simple science experiments for three year olds

Fun Science Ideas for 3-4 Year Olds

My naughty little princess Tisha has just finished her birthday and entered 3. I decided to do a lot of fun activities and make her understand science in an easy way. Yes, they are STEM activities. At the same time, we are trying to add more experiments age wise to all the little ones and add value.

(We have consciously decided to update this page on a regular basis to share our innovative ideas with you). Do not forget to check our site periodically even daily once will help you with creative science projects. Alternatively, subscribe  and you can get our ideas dropped in your mailbox soon after it is updated here.

Fun Science and STEM Activities for 3-4 year olds

Dancing Ghosts : Halloween Balloon Static Electricity Activity

Static Comb Experiment : Explore Static Electricity for Kids

How to Make Glowing Water : Science Experiment

How to Make Oobleck (A Perfect Non Newtonian Fluid)

Cool Watermelon Science Experiments for Kids

Skittles Rainbow : Dissolving Dye Science Project

Exploring Veins Patterns in Leaves – Kids Painting Activity

Egg and Toothpaste Experiment (Learn Importance of Brushing Your Teeth)

How to Make a Square Bubble

Sensory Play with Jelly (Find out Solid or Liquid)

How to Draw on Water Using Dry Erase Markers (Dancing Drawings)

Walking on Eggs : Measure the Strength of Egg Shell

How Strong is an Egg Shell? Strength of Eggshell Bridge

Rainbow Rubber Egg Science Experiment

Easy Experiments to Introduce Magnetism to Kids

DIY Pully – Physics Fun Experiment for Kids

Respiration in Plants – Live Proof

Candle Under Glass Experiment

DIY Borax Bouncy Ball -Experiment

Glowing Water Beads Experiment for Kids

Easy Volcano Eruption Experiment for Kids (3 Methods & Beautiful Results)

Questacon (Australia’s National Science and Technology Centre) – Place to Visit With Kids

Science Behind Making Butter

How to Start Fire with a Magnifying Glass?

Glow in the Dark Ice Cubes – Sensory, Edible Science Activity

Density Science for Kids : Create Fireworks in Water & Oil

STEM Toys for Girls : 2019 Topmost Toys for Curious Girls

Engineering Toys for Girls : 2019 Ultimate List for Little Geniuses

Why Do Flowers Change Color in Food Coloring – Experiment for Kids

Spiny Leaf Phasmids : Secret Life of Pets (DIY Enclosure Steps!)

DIY Christmas Tree Magnet Maze (Fun Science Game)

Book Review of Ada Twist, Scientist

Wildlife Habitat Port Douglas : Nature Learning for Kids

Safety Glasses – Advantages & Using Guide

Swirling Milk Experiment (Magic Milk Activity)

DIY Christmas Tree Bubble Wand {Learn bubble physics}

Catapult STEM Project – DIY Catapult for Kids

Coloring Activity – Girl as a Scientist

Sea Life Sydney Aquarium – Perfect Excursion for Kids

Upcycled Catapult – STEM go green DIY Challenge

Static Electricity Balloon and Salt and Pepper Experiment

Spore Printing with Mushroom – Botany Lesson with Fungi

How to make Curds and Whey

Naked Egg (Dissolving Egg Shell) Experiment

How To Make Balance Scales for Toddlers and Preschoolers

How to Make Heart Shaped Bubble Wand

Easter Egg Bubble Wands

Magnet Maze Game Designing Activity – Learn Science and Art

Shape Bubble Wands – DIY in Different Shapes

DIY Fridge Door Marble Run Using Magnets

Comparing Different Seeds – An Activity About Nature Science

Delightfully Fizzy Sherbet

Want even more preschooler science activities?

In case you want to get several innovative science concepts for your little ones going to preschool, then you can take a look at these links given below.

