37 Cool Science Experiments for Kids to Do at Home

37 Cool Science Experiments for Kids to Do at Home SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Are you looking for cool science experiments for kids at home or for class? We’ve got you covered! We’ve compiled a list of 37 of the best science experiments for kids that cover areas of science ranging from outer space to dinosaurs to chemical reactions. By doing these easy science experiments, kids will make their own blubber and see how polar bears stay warm, make a rain cloud in a jar to observe how weather changes, create a potato battery that’ll really power a lightbulb, and more. Below are 37 of the best science projects for kids to try. For each one we include a description of the experiment, which area(s) of science it teaches kids about, how difficult it is (easy/medium/hard), how messy it is (low/medium/high), and the materials you need to do the project. Note that experiments labelled â€Å"hard† are definitely still doable; they just require more materials or time than most of these other science experiments for kids. #1: Insect Hotels Teaches Kids About: Zoology Difficulty Level: Medium Messiness Level: Medium Insect hotels can be as simple (just a few sticks wrapped in a bundle) or as elaborate as you’d like, and they’re a great way for kids to get creative making the hotel and then get rewarded by seeing who has moved into the home they built. After creating a hotel with hiding places for bugs, place it outside (near a garden is often a good spot), wait a few days, then check it to see who has occupied the â€Å"rooms.† You can also use a bug ID book or app to try and identify the visitors. Materials Needed Shadow box or other box with multiple compartments Hot glue gun with glue Sticks, bark, small rocks, dried leaves, bits of yarn/wool, etc. #2: DIY Lava Lamp Teaches Kids About: Chemical reactions Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Medium In this quick and fun science experiment, kids will mix water, oil, food coloring, and antacid tablets to create their own (temporary) lava lamp. Oil and water don’t mix easily, and the antacid tablets will cause the oil to form little globules that are dyed by the food coloring. Just add the ingredients together and you’ll end up with a homemade lava lamp! Materials Needed Water Vegetable oil Food coloring Antacid tablets #3: Magnetic Slime Teaches Kids About: Magnets Difficulty Level: Medium Messiness Level: High (The slime is black and will slightly dye your fingers when you play with it, but it washes off easily.) A step up from silly putty and Play-Doh, magnetic slime is fun to play with but also teaches kids about magnets and how they attract and repel each other. Some of the ingredients you aren’t likely to have around the house, but they can all be purchased online. After mixing the ingredients together, you can use the neodymium magnet (regular magnets won’t be strong enough) to make the magnetic slime move without touching it! Materials Needed Liquid starch Adhesive glue Iron oxide powder Neodymium (rare earth) magnet #4: Baking Soda Volcanoes Teaches Kids About: Chemical reactions, earth science Difficulty Level: Easy-medium Messiness Level: High Baking soda volcanoes are one of the classic science projects for kids, and they’re also one of the most popular. It’s hard to top the excitement of a volcano erupting inside your home. This experiment can also be as simple or in-depth as you like. For the eruption, all you need is baking soda and vinegar (dishwashing detergent adds some extra power to the eruption), but you can make the â€Å"volcano† as elaborate and lifelike as you wish. Materials Needed Baking soda Vinegar Dishwashing detergent Water Large mason jar or soda bottle Playdough or aluminum foil to make the â€Å"volcano† Additional items to place around the volcano (optional) Food coloring (optional) #5: Tornado in a Jar Teaches Kids About: Weather Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Low This is one of the quick and easy and science experiments for kids to teach them about weather. It only takes about five minutes and a few materials to set up, but once you have it ready you and your kids can create your own miniature tornado whose vortex you can see and the strength of which you can change depending on how quickly you swirl the jar. Materials Needed Mason jar Water Dish soap Vinegar Glitter (optional) #6: Colored Celery Experiment Teaches Kids About: Plants Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Low This celery science experiment is another classic science experiment that parents and teachers like because it’s easy to do and gives kids a great visual understanding of how transpiration works and how plants get water and nutrients. Just place celery stalks in cups of colored water, wait at least a day, and you’ll see the celery leaves take on the color of the water. This happens because celery stalks (like other plants) contain small capillaries that they use to transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. Materials Needed Celery stalks (can also use white flowers or pale-colored cabbage) Glass jars Water Food coloring #7: Rain Cloud in a Jar Teaches Kids About: Weather Difficulty Level: Medium Messiness Level: Low This experiment teaches kids about weather and lets them learn how clouds form by making their own rain cloud. This is definitely a science project that requires adult supervision since it uses boiling water as one of the