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Experiments

Snow Storm in A Jar Science Experiment

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

The weather is changing out here, it’s getting colder with winter coming, and we have actually had a couple morning with snow on the ground. Snow Storm in A Jar is easy, and fun science experiment to do with your kids. It goes along great with our arctic animal theme.

Snow Storm in A Jar Science Experiment

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What you need:

  • oil – we used baby oil & vegetable oil
  • white paint
  • alka seltzer tablets
  • a jar
  • glitter – optional
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How to Make A Snow Storm in a Jar

This is really super easy to do with your kids. It is very similar to a lava lamp in fact. First, you pour some water into the bottom of your jar, about two inches worth.

Add about a tablespoon of white paint in, this is just a rough guess of how much I squeezed in. And stir.

Snow Storm in A Jar Science Experiment

Add in oil to fill your jar. We used baby oil as seen in the picture below. I thought it would be easier to see the snow, slightly more “realistic” to have a clear sky rather than a yellow one the first time around.

Snow Storm in A Jar Science Experiment

I learned that pouring the oil in onto a spoon instead of directly into the water cause less mixing of the two before adding alka seltzer tablets. Once they settle, the fun really starts.

Drop in an alka seltzer tablet or two and watch the snow fly.

Snow Storm in A Jar Science Experiment

Looking at the side of the jar afterward looks like looking out the window during a storm. Which is why I called this a snow storm in a jar.

Using an oil with color, like vegetable oil actually made it easier to see the snow. We did it both ways.

Snow Storm in A Jar Science Experiment

Snow Storm in a Jar

Yield: 1
Prep Time: 1 minute
Active Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 6 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Estimated Cost: $2

Materials

  • oil - we used baby oil & vegetable oil
  • white paint
  • alka seltzer tablets
  • glitter - optional

Tools

  • a mason jar

Instructions

  1. Add a couple inches of water to the bottom of your jar.
  2. Add a tablespoon or so of white paint to your water and mix.
  3. Fill your jar up with oil of your choice.
  4. Add one or two alka seltzer tablets.

Notes

Using an oil with color, like vegetable oil actually made it easier to see the snow. We did it both ways.

© Ashley Mullen
Category: Experiments

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Cloud in A Jar – Science Experiment

Making Rain in a Jar

Weather in a Jar: Tornado

Arctic Animals – Science Experiment

Filed Under: Experiments, Kids Activities Tagged With: science experiment

Color Changing Water Science Experiment

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Who knew a head of red cabbage could be so much fun? We actually did this color changing water experiment the same day we did the pH indictor testing. One cabbage, two experiments. We love science experiments here and I hope you do too.

Color Changing Water

This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.

This is a very easy science experiment, and super budget friendly science. Everything you need is for this, is in your kitchen. I like experiments to be easy and accessible for everyone.

Red Cabbage Science Experiment

With this experiment, I had no idea what to expect along with my kids. I think those are the best experiments., the ones we get to experience the magic together. It was the same when we did the cabbage pH indictor.

What you need:

  • head or red cabbage
  • boiling water
  • vinegar
  • baking soda
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How to Make Water Change Color

The first thing to do it boil water, and pour that boiling water over a head (or half a head) of red cabbage cut up. The more cabbage, the more water you use, the more water you’ll have to do this experiment with.

Let it sit for about 30 minutes.

Now strain the water off your cabbage and into either clear small jars or into glasses. Your red cabbage water is going to look quite purple.

Pour a little white vinegar into your cabbage water.

Color Changing Water (Red Cabbage)

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Add a little baking soda.

Color Changing Water (Red Cabbage)

This color changing water science experiment doesn’t stop at one or two colors but you can add more baking soda to see more change.

Color Changing Water (Red Cabbage)

You do want to make sure that you let each reaction finish before adding more baking soda or vinegar to each glass of red cabbage water. We did end up with a really big mess… think volcano.

Color Changing Water

Color Changing Water (Red Cabbage)

Yield: 1
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Active Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 35 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Estimated Cost: $1

Materials

  • head or red cabbage
  • boiling water
  • vinegar
  • baking soda

Tools

  • clear glasses/jars
  • kettle

Instructions

  1. The first thing to do it boil water, and pour that boiling water over a head (or half a head) of red cabbage cut up. Let it sit for about 30 minutes.
  2. Now strain the water off your cabbage and into either clear small jars or into glasses.
  3. Pour a little white vinegar into your cabbage water.
  4. Add a little baking soda.
  5. This color changing science experiment doesn't stop at one or two colors but you can add more baking soda to see more change.

Notes

You do want to make sure that you let each reaction finish before adding more baking soda or vinegar to each glass of red cabbage water. We did end up with a really big mess... think volcano.

