3 Easy Chemistry Experiments for Kids To Do at Home

Chemistry can be a difficult subject for many elementary school students, but replacing textbooks and worksheets with hands-on experiments can help make it more engaging. 

Chemistry experiments help children explore questions about the things they observe every day. Why does ice float in a glass? How does soap clean our dishes? How does food change when it’s cooked? You can start pointing out these moments to your child during everyday life and they will start to grasp some of the basic concepts of chemistry. Doing these experiments will also help children (and maybe us, too) be more observant about chemistry all around us. 

Some of these experiments are conducted in science class at school. You can take it one step further by doing fun chemistry experiments with your children at home. Here are three easy examples of at-home experiments: 

1) Slime 

What you need: ‍

Making slime is a classic children’s science experiment. It is both easy and fun--and not even as messy as you might think! All you need to make slime is borax powder, water, white glue (Elmer’s glue works best), food coloring, a measuring cup, a jar, a bowl, and a teaspoon. ‍

What to do: ‍

This experiment comes from Thought Co. 

1. Pour 3-4 ounces of glue into a jar 

2. Add ½ cup of water 

3. Optional: add food coloring if you want to color your slime 

4. In a small separate bowl, mix 1 cup of water and 1 teaspoon borax powder

5. Stir the glue and water mix into the borax and water mix 

6. Knead the mix until it turns into slime. Keep kneading to make your slime firmer. 

Note: This experiment uses borax, so parents must do this experiment with their children for safety reasons. 

‍What you’ll learn:‍

Slime isn’t just fun to make and play with. It’s also a unique fluid that can teach us about Newton’s law of viscosity. Viscosity is, informally, the thickness of a fluid and its ability to flow. Molten lava, for example, has a higher viscosity than water in a stream. You and your children can compare the viscosity of slime to other familiar fluids in the kitchen. 

Most fluids are “Newtonian fluids,” meaning that their viscosity only changes with temperature. However, slime is non-Newtonian, meaning there are other things that can affect its viscosity, like pressure. Your child can see for themselves! If your child squeezes the slime into their fist, the slime’s viscosity is different than if they spread it out like pizza dough. Other non-Newtonian fluids include ketchup, toothpaste, and paint. 

2) Blow up a balloon from lemon juice 

Who knew that you could inflate a balloon without even putting it to your lips? In fact, all you need is a few household ingredients. 

What you need: 

Everything you need in this experiment you are likely to already have in your house. You’ll need lemon juice, vinegar, baking soda, a jar or bottle, a funnel, and a balloon. 

What to do: 

This experiment comes from Science Sparks. 

1. Fill an 8-12 ounce jar ½ full with lemon juice

2. Fill the balloon with baking soda

3. Stretch the balloon over the opening of the bottle

4. Tip the balloon so that the lemon juice and baking soda mix, then watch the balloon inflate‍

What you’ll learn:

‍When lemon juice and baking soda are combined, they create a chemical reaction. Together they create gas, which rises to fill up the balloon. The gas is called carbon dioxide and is the same gas that we breathe out from our bodies. This is why we can blow up a balloon just as we see the gas from the lemon juice and baking soda inflating the balloon.

3) Borax Crystals 

This experiment takes 24 hours to see the great results, but we promise it is worth it! By combining borax and hot water, you can make your own crystals at home. It’s also a great way to use any leftover borax from the slime experiment above. ‍

What you need: ‍

For this experiment, you’ll need borax, boiling water, pipe cleaners, a pencil, string, and a wide mouth jar. ‍

What to do: 

This experiment comes from The Children’s Museum of Sonoma County. 

1. Form the pipe cleaners into your desired shape. It could be a star, hexagon, or a circle--whatever you’d like! Place into the jar. Make sure your shape isn’t too big, as you should have ½ inch of space all around. 

2. Tie a string to the pipe cleaner and the other end of the string to a pencil to hang from (you’ll see why on step 6). 

3. Fill the jar with boiling water. 

4. Add borax to the water, one tablespoon at a time, three parts borax for every one part water. 

5. Stir until dissolved. It’s okay if there’s some powder left at the bottom of the jar. 6. Hang your pipe cleaner in the jar so that the pencil is on the lip of the jar and the snowflake hangs below, fully submerged in the borax-water solution. 7. Wait overnight, and in the morning your borax crystal is ready! 

Note: This experiment uses borax and hot water, so parents must do this experiment with their children for safety reasons. 

What you’ll learn: 

Borax is an example of a crystal because of the way the molecules are arranged in a unique repeating pattern. Another example of a crystal is salt. 

The reason why borax forms large crystals when combined with hot water is because heated water molecules move further apart, creating more space for borax crystals to dissolve. When no more of the borax crystals can dissolve, the solution is saturated. Once the solution begins to cool, water molecules move closer together. As there is less

room for the solution to hold onto the dissolved borax, crystals begin to form on one another while the water lets go of excess borax and evaporates. 

Free online chemistry classes for children 

If your child is curious about chemistry, sign them up for a free online intro to chemistry class at ZipSchool! Classes are for ages 4-9 and last 30 minutes. ZipSchool chemistry classes will take children on an adventure in which they discover how our world is made up of and impacted by atoms, elements, and reactions. Sign up here!