Simple Science Experiments You Can Do In Your Home

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Call me biased: I love science. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed learning about, and something I love teaching and talking about with my boys on a regular basis. I love the free time that comes with summer and like to do fun, new things weekly in order to instill a mindset of learning at a young age. Through some research in books that I’ve found, I’ve come up with a list of simple science experiments you can do with your child in your own home.

Obviously this list is not all-inclusive. There are so many great ideas out there. This draft, if you will, provides a basic introduction of a new concept or concept that may be hard to grasp. If you’re looking for further information, I’ve found most of my ideas from the following three books: 175 Amazing Nature Experiments, How To Make A Chemical Volcano, and 365 Science Experiments.

Liquid Density:

It can be hard for children to understand the difference between weight and density. It’s the idea of two substances weighing the same, but one of the two takes up more space. In order to perform these four experiments, you will need a basin, kitchen scale, paper or Styrofoam cups, water, salt, food coloring, soda in cans, eye dropper and an egg.

Experiment 1:

First, weigh a disposable cup filled with 1 cup of water. Empty the cup and fill it back up with 1 cup of salt water. Record the differences.

Experiment 2:

Add blue food color to the regular water and green food color to the salt water. Make a third Styrofoam cup of salt water (uncolored). Taking a small dropper, add a few drops of green saltwater to the blue regular water and observe. Next, add some blue regular water to the uncolored saltwater and observe.

Experiment 3:

Next, fill a large container with water. Add different soda cans of the same size (sprite, dr. pepper, coke, pepsi, etc) and see which ones sink to the bottom and which ones float.

Experiment 4:

Lastly, add an egg to a bowl of water. Watch what happens when you add salt to the bowl with the egg in it. Tip: I put quite a bit of salt into the bowl.

Teach Cohesion/Adhesion With a Penny and Water

This is by far my favorite simple experiment. How many drops of water can you fit onto a penny. To make it easier to visualize, I start by placing one drop of water next to a penny and then ask my kids to guess how many drops they think will fit.

Then I explain the concept of cohesion and adhesion. Water displays both properties. Adhesion is the ability for a substance to cling or stick to a different substance. Cohesion is the ability for a substance to cling or stick to molecules of the same substance (like clings to like).

Therefore, in this example, the individual water molecules cling to each other and to the copper penny. It’s really quite remarkable how many water drops you can fit onto a penny!

Write Secret Messages in Invisible Ink

You may want to hold off on teaching this to a pack full of boys or girls bent on starting their own secret society. Then again, you know how to reveal the formula, so you can figure out what it is that’s going on if you really needed to.

For this experiment, you will need a paintbrush, lemon juice, piece of paper, and clothes iron (obviously you’re going to want to help younger children with the iron part).

Dip the brush in lemon juice and write out a secret message on the paper. Allow it to dry (probably a few hours or overnight). Turn on your iron and once it is hot, go over the paper with the iron.

Make Some Raisins Dance

Seriously, this experiment is incredibly fun and quite cheap. Next time you’re at the grocery store, buy a box of raisins and package of Alka Seltzer tablets. All you need left is tap water and a jar with a lid.

Put 3/4 water into a jar. Add four or five raisins. Drop two Alka Seltzer tablets into the jar and very quickly put the lid on top (the sooner you can, the less CO2 escapes from the jar, giving you a longer lasting result).

Why does this work? Alka Seltzer releases CO2 that will bubble onto the raisins. The gas is lighter than water, causing the raisins to rise in the jar. Once the gas covered raisin reaches the top of the water level, the gas escapes, and the raisin sinks again.

This is another great example of density buoyancy (but more fun in my opinion).

Learn Everything You Can About Bugs

This is geared towards a younger child’s mindset. In my opinion, bugs can be so cool, just so long as they’re not alive, in my house, or trying to bite me. You can start an inexpensive bug collection by finding dead bugs around your property that are quite intact. I like to place them inside used spice jars and label them.

Having a field guide like this one on hand can help you identify lesser known insects and be able to learn more information about them. There’s also a plethora of insect children’s books with descriptive illustrations and details that can help spark the imagination of your child.

Lastly, some of these experiments can help you discover more about the “minibeasts” that live just outside your door:

Experiment 1:

It’s no secret that insect pollinators are attracted to bright colors. Find out which color the most insects life with this simple project. have sheets of different colored paper (construction paper works great) and lay them out on the grass on a warm, bright day. Keep a record of the insects that visit each paper.

Make it more fun by seeing if smearing some honey on the “least popular” colored paper attracts more bugs. Brainstorm other ways to try to attract a larger number.

Experiment 2:

Have you noticed that you tend to get the most bug bites in the later hours of the day? Many insects you only see at night because they’re nocturnal. Perform this simple experiment to see if you discover any new insects you’ve rarely or never seen.

Dig a small hole in the ground. Using a small jar (pint sized mason jars work best for me), place it in the hole so that the top is level with the soil. Find some leaves, twigs, and damp soil and put them in the bottom of the jar. Using four smooth stones and a piece of wood, place the wood on top of the stones to cover the top of the jar while leaving some space between the wood and the ground.

In the morning, remove the wood and pull out the jar to see what new creatures you “trapped”. Be sure to set them free and refill the hole afterwards.

In Closing,

Easily, there are enough simple experiments you can do with your child this summer. Some of these experiments you can do indoors on a rainy day when your children are bored stiff. By the way, if you need other inspiration for activities to do on a rainy day, check out my post here.

Trying to do an experiment once a week or once a month can create some long lasting memories for everyone in your household. The idea that it’s inexpensive and invokes some scientific creativity and discovery is simply a biproduct.

Do you have a favorite science experiment you’ve done with your children before? Share about it in the comments below!