© Ashley Mullen

Similar posts you may be interested in:

Easy Red Cabbage pH Indicator

Self Inflating Balloon Experiment

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Filed Under: Experiments, Kids Activities Tagged With: science experiment

Easy Red Cabbage pH Indicator

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Getting in the kitchen with your kids doesn’t always mean cooking or baking. It means spending time together doing something, anything, and having fun. This is fun, easy, and a great science experiment using things that you have in your home, mostly in your kitchen at that. Buy a small head of red cabbage, and create this pH indicator.

pH Indictor with Red Cabbage

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Red Cabbage pH Indicator Colors

Write this out and stick it somewhere that you and your kids can see during the experiment so you can decide what the pH is of each of the add-ins.

Red – 2
Purple – 4
Violet – 6
Blue – 8
Blue-Green – 10
Greenish-Yellow – 12

What you need:

  • 1/2 – 2 head of red cabbage
  • water
  • lemon juice
  • baking soda
  • washing soda
  • cream of tarter
  • vinegar

How to Make A pH Indictor with Red Cabbage

Cut up your cabbage. Pour boiling water over it, and wait 30 minutes.

pH Indictor with Red Cabbage - cup of red cabbage

Strain water off of cabbage into small containers. I used wine glasses because I couldn’t find any small clear jars for the amount of water I got off my cabbage.

I had all the solutions that we were adding to our cabbage water in separate containers for ease of adding them for smaller hands.

Add something different to each cup of cabbage water.

Cabbage Acidic & Bases Reactions:

pH Indictor with Red Cabbage

The moment the lemon juice hits the cabbage water, it turned red, a beautiful red as you can see above. Just from lemon juice. What would you guess is the pH here?

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pH Indictor with Red Cabbage (2)

You can see how noticeable the difference is between the plain cabbage water and the water that we added the baking soda to. We did add a little too much, a spoonful and we probably could have gotten away with a lot less.

pH Indictor with Red Cabbage

pH Indictor with Red Cabbage

Yield: 1
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Active Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 40 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Estimated Cost: $1

pH Indictor with Red Cabbage with different items from the kitchen.

Materials

  • 1/2 - 2 head of red cabbage
  • water
  • lemon juice
  • baking soda
  • washing soda
  • cream of tarter
  • vinegar

Tools

  • small clear glass containers
  • spoon
  • bowl
  • kettle

Instructions

  1. Cut up your cabbage.
  2. Pour boiling water over it, and wait 30 minutes.
  3. Strain water off of cabbage into small containers.
  4. Add something different to each cup of cabbage water. Baking soda to a cup to watch the reaction.
  5. Continue on with the rest of the bases.
© Ashley Mullen

Cabbage pH Indicator Basics

Red cabbage contains a pigment molecule called flavin (an anthocyanin). This water-soluble pigment is also found in apple skins, plums, poppies, cornflowers, and grapes.

Very acidic solutions will turn anthocyanin into a red color. 

Neutral solutions result in a purplish color. 

Basic solutions appear in greenish-yellow.

Therefore, you can determine the pH of a solution based on the color that it turns the anthocyanin pigments in red cabbage juice.

The color of the juice changes in response to changes in its hydrogen ion concentration; pH is the -log[H+]. Acids will donate hydrogen ions in an aqueous solution and have a low pH (pH 7).

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Similar posts you may be interested in:

Self Inflating Balloon Experiment

Invisible Ink Secret Messages

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Filed Under: Experiments, Kids Activities Tagged With: kids in the kitchen, science experiment

Self Inflating Balloon Experiment

by Ashley Mullen 1 Comment

How about some science fun with a balloon? My seven year old was amazed by this. He had no idea what to expect when we started this self inflating balloon experiment.

Self Inflating Balloon

Self Inflating Balloon Experiment

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I used a Sharpie to draw a face on our balloon just to give it a little more fun, and to pretend we were growing a monster head with Halloween coming up soon.

Gauge loved this, I don’t know if you can hear him in the video or not, but he says “Did you know this would happen?!” Who know inflating a balloon could be so much fun.

What you need:

  • vinegar
  • baking soda
  • balloons
  • water/pop bottle

How to make a balloon self inflate

This is a science experiment simple enough for your kids to do themselves. My almost seven year old did it with very little help from me.

Start by measuring out half a cup of vinegar.

Self Inflating Balloon Experiment

It is very helpful to have a funnel for the next part: pouring the vinegar into a bottle. A funnel means less will get spilled.

Self Inflating Balloon Experiment - pouring vinegar into a bottle

We dried off our funnel, and used it to put half a tablespoon of baking soda into our balloon.