ingredients, but once you pour the water into a glass jar, the experiment is fast and easy, and you’ll be rewarded with a little cloud forming in the jar due to condensation. Materials Needed Glass jar with a lid Boiling water Aerosol hairspray Ice cubes Food coloring (optional) #8: Edible Rock Candy Teaches Kids About: Crystal formation Difficulty Level: Medium Messiness Level: Medium It takes about a week for the crystals of this rock candy experiment to form, but once they have you’ll be able to eat the results! After creating a sugar solution, you’ll fill jars with it and dangle strings in them that’ll slowly become covered with the crystals. This experiment involves heating and pouring boiling water, so adult supervision is necessary, once that step is complete, even very young kids will be excited to watch crystals slowly form. Materials Needed Glass jars Water Sugar Large saucepan Clothespins String or small skewers Food coloring (optional) Candy flavoring (optional) #9: Water Xylophone Teaches Kids About: Sound waves Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Low With just some basic materials you can create your own musical instrument to teach kids about sound waves. In this water xylophone experiment, you’ll fill glass jars with varying levels of water. Once they’re all lined up, kids can hit the sides with wooden sticks and see how the itch differs depending on how much water is in the jar (more water=lower pitch, less water=higher pitch). This is because sound waves travel differently depending on how full the jars are with water. Materials Needed Glass jars Water Wooden sticks/skewers Food coloring #10: Blood Model in a Jar Teaches Kids About: Human biology Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Medium This blood model experiment is a great way to get kids to visual what their blood looks like and how complicated it really is. Each ingredient represents a different component of blood (plasma, platelets, red blood cells, etc.), so you just add a certain amount of each to the jar, swirl it around a bit, and you have a model of what your blood looks like. Materials Needed Empty jar or bottle Corn syrup Red cinnamon candies Marshmallows or dry white lima beans White sprinkles #: Potato Battery Teaches Kids About: Electricity Difficulty Level: Hard Messiness Level: Low Did you know that a simple potato can produce enough energy to keep a light bulb lit for over a month? You can create a simple potato battery to show kids. There are kits that provide all the necessary materials and how to set it up, but if you don’t purchase one of these it can be a bit trickier to gather everything you need and assemble it correctly. Once it’s set though, you’ll have your own farm grown battery! Materials Needed Fresh potato Two wires Galvanized nail Copper coin Lightbulb #12: Homemade Pulley Teaches Kids About: Simple machines Difficulty Level: Medium Messiness Level: Low This science activity requires some materials you may not already have, but once you’ve gotten them, the homemade pulley takes only a few minutes to set up, and you can leave the pulley up for your kids to play with all year round. This pulley is best set up outside, but can also be done indoors. Materials Needed Clothesline 2 clothesline pulleys Bucket #13: Light Refraction Teaches Kids About: Light Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Low This light refraction experiment takes only a few minutes to set up and uses basic materials, but it’s a great way to show kids how light travels. You’ll draw two arrows on a sticky note, stick it to the wall, then fill a clear water bottle with water. As you move the water bottle in front of the arrows, the arrows will appear to change the direction they’re pointing. This is because of the refraction that occurs when light passes through materials like water and plastic. Materials Needed Sticky note Marker Transparent water bottle Water #14: Nature Journaling Teaches Kids About: Ecology, scientific observation Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Low A nature journal is a great way to encourage kids to be creative and really pay attention to what’s going on around them. All you need is a blank journal (you can buy one or make your own) along with something to write with. Then just go outside and encourage your children to write or draw what they notice. This could include descriptions of animals they see, tracings of leaves, a drawing of a beautiful flower, etc. Encourage your kids to ask questions about what they observe (Why do birds need to build nests? Why is this flower so brightly colored?) and explain to them that scientists collect research by doing exactly what they’re doing now. Materials Needed Blank journal or notebook Pens/pencils/crayons/markers Tape or glue for adding items to the journal #15: DIY Solar Oven Teaches Kids About: Solar energy Difficulty Level: Hard Messiness Level: Medium This homemade solar oven definitely requires some adult help to set up, but after it’s ready you’ll have your own mini oven that uses energy from the sun to make s’mores or melt cheese on pizza. While the food is cooking, you can explain to kids how the oven uses the sun’s rays to heat the food. Materials Needed Pizza box Aluminum foil Knife or box cutter Permanent marker Ruler Glue Plastic cling wrap Black construction paper Tape #16: Animal Blubber Simulation Teaches Kids About: Ecology, zoology Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Medium If your kids are curious