• Alum crystal glows – Take a highlighter, alum, spoon, hot water, black light, and scissors. All are available easily. Be careful when kids use alum. Extract the ink from the highlighter for doing this experiment. Blacklight is mandatory to make the alum glow. For more details Easy science for kids .
• Dancing Raisins – See how this little one is making raisins dance. He is very clearly explaining the experiment. You can also let kids follow his instruction and make raisins dance. With ingredients available in kitchen countertop make this dance show happen. For more details Youtube dancing raisins .
• Rhythms of Play got a great idea about Fish using Magnets . You must not miss out to add fun to your little ones.
• This  colorful celery found in Look We Are Learning is yet a great method to see plants transferring their nutrients and water to other plants.
• Fruits can be stopped from browning – Lets now teach kids about how to keep fruits from browning. For this experiment, you need fruits and lemon juice. Any of these solutions will help teach kids about preventing fruits from browning. For more details Really are you serious .
• Childhood101 has given a great explanation about making a miniature of microscope just with things available at home.
• Fantastic Fun and learning have explained about dissolving lollipop . Check it out.
• Trio experiment with water – These experiments will help students to understand about water and its properties. Whether all substance dissolve in liquid(water)? How water helps the plant to grow? Why water melts fast? So, all these are about water. Try to involve kids to make them understand better. For more details Kids Academy .
• Does ice get affected by salt?  Try this activity to explore more. Learn the way water is absorbing watercolor. This is from Learning and Exploring Through Play.
• Its time to make fun with sounds and here you go with KC Edventures art that has made a musical instrument which will be heard by one person and you can do it yourself
• Now become an artist by painting just using Epsom salts . Gifted by One Creative Mommy. You can see the glowing faces of kids when they see the crystals upon drying.
• Drinking Density Experiment – Make some juice to drink. Yes, it is a cocktail and you are just not going to make kids drink but teach density of different liquids from this experiment. Sugar makes the drink denser. Take different juice and add sugar to it and that will decide the density of the juice. See layers of juice in glass through this lesson. For more details Science Bob
• Here’s a  safe way to explore bubble with apples ! Presented by the Powol Packets.
• Oxygen from plants – We tell kids not to sleep under a tree during the night because they release CO 2. This lesson will talk about leaves creating oxygen. Apt for a 3rd grade to teach about plants and related to human respiration. For more details Projects jugaad
• Use modeling clay and playdough to teach moon and its phases just like KC Edventures did.
•  i-spy bottle can make galaxy so you can teach kids about naming planets. Learn this art by checking Best Toys 4 Toddlers postings.
• Double gazed drinking – Using plastic bottles, glass, hot water, and thermometer it is now possible to teach kids about heating and temperature. This is a double gazed glass experiment to help understand about heating. For more details Owlcation
• Get ready for designing sun prints on your own and this is a STEM + Art project called STEAM explained by Creative Family Fun.
• Making constellations is as simple as that with toothpicks and marshmallows . Have some additional marshmallows due to the reason that it might vanish while constructing. Proudly posted in Munchkins and Moms.
• Homemade air cushion vehicle – You can now teach kids about hovercraft. Yes, this air cushion vehicle can be made with pop up bottle cap, CD, and a balloon. See how this works. It is fun and a good way to teach kids. For more details Kid spot
• Balloon Car – Only with a drinking straw, plastic bottle, and balloon your kids can make a car. Here teach about the car and its functioning. To make kids feel glad about making a car on their own follow this instruction. How do wheels rotate and what is required to move the car can be taught in this lesson. For more details Awesome ideas
• Buggy and Buddy teaches  making rainbow along with prisms lesson
• Lets now quench the curiosity of kids about frosting and condensing by making them happen at your home. Learn this from Look We Are Learning.
• Gravity with rubber bands . How is it possible? Yes, it is and you can check this out to see the stretching capacity of rubber bands. Check out Planet Smartypants for more details.
• One more friction lesson – Friction is an important lesson for kids and you can easily demonstrate that with rice filled in a bottle. Let every kid apply force based on their capacity and learn friction. For more details Carrots are orange
• Leak-proof bag – If you fill water in a plastic bag with a hole, then will water stay. Obviously, the answer is no. But do you know this experiment will prove it wrong? Let kids fill water in a plastic bag and then make a hole with a pencil to see no water leak. For more details What do we do all day
• The Chaos and the Clutter are now showing a very quick and easy experiment with ice. How does ice melt faster than ever ? You know what my Tisha found this internet and made me do this at once. But trust me that was all fun.
• Now comes growing seeds and check NurtureStore to teach kids about growing pea and bean seeds . How they actually germinate. Let kids learn about plant formation from seeds.
• Rain inside a jar – It can now rain inside the jar. So make it rain and teach the water cycle. Yes, evaporation and condensation can be easily taught using this experiment. For more details, I can teach my child
• Dry ice and sublimation – Sublimation can be quickly taught with dry ice. The coldest ice creates smoke. But be careful and no let kids touch as it will damage the skin. For more details Tinker lab
• Potion making is loved by all kids and there is no exception and I swear that it gives immense happiness in exploring the reactions taking place chemically in a fun and playful way. Kids can try themselves is the additional bonus. Powol Packets do not have dearth to Love Potions Projects . Even at Buggy and Buddy, they do potions with extra foam and yes by adding liquids used to wash vessels in the kitchen.
• Underwater candle – It is possible to make a candle glow under water. It is a simple trick. See this experiment and candle glow and wax holds the water.For more details Youtube Candle Science Experiment
• Ornaments with salt – Salt is nothing but sodium chloride NaCl. Everyday kids eat this chemical and must learn about the science behind it. Let them make some ornaments with salt and as well understand about the chemical properties. Concept of baking and production of heat is also explained in this experiment. For more details The picky apple
• I Heart Crafty Things has posted a new idea for future scientist and here – making a butterfly with tissue papers are simple and even the flapping wings are shown using static electricity .
• Vinegar and baking soda make a wonderful combination and they are just fun to kids due to its fizzing sound. NurtureStore displays the best part made by her girls and these are glittering and fizzing plus looking great with molds that are heart-shaped (can anything else be more attractive for a Valentine party?). Buggy and Buddy showcase the ways in which adding  vinegar that is colorful along with pipettes  creating a bright and nice to look fizz work. Again Powol Packets have their work with innovation and their fizz are sparkling ready to explode .
• Elephants can now brush teeth – Have ever imagined elephants brushing teeth? It is fun to visualize. With this paste now elephants too can brush their teeth. Breaking down hydrogen peroxide to water and oxygen is the science involved in this. For more details The preschool powol packets
• Acids and Bases – Use this red cabbage juice to teach kids about acid and base. You can take vinegar for acid and baking soda as a base. Mix them in a glass of cabbage juice to see how acids and bases react. For more details Steve Spangler
• Again Buggy and Buddy have presented a great activity with salt and oil. Here you can find the  density of water
• How does milk react with liquids used to wash vessel that contain lemon and food colors? Eager to know this yes you can find it at our place and we named it Swirling Milk . You can also see how Best Toys for Toddlers has named it Milk Marbling . And, another innovative name kept by Messy Little Monsters is  Magic Milk Fireworks . Irrespective of the name this experiment will surely win the heart of the toddlers.
• Dye on heat – This experiment will explain why dye works. How does it work? Get one coffee mug and markers to allow kids to write their names in a coffee mug. Teach them about heat and baking. For more details a beautiful mess
• Once again Buggy and Buddy have an experiment for kids that talks about exploring center for rocks which certainly encourage kids to learn about geology.
• Check out for wild carrots which are the Queen Anne’s Lace and these flowers grow in any place. At Fireflies and Mudpies, all kids become great artist painting them green, yellow and blue . Witness the same coloring activity with  chrysanthemums at the NurtureStore. (You can see them with gerberas  at our site also tried with numerous white colored flowers to demonstrate the color absorbing capacity .
• At the age of 3 and 4 kids will love the experiment walking water where the demonstration of capillary action and color mixing is really amazing. Here the colored water will move the paper up fighting gravity. Wow! Apple Green Cottage explains this in their site using a paper towel and glass jars . Also, you can see this experiment that uses cold and hot water along with different paper at Royal Baloo .
• Multicolored Celery – See this little girl carrying out an experiment with celery sticks. She demonstrates how celery color changes. Take two glass with water, one celery stick and dye colors for following this experiment. For more details Youtube celery

