Do you know how to make an egg bounce? Or how plants drink? Or how to make your own butter? Here are some simple science experiments for kids to try at home that will get them excited about science and wow their friends!

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If you are looking for science experiments for your child to try then these experiments can all be done with things you have in the house.

Simple Science Experiments For Kids To Try At Home

How to Make Your Own Butter

I remember as a child my grandmother making her own butter. She had a butter churn and we used to take turns helping to turn the handle. But here is a simple science experiement to show you how you can make your own butter at home using a jar, cream and strong arms!

This fun science experiment can be done by kids of all ages and only takes about 20 minutes to complete.

You will need:

• 1 carton of double or single cream (250ml)
• 1 jam jar with a lid or a plastic container for younger children
• 1 glass
• 1 plate
• A strong pair of arms!

1. Take the cream out of the fridge. Do you notice that it feels cold?
2. Leave the cream on the table for about an hour. It shouldn’t feel cold now, unlike when it came out of the fridge.
3. Pour the cream into the jar until it is about half full.
4. Screw the lid on tight.
5. Take the jar and start shaking it up and down. Play some music and have fun dancing as you shake. Stop and look at the cream in your jar every few minutes. What do you notice?
6. After about 15 minutes you’ll feel something solid in the jar. Keep going until you see a solid lump. Take the lid off the jam jar. What do you see? The solid yellow lump is butter and the whitish liquid is buttermilk.

The science behind the experiment

Cream is a mixture made of tiny drops of water mixed with fat droplets and protein. Shaking the cream in the jar makes the fat droplets stick together, forming butter. The liquid part has the protein and that is the buttermilk.

You Might Also Enjoy How to Make Your Own Ice-Cream in a Bag!

Investigate How Plants Drink

Did you ever wonder how plants drink? They don’t have a mouth but to stay alive they need to drink water, so how do they do it?

Discover the secret of how plants drink using celery or a flower with white petals, water and some food colouring. This is a fun science experiment for kids to do at home.

You will need

• 2 glasses
• 1 white flower, e.g. a carnation
• 1 stick of celery with leaves
• Water
• Red food colouring
• A marker pen

1. Half fill each glass with water
2. Add enough red food colouring to the two glasses to turn the water red.
3. Cut the stem at the bottom of the celery and the white flower about 1 cm from the ends
4. Place the celery in one glass and the flower in the other glass.
5. Mark off the level of water in each glass with the marker.
6. Leave the glasses for a day or two and check back to see what happens
7. The flower’s petals will turn red. You will see thin red lines of coloured water running the length of the celery stalk. You will also see red in the leaves of the celery. The level of water in both glasses will also have dropped below where you marked it.

The science behind it

This is because the coloured water from the glasses has moved up through the thin tubes in the plants (you can see these in the celery).The water is then transported around the petals of the carnation and leaves of the celery. Ask an adult to cut through the celery stick. You will see the inside of the thin tubes marked red. If you have a magnifying glass use it to look at the where you cut the celery.

How to Make an Egg Bounce

This is a really fun science experiment for kids to do at home or at school. It takes 48 hours so you will have to have patience, but the wait is worth it!

You will need

• 1 egg (in shell but uncooked)
• A glass or cup (that the eggs fits in)
• Vinegar (regular clear or malt vinegar)

To make your egg bounce you simply cover it in vinegar and leave for up to 48 hours. When you remove the egg it will be bouncy!

The science behind the experiment

The shell of the egg is made up of calcium carbonate, which is a base. When you add the vinegar, which is an acid, it produces carbon dioxide and a salt, you will see the gas displayed as bubbles around the egg, and this eats away at the shell and solidifies the egg, making it bouncy!

Reading Minds – An Amazing Maths Experiment

Amaze your friends with this fun maths puzzle. It works every time and they will never guess how you can read their minds to know their number…..unless you tell them.

1. Ask your friend to think of a number and not to tell you what it is (for younger children it can be between 1 and 10 but any number will work)
2. Tell them to double it (multiply it x 2)
3. Ask them to add 6
4. Then tell them to half the number (divide it by 2)
5. Then take away the number they started with (subtract the number they stared with)
6. And their answer will be 3

The science behind it

At step 3 always ask them to add an even number, any even number, and the answer will always be half of that number. The rest is just simple maths!

Some other fun science experiments for kids to do at home

• 18 Easy Science Experiments Perfect For Preschoolers
• 5 Fun Science Experiments For Kids To Try At Home
• How To Make Slime
• How To Make a Lava Lamp
• 5 Fun Halloween science experiments
• 5 Summer Science Experiments For Kids
• How To Make Invisible Ink
• Read – Headstrong, 52 Women Who Changed Science and the World
• Science for kids – handy links

Have you tried any of these fun science experiments for kids at home? Let us know how you got on in the comments box below.