Self Inflating Balloon - filling a balloon with baking soda

Remove the funnel from your balloon, and carefully fit it over the opening of your bottle without spilling any of the baking soda in the bottle. It will cause a reaction before you are ready.

Self Inflating Balloon

Once you are ready and watching you can flip the balloon up to empty the baking soda into the bottle. The reaction does happen quite fast.

Self Inflating Balloon

Now you just wait for the reaction. My favorite part of this is that this science experiment uses things you most likely have around your house already.

Self Inflating Balloon

Self Inflating Balloon

Yield: 1
Prep Time: 3 minutes
Active Time: 2 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Estimated Cost: $1

Easy science experiment for kids using things you have in the kitchen.

Materials

  • 1/2 cup of vinegar
  • 1/2 tsp of baking soda
  • balloons
  • water/pop bottle

Tools

  • funnel

Instructions

  1. Pour 1/2 cup of vinegar into an old water or pop bottle.
  2. put 1/2 tbsp of baking soda into a balloon.
  3. Carefully, put the opening of the balloon over the water bottle.
  4. Empty the baking soda into the bottle, and into the vinegar and watch the reaction.
© Ashley Mullen
Category: Kids Activities

We have balloons from parties past “floating” around our house, which is probably why I have been finding activities to do with my kids using balloons. Time to use them up before another birthday, and party theme comes around.

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Self Inflating Balloon Experiment

What’s Happening:

The secret lies with vinegar and baking soda, two household staples that, when combined, create carbonic acid. Carbonic acid breaks down into water and carbon dioxide.

This experiment uses the carbon dioxide to fill the balloon, giving the illusion that the balloon is self inflating.

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Invisible Ink Secret Messages

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

We all want to write secret messages right? Write something that some certain people can read. That would have been the best thing ever as a child. Now, for my kids it’s something from Harry Potter. Something secret spy do.

Invisible Ink Secret Messages

Invisible Ink Secret Messages

This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.

If your kids are anything like mine they have read the Harry books, and watched the Harry Potter movies. Having done that they would love to have the The Marauder’s Map. The secret map that would reveal where people and secret passages where throughout Hogwarts.

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Vinegar or Baking Soda Invisible Ink

  • Vinegar or Baking Soda
  • Water
  • Small Bowl
  • Small paint brush or Q-tip
  • Paper
  • Sponge or larger paint brush
  • Grape juice

How to do it:

Choose if you will be using vinegar or baking soda. 

In the small bowl mix 1 tbsp of vinegar (or baking soda) with 1 tbsp of water. Mix the two ingredients together. 

Dip a small paint brush or cotton swab in the mixture and write your secret message on the paper. 

Let the writing dry. To reveal the message use a sponge or larger paint brush and paint the paper with grape juice.

If you need to make a larger quantity of the invisible ink for a birthday party simply mix the ingredients in a 1/1 ratio. 

For example: 1/2 Cup of baking soda with 1/2 Cup of water. 

Lemon Juice Invisible Ink

  • 1 Lemon cut in half
  • Small bowl
  • Small paint brush or cotton swab
  • Paper

How to do it:

Squeeze a lemon half into the small bowl.

Dip the paint brush or Q-tip into the lemon juice and then write your secret message on the paper with the brush. Let the juice dry completely.

To read the message hold the paper 6″ from a light bulb. The heat of the light bulb (can not be an LED bulb) will make the message appear!

You can also iron over the message. But this one should be used with care.

Milk Secret Messages

  • Milk
  • Small bowl
  • Paintbrush or Q-tip
  • Paper
  • Light that gives out heat or an iron

How to do it:

Paint or swab a message onto paper with Milk.  Let the paper dry.   To see the message hold next to a candle, light bulb or swipe over the paper with an iron. 

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No Ink

Lay a piece of paper on top of another piece of paper.  

Using a pencil write your message on the top piece of paper. Remove the top piece of paper. 

To reveal the message use a pencil to lightly color over the bottom piece of paper.

Crayon or Candle

  • White Crayon or a white candle
  • Paper
  • Colored markers or water colors

How to do it:

Write your secret message on a piece of paper using  a white crayon or white candle.

When you want to reveal the message color over the message with a darker marker or water colors. Your secret writing will appear like magic!

Writing & Discovering Secret Messages

Recommended Products for Writing Secrets Messages

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Balloon Rockets STEM Experiment

Heart Pumping Human Body Science Experiment

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Filed Under: Experiments, Kids Activities Tagged With: Science Experiments

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A Little About Me

I'm Ashley, a Canadian secular homeschool mom of 3, living in Nova Scotia.

I share our adventures in homeschooling and parenting.

You can usually find us at the library surrounded by books.
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