Want even EVEN more ideas?

Find more inspiring ideas on our page exclusive for kids aged 1-2 years – feel free to make some small changes and they will become workable to elder kids as well. (My kids repeat the same activities at different age and learn things per their knowledge at that age. Off course there is no dearth to the fun as well.)

Also, you can find activities for kids aged 5-6 years and click on that page. But remember to provide help to your kids as they need support.

Above all check them on the Pinterest board Fun Science for Kids

Let us know which experiment does your 3-4-year-old kids loved to do.

Please provide support to kids and never leave them alone. Ensure to stay with kids and allow them to do only the appropriate activity relevant to age and the skill set they have. Click  here  for more information.

Kids Art & Craft

10 simple science experiments for 3-5 year olds.

Kids Activities

Easy Science Experiments Activities For Kindergartners

Looking for age-appropriate science activities for preschoolers? Here are a bunch of fun science ideas suitable for 3-5 year olds.

Test your kids hypothesis on what would happen if they stepped on raw eggs .  They will love this one!  From Housing A Forest.

Explore how plants “drink” with this experiment showing water moving through a leaf .  From Buggy and Buddy.

You can blow up a balloon with a combination of soda and candy.  So cool!  From Learn Play Imagine.

Oil and water don’t mix , but what happens when you add this special ingredient?  From Play Trains.

Explaining the concept of air pressure to preschoolers can be tricky but this easy experiment shows it perfectly!  From Kids Activities Blog.

How do the ice trucks melt snow after a storm?  This is a great demonstration.  From The Artul Parent.

This exploding baggie experiment is a twist on the classic baking soda and vinegar reaction and is super simple.  From Coffee Cups and Crayons.

Explain to your kids how sound waves work with this classic experiment.  From We Made That.

Exploding milk is one of the most fun and simple kid science experiments and you only need three kitchen ingredients.  From Laughing Kids Learn.

Did you know you can make ice grow ?  Here’s how!  From Teach Preschool.

