Science Experiments with the Grandkids

By Karen Shadrach

Help grandchildren love and appreciate science by performing simple experiments with them at home. It will nurture their intellectual curiosity and encourage them to ask questions about the world around them. 

Kids love reactions that are explosive and colorful. The following experiments will definitely grab their attention, plus they use items you probably already have available in your kitchen.

It’s a Blast
Perform an acid/base experiment by making a snow volcano. Heap up a cone-shaped snow pile around a water bottle. For the base, drop 1 spoonful of dish soap and 2 spoonfuls of baking soda into the bottom of the bottle. Add a few drops of food coloring and mix well. 

For the boom (acid), add about ⅛ cup of vinegar and stand back for the volcanic eruption — an explosion of foam! Add a different color and more vinegar to repeat the reaction. Because you are doing this outside, cleanup is easy.

A lava lamp is also a favorite. Fill a water bottle with half oil and half water. Add a few drops of food coloring and glitter. The water and oil separate because of their differences in density. 

Next, add Alka-Seltzer tablets. These are large, so break them into fourths. Drop into the bottle and watch for the fizzy bubble formations. The Alka-Seltzer provides carbon dioxide, which pushes the colored water droplets up through the oil. When the gas is released at the top, the water droplets fall back down to the bottom and get re-carried up to the top. You can keep adding more Alka-Seltzer tabs to repeat the performance. Our kids wanted to keep theirs, so they saved it until the next day and added even more Alka-Seltzer.

Color Crazy
In addition to explosions, kids love rainbows. Rainbows are a great subject for holidays, and you can use these experiments for them to create their own rainbow colors with science.

Start with  M&M’s and Skittles. Place 5-6 candies in water. Try to keep the letters facing up in the cup. Wait 5-10 minutes. First, the colors dissolve off the candy, then slowly, the letters peel off and float on top of the water. Why? The M’s and S’s are made out of edible paper. Kids love this experiment. They liked to see how many intact letters they could get to float, plus they were allowed to eat the extras we didn’t use.

How about making rainbow rain? Use a tall water glass or wine glass and fill ¾-full of water. In a separate cup, pour about ¼-cup of olive or vegetable oil with 4-6 drops of food coloring. (Lighter colors are best) Whisk, breaking up all the colored droplets. Pour the oil into the water — it will float on top. Then, watch closely as the droplets slowly begin to fall down into the water portion, creating beautiful rainbow rain.

Set up a rainbow in clear plastic cups. Begin by placing seven clear plastic cups in a row and fill every other cup ½-full with water. Following the sequence below, add food coloring to the appropriate cup and mix well: RED — BLANK (no food coloring) — BLUE — BLANK — YELLOW — BLANK — RED.

Next, fold paper towels lengthwise and insert them into the cups.  Each towel should be bent in half and extended from a colored cup into a blank cup. You will need a total of six folded towels. 

Watch these for a few hours, then leave them overnight. The empty cups will now contain water that has been colored purple, green and orange. The empty cups will contain water and the mixed colors from their neighboring cups, making a rainbow of colors. Science mystery revealed: This is not magic, (I had them wave their magic wands over the experiment after set-up) but is accomplished by capillary action of the movement of water along the paper towels. This experiment is great for teaching the kids to learn the primary colors and how to make secondary colors.

I encourage you to try one or more of these science experiments with your grandkids. Teach them to see that learning is exciting and spark their interest in science. Try to show an interest in it yourself. There is no need to know everything in advance. Search for answers and learn together.