about how animals like polar bears and seals stay warm in polar climates, you can go beyond just explaining it to them; you can actually have them make some of their own blubber and test it out. After you’ve filled up a large bowl with ice water and let it sit for a few minutes to get really cold, have your kids dip a bare hand in and see how many seconds they can last before their hand gets too cold. Next, coat one of their fingers in shortening and repeat the experiment. Your child will notice that, with the shortening acting like a protective layer of blubber, they don’t feel the cold water nearly as much. Materials Needed Bowl of ice water Shortening #17: Static Electricity Butterfly Teaches Kids About: Electricity Difficulty Level: Medium Messiness Level: Medium This experiment is a great way for young kids to learn about static electricity, and it’s more fun and visual than just having them rub balloons against their heads. First you’ll create a butterfly, using thick paper (such as cardstock) for the body and tissue paper for the wings. Then, blow up the balloon, have the kids rub it against their head for a few seconds, then move the balloon to just above the butterfly’s wings. The wings will move towards the balloon due to static electricity, and it’ll look like the butterfly is flying. Materials Needed Cardboard Tissue paper Thick paper Pencil Scissors Glue stick/glue Balloon #18: Edible Double Helix Teaches Kids About: Genetics Difficulty Level: Medium Messiness Level: Medium If your kids are learning about genetics, you can do this edible double helix craft to show them how DNA is formed, what its different parts are, and what it looks like. The licorice will form the sides or backbone of the DNA and each color of marshmallow will represent one of the four chemical bases. Kids will be able to see that only certain chemical bases pair with each other. Materials Needed 2 pieces of licorice 12 toothpicks Small marshmallows in 4 colors (9 of each color) 5 paperclips Tape #19: Leak-Proof Bag Teaches Kids About: Molecules, plastics Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Low This is an easy experiment that’ll appeal to kids of a variety of ages. Just take a zip-lock bag, fill it about â…” of the way with water, and close the top. Next, poke a few sharp objects (like bamboo skewers or sharp pencils) through one end and out the other. At this point you may want to dangle the bag above your child’s head, but no need to worry about spills because the bag won’t leak? Why not? It’s because the plastic used to make zip-lock bags is made of polymers, or long chains of molecules that’ll quickly join back together when they’re forced apart. Materials Needed Zip-lock bags Water Objects with sharp ends (pencils, bamboo skewers, etc.) #20: How Do Leaves Breathe? Teaches Kids About: Plant science Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Low It takes a few hours to see the results of this leaf experiment, but it couldn’t be easier to set up, and kids will love to see a leaf actually â€Å"breathing.† Just get a large-ish leaf, place it in a bowl (glass works best so you can see everything) filled with water, place a small rock on the leaf to weigh it down, and leave it somewhere sunny. Come back in a few hours and you’ll see little bubbles in the water created when the leaf releases the oxygen it created during photosynthesis. Materials Needed Large leaf Large bowl (preferably glass) Small rock Magnifying glass (optional) #21: Popsicle Stick Catapults Teaches Kids About: Simple machines Difficulty Level: Medium Messiness Level: Low Kids will love shooting pom poms out of these homemade popsicle stick catapults. After assembling the catapults out of popsicle sticks, rubber bands, and plastic spoons, they’re ready to launch pom poms or other lightweight objects. To teach kids about simple machines, you can ask them about how they think the catapults work, what they should do to make the pom poms go a farther/shorter distance, and how the catapult could be made more powerful. Materials Needed Popsicle sticks Rubber bands Plastic spoons Pom poms Paint (optional) #22: Elephant Toothpaste Teaches Kids About: Chemical reactions Difficulty Level: Medium Messiness Level: High You won’t want to do this experiment near anything that’s difficult to clean (outside may be best), but kids will love seeing this â€Å"elephant toothpaste† crazily overflowing the bottle and oozing everywhere. Pour the hydrogen peroxide, food coloring, and dishwashing soap into the bottle, and in the cup mix the yeast packet with some warm water for about 30 seconds. Then, add the yeast mixture to the bottle, stand back, and watch the solution become a massive foamy mixture that pours out of the bottle! The â€Å"toothpaste† is formed when the yeast removed the oxygen bubbles from the hydrogen peroxide which created foam. This is an exothermic reaction, and it creates heat as well as foam (you can have kids notice that the bottle became warm as the reaction occurred). Materials Needed Clean 16-oz soda bottle 6% solution of hydrogen peroxide 1 packet of dry yeast Water Dishwashing soap Food coloring (optional) Small cup #23: How Do Penguins Stay Dry? Teaches Kids About: Zoology Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Medium Penguins, and many other birds, have special oil-producing glands that coat their feathers with a protective layer that causes water to slide right off them, keeping them warm and dry. You can demonstrate this to kids