Hope you like these

Related posts:

• Fun Balloon Science Experiments for Kids
• Science Experiments For Class 4 With Explaination – Simple Fair Project Models
• Walking Water Rainbow Science Experiment for Kids
• 21 Pony Bead Craft And Projects For Kids
• Small Plastic Bottle Craft Ideas for Kids – Easy Art Ideas for School
• Family Tree For Kids Project – DIY Ideas for School Children
• DIY Creative Cardboard Crafts That Kids Will Love
• Lime Crafts & Activities for Kids

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45 of the Best STEM Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Categories STEM

Introducing young kids to STEM is incredibly fun. When I first started looking into STEM for Toddlers and Preschoolers , I was thrilled to see so many easy ways to do it.

If you’re a mom at home or early childhood educators, there are so many benefits to teaching your kids STEM. Use their natural curiosity to develop problem solving skills, and have a great time doing it.

Disclosure: Adult supervision is required for all activities at all times.

Table of Contents

What is stem.

• STEM Activities
• FAQ’s

You May Also Like

Not sure what STEM stands for? It’s an abbreviation of S cience T echnology E ngineering and M ath. Or you may have heard of STEAM, where the A stands for arts. All toddlers (2-3 year olds) and preschoolers (3-5 year olds), can get involved with these amazing ideas.

STEM Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

1. magic milk.

All you need for this science activity is some food coloring, milk, and dish soap. With those three ingredients you can watch the colors dance around the milk all by themselves.  Learn how to turn regular milk into magic milk here.

2. Coke and Mentos

This was one of the best science experiments I’ve ever done with my kids. The look on their faces is absolutely priceless and has become one of my favorite memories. The only thing I struggled with initially was getting all of the mentos into the bottle fast enough. Fortunately, I came up with an easy hack, which allows toddlers and older kids to drop all of the mentos into the bottle at once. Check out the coke and mentos reaction and learn the super easy hack to make it toddler friendly.

3. Fizzy Painting

This is another science activity that works because of chemical reactions. But in this play idea, you’ll be using it to make a painting that bubbles and fizzes.  Learn how to use chemistry to make fizzy art .

4. Straw Rockets

These straw rockets are a free printable that you can download and use for STEM learning. Children of all ages love propelling the rockets through the air using the power of their lungs.  Get your free printable rockets and start having fun.

5. Rain in a Jar

All you need for this weather science activity is a cup of water, shaving cream and blue food coloring. Watch as the blue food coloring falls through the clouds and looks like rain when it travels through the water.  Learn how to make the rain in a jar STEM activity with your toddlers and preschoolers.

6. Fireworks in a Jar

This is similar to the rain in a jar experiment, but has enough of a twist to make it new and exciting. Along with other easy STEM activities, you already have everything you need for this idea in your kitchen cupboard.  If your kids are too scared of real fireworks, then learn how to make them in a jar and still enjoy some colorful bursts.

7. Color Changing Flowers

This is a fun way to explore capillary action with young kids. They get to see how flowers “drink” water and how it travels from the bottom of the stem, all the way up to their petals. Learn how to make flowers change colors , and see it start working in about 30 minutes.

8. Walking Water

Did you know that you can make water move and change colors all by itself? This is another fantastic STEM education activity that explores capillary action. Watch the water ‘walk’ and become a rainbow before your eyes. Click the link to see how it’s done.

9. Balloon Magic

Kids of all ages love watching the balloon in this science activity inflate all by itself , just like magic. With a couple of common household ingredients, your kids can be magicians too.

10. Magnet Exploration

Playing with magnets is the best way to explain the STEM concepts of magnetism. Learn what is magnetic and what isn’t, using whatever bits and bobs you have lying around the house or classroom.

11. DIY Magnetic Ball Run

Learn how to turn regular cardboard tubes into a fun fridge door activity. Younger kids will love doing a bit of engineering while making their own magnetic ball run and learning about gravity.

12. Salt Dough Dinosaur Fossils

This is without a doubt one of my favorite preschool STEM activities. Use the DIY dinosaur fossils to create a real dino dig in the sandbox, or just as a dinosaur matching activity. All you need is some salt dough, and small toy dinosaurs. It’s so easy.

13. Planet Match Activity

Do you have little astronauts running around at home? This matching activity is a simple way to let them explore the solar system. Get the free planet match printable to help teach your kids about outer space.

14. Butterfly Life Cycle

When the weather warms up, and the butterflies are out, this is the perfect chance to explore some Spring themed STEAM activities. Learn about the life cycle of a butterfly , while creating some beautiful art at the same time.

This activity also comes with a free printable template for you to use for the art. In addition, it also contains a whole lot of interesting butterfly facts to use during circle time.

15. How to Grow Crystal Snowflakes

These snowflakes can sit on your window and don’t melt. I love this science activity for older children, because it doesn’t snow where we live. But we still get to enjoy a bit of magic with this play idea.

Learn how to make crystal snowflakes for your windows.

16. Invisible Heart Activity for Kids

The secret behind