "lord of snakes" and show how the acid and alkali react after all.

We need:

• packaging of jelly worms,
• soda,
• vinegar.

What do we do

We take two large transparent glasses. Pour water into one and add soda. We mix. We open the package of jelly worms. It is better to cut each of them lengthwise, to make it thinner. Then the experience will be more spectacular.

Thin worms should be put in a mixture of water and soda and mixed. Set aside for 5 minutes.

Pour vinegar into another glass. And now we add to this vessel the worms that have been in a glass of soda. Due to the soda, bubbles will be visible on their surface. So the reaction is underway. The more worms you add to the glass, the more gas will be released. And after a while, the bubbles will lift the worms to the surface. Add more baking soda - the reaction will be more active and the worms themselves will begin to crawl out of the glass. Cool!

5. Make a hologram like in "Star Wars"

Of course, it is difficult to create a real hologram at home. But its semblance is quite real and not even very difficult. You will learn how to use the properties of light and turn 2D images into 3D images.

We need:

• smartphone,
• CD box,
• stationery knife,
• Scotch,
• paper,
• pencil.

What do we do

You need to draw a trapezoid on paper. The drawing can be seen in the photo: the length of the lower side of the trapezoid is 6 cm, the upper side is 1 cm.

Carefully cut the trapezoid out of the paper and take out the CD case. We need a transparent part of it. Attach the pattern to the plastic and use a utility knife to cut a trapezoid out of the plastic. Repeat three more times - we need four identical transparent elements.

Now they need to be glued together with tape so that it looks like a funnel or a truncated pyramid.

Take your smartphone and launch one of the. Place the plastic pyramid, narrow side down, in the center of the screen. Inside you will see a "hologram".

You can play videos with characters from Star Wars and, for example, the famous recording of Princess Leia, or your own miniature BB-8.

6. Get out of the water dry

Every child can build a sand castle on the seashore. How about building it underwater? Along the way, you can learn the concept of "hydrophobic".

We need:

• colored sand for aquariums (you can take ordinary sand, but you need to rinse and dry it),
• hydrophobic shoe spray.

What do we do

Gently pour the sand onto a large plate or baking sheet. Apply a hydrophobic spray to it. We do this very carefully: spray, mix, repeat several times. The task is simple - to make sure that every grain of sand is enveloped in a protective layer.

When the sand is dry, collect it in a bottle or bag. Get a large container for water (such as a wide-mouth jar or aquarium). Show your child how hydrophobic sand works. If you pour it in a thin stream into water, it will sink to the bottom, but remain dry. This is easy to check: have the baby take some sand from the bottom of the container. As soon as the sand rises out of the water, it will crumble in the palm of your hand.

7. Keeping information classified is better than James Bond

Writing secret messages with lemon juice is a thing of the past. There is another way to get invisible ink, which also allows you to learn a little more about the reaction of iodine and starch.

We need:

• rice,
• iodine,
• paper,
• brush.

What do we do

First, cook the rice. The porridge can be eaten later, but we need a decoction - there is a lot of starch in it. Dip a brush into it and write a secret message on paper, such as "I know who ate all the cookies yesterday." Wait for the paper to dry. The starchy letters will be invisible. To decipher the message, you need to moisten another brush or cotton swab in a solution of iodine and water and run it over what was written. Due to a chemical reaction, blue letters will begin to appear on the paper. Voila!