with this penguin craft by having them color a picture of a penguin with crayons, then spraying the picture with water. The wax from the crayons will have created a protective layer like the oil actual birds coat themselves with, and the paper won’t absorb the water. Materials Needed Penguin image (included in link) Crayons Spray bottle Water Blue food coloring (optional) #24: Rock Weathering Experiment Teaches Kids About: Geology Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Low This mechanical weathering experiment teaches kids why and how rocks break down or erode. Take two pieces of clay, form them into balls, and wrap them in plastic wrap. Then, leave one out while placing the other in the freezer overnight. The next day, unwrap and compare them. You can repeat freezing the one piece of clay every night for several days to see how much more cracked and weathered it gets than the piece of clay that wasn’t frozen. It may even begin to crumble. This weathering also happens to rocks when they are subjected to extreme temperatures, and it’s one of the causes of erosion. Materials Needed Clay Plastic wrap Freezer #25: Saltwater Density Teaches Kids About: Water density Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Medium For this saltwater density experiment, you’ll fill four clear glasses with water, then add salt to one glass, sugar to one glass, and baking soda to one glass, leaving one glass with just water. Then, float small plastic pieces or grapes in each of the glasses and observe whether they float or not. Saltwater is denser than freshwater, which means some objects may float in saltwater that would sink in freshwater. You can use this experiment to teach kids about the ocean and other bodies of saltwater, such as the Dead Sea, which is so salty people can easily float on top of it. Materials Needed Four clear glasses Water Salt Sugar Baking soda Lightweight plastic objects or small grapes #26: Starburst Rock Cycle Teaches Kids About: Geology Difficulty Level: Medium Messiness Level: Medium With just a package of Starbursts and a few other materials, you can create models of each of the three rock types: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. Sedimentary â€Å"rocks† will be created by pressing thin layers of Starbursts together, metamorphic by heating and pressing Starbursts, and igneous by applying high levels of heat to the Starbursts. Kids will learn how different types of rocks are forms and how the three rock types look different from each other. Materials Needed Starbursts Aluminum foil Wax paper Toaster oven Towel Oven mitts #27: Inertia Wagon Experiment Teaches Kids About: Inertia Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Low This simple experiment teaches kids about inertia (as well as the importance of seatbelts!). Take a small wagon, fill it with a tall stack of books, then have one of your children pull it around then stop abruptly. They won’t be able to suddenly stop the wagon without the stack of books falling. You can have the kids predict which direction they think the books will fall and explain that this happens because of inertia, or Newton’s first law. Materials Needed Wagon Stack of books #28: Dinosaur Tracks Teaches Kids About: Paleontology Difficulty Level: Medium Messiness Level: Medium How are some dinosaur tracks still visible millions of years later? By mixing together several ingredients, you’ll get a claylike mixture you can press your hands/feet or dinosaur models into to make dinosaur track imprints. The mixture will harden and the imprints will remain, showing kids how dinosaur (and early human) tracks can stay in rock for such a long period of time. Materials Needed Used coffee grounds Coffee Flour Salt Wax paper Bowl Wooden spoon Rolling pin #29: Sidewalk Constellations Teaches Kids About: Astronomy Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Medium If you do this sidewalk constellation craft, you’ll be able to see the Big Dipper and Orion’s Belt in the daylight. On the sidewalk, have kids draw the lines of constellations (using constellation diagrams for guidance) and place stones where the stars are. You can then look at astronomy charts to see where the constellations they drew will be in the sky. Materials Needed Sidewalk chalk Small stones Diagrams of constellations #30: Lung Model Teaches Kids About: Human biology Difficulty Level: Medium Messiness Level: Low By building a lung model, you can teach kids about respiration and how their lungs work. After cutting off the bottom of a plastic bottle, you’ll stretch a balloon around the opened end and insert another balloon through the mouth of the bottle. You’ll then push a straw through the neck of the bottle and secure it with a rubber band and play dough. By blowing into the straw, the balloons will inflate then deflate, similar to how our lungs work. Materials Needed Plastic bottle Straw Rubber band Scissors 2 balloons Play dough #31: Homemade Dinosaur Bones Teaches Kids About: Paleontology Difficulty Level: Medium Messiness Level: Medium By mixing just flour, salt, and water, you’ll create a basic salt dough that’ll harden when baked. You can use this dough to make homemade dinosaur bones and teach kids about paleontology. You can use books or diagrams to learn how different dinosaur bones were shaped, and you can even bury the bones in a sandpit or something similar and then excavate them the way real paleontologists do. Materials Needed Flour Salt Water Images of dinosaur bones Oven #32: Clay and Toothpick Molecules Teaches Kids About: Human biology Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Medium There are many variations on homemade molecule science crafts. This one uses clay and toothpicks, although gumdrops or even small pieces of fruit like grapes can be used in place of clay. Roll the clay into balls and use molecule diagrams to attach the clay to toothpicks in the shape of the molecules. Kids can make numerous types of molecules and learn how atoms bond together to form molecules. Materials Needed Clay or gumdrops (in four colors) Toothpicks Diagrams of molecules #33: Articulated Hand Model Teaches Kids About: Human biology Difficulty Level: Medium Messiness Level: Low By creating an articulated hand model, you can teach kids about bones, joints, and how our hands are able to move in many ways and accomplish so many different tasks. After creating a hand out of thin foam, kids will cut straws to represent the different bones in the hand and glue them to the fingers of the hand models. You’ll then thread yarn (which represents tendons) through the straws, stabilize the model with a chopstick or other small stick, and end up with a hand model that moves and bends the way actual human hands do. Materials Needed Craft foam Straws (paper work best) Tape Beads Twine or yarn Scissors Chopsticks Pen #34: Solar Energy Experiment Teaches Kids About: Solar energy, light rays Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Medium This solar energy science experiment will teach kids about solar energy and how different colors absorb different amounts of energy. In a sunny spot outside, place six colored pieces of paper next to each other, and place an ice cube in the middle of each paper. Then, observe how quickly each of the ice cubes melt. The ice cube on the black piece of paper will melt fastest since black absorbs the most light (all the light ray colors), while the ice cube on the white paper will melt slowest since white absorbs the least light (it instead reflects light). You can then explain why certain colors look the way they do. (Colors besides black and white absorb all light except for the one ray color they reflect; this is the color they appear to us.) Materials Needed Ice cubes 6 squares of differently colored paper/cardstock (must include black paper and white paper) #35: How to Make Lightning Teaches Kids About: Electricity, weather Difficulty Level: Medium Messiness Level: Low You don’t need a storm to see lightning; you can actually create your own lightning at home. For younger kids this experiment requires adult help and supervision. You’ll stick a thumbtack through the bottom of an aluminum tray, then stick the pencil eraser to the pushpin. You’ll then rub the piece of wool over the aluminum tray, and then set the tray on the Styrofoam, where it’ll create a small spark/tiny bolt of lightning! Materials Needed Pencil with eraser Glue Aluminum tray or pie tin Wool cloth Styrofoam tray Thumbtack #36: Tie-Dyed Milk Teaches Kids About: Surface tension Difficulty Level: Easy Messiness Level: Medium For this magic milk experiment, partly fill a shallow dish with milk, then add a one drop of each food coloring color to different parts of the milk. The food coloring will mostly stay where you placed it. Next, carefully add one drop of dish soap to the middle of the milk. It’ll cause the food coloring to stream through the milk and away from the dish soap. This is because the dish soap breaks up the surface tension of the milk by dissolving the milk’s fat molecules. Materials Needed Shallow dish Milk (high-fat works best) Food coloring Dish soap #37: How Do Stalactites Form? Teaches Kids About: Geology Difficulty Level: Medium Messiness Level: Medium Have you ever gone into a cave and seen huge stalactites hanging from the top of the cave? Stalactites are formed by dripping water. The water is filled with particles which slowly accumulate and harden over the years, forming stalactites. You can recreate that process with this stalactite experiment. By mixing a baking soda solution, dipping a piece of wool yarn in the jar and running it to another jar, you’ll be able to observe baking soda particles forming and hardening along the yarn, similar to how stalactites grow. Materials Needed Baking soda Safety pins 2 glass jars Wool yarn Water Summary: Cool Science Experiments for Kids Any one of these simple science experiments for kids can get children learning and excited about science. You can choose a science experiment based on your child’s specific interest or what they’re currently learning about, or you can do an experiment on an entirely new topic to expand their learning and teach them about a new area of science. From easy science experiments for kids to the more challenging ones, these will all help kids have fun and learn more about science. What's Next? Are you also interested in pipe cleaner crafts for kids? We have a guide to some of the best pipe cleaner crafts to try! Looking for multiple different slime recipes? We tell you how to make slimes without borax and without glue as well as how to craft the ultimate super slime. Want to learn more about clouds? Learn how to identify every cloud in the sky with our guide to the 10 types of clouds. Want to know the fastest and easiest ways to convert between Fahrenheit and Celsius? We've got you covered! Check out our guide to the best ways to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit (or vice versa).