I have always had a love for science ever since I was a little girl. So when my daughter came up to me and asked if her next birthday could be a science themed party I felt like a little kid again! Side note, please ignore our messy kitchen, we were in the middle of remodeling it!
Safety First
Each guest got a pair of safety glasses, lab coat and a name tag. To create the lab coats I bought a package of boys white t-shirts from Target and cut them up the middle to give them that lab coat look. Depending on how fancy you want to get, you could write funny scientist names on the shirts or have them fill out a name tags like it did.
I put together a folder for each guest with all the experiments printed out that we would be doing at the party plus a few extra bonus ones for them to try at home.
Elephant Toothpaste
The kids had so much fun with this experiment. It was fun to watch the expressions on their faces when the fun began!
- Place a water bottle, soda bottle, or Gatorade bottle (any plastic bottle) in the middle of a pan to catch the toothpaste. I just saved the plastic water bottles or soda bottles we drank and for the pans I used the aluminum disposable pans.
- Mix 2 Tbsp of warm water and 1 tsp of yeast in a separate container (I used little plastic cups) and swirl together for a minute.
- Mix ½ cup hydrogen peroxide (it needs to be 6% or higher), 4-5 drops food coloring of guests choice, and a squirt of dish soap in your soda/water bottle:
- Now here comes the exciting part. Pour the yeast mixture into the soda/water bottle and watch the fun begin!!!
Kool-aid lip balm
We combined 1 Tbsp coconut oil, ¼ package kool-aid, enough water to form a paste, and ¼ tsp sugar. Mix together and put in a small makeup sample container.
Guess the Potion
This was such a fun game and it was fun watching the kids squirm a bit.This game involves tasting “potions” and trying to guess what they are. It works best if you can have 5-10 different drinks on hand. Now you can make this easy or more difficult depending on the age of the group.We hid our drinks in the cabinet until it was time to taste test the positions. Make sure you label each drink with a number and you’ll want to remove labels or put them in pitchers to keep it a secret. We gave each player a small beaker and started by pouring one of the drinks in each one. Each player then tasted the potion and wrote what there guess was down on the potion card. Repeat this process until all potions have been tasted and guessed. Now reveal the names of the drinks and let the players see if they were correct. Here are the game cards in PDF format: Guess the Potion Game Cards
Mentos and Diet Coke
To wrap up the experiments we took the group outside to watch the Mentos and Diet Coke magic. Now this one you have to be quick so it’s best if an adult does this one while the kids sit on the sidewalk at a safe distance. You’ll need a cheap bottle of Diet Cola and a roll of mint Mentos (the blue package). You can open one end of the mentos and try to quickly drop mints in at once OR you can get this really cool gadget that quickly releases the mints and then you run!!!
The Laboratory
To help set the mood that we were all mad scientists we had beakers, test tubes and parts of the periodic table scattered around.
These fun periodic table letters were perfect for a photo background and every great photo needs to have photo props right!!! Here is a PDF ready for you to print – Science Periodic Table Letters
I had a few larger boxes in my garage that were just taking up space until trash day, so I asked my daughter who has an artistic hand to make a beaker and light bulb using these boxes. They turned out great!
I hung a birthday sign that used elements from the periodic table and placed science party boxes all around that the kids got to take home at the end of the party. It was a great way for them to carry their safety glasses, lab coat, lip balm and snacks they got from the party. And last we filled different sized beakers all around with food colored water all over.
Laboratory Treats
Have fun with this. Lab rats on a stick or gumballs in a test tube make great atoms. I wasn’t creative enough to come up with names using the elements from the periodic table so I created my own elements for our food like Rp for Radioactive Pizza, Ps for DNA pasta salad or Cc for Cupcakes. Cheesy I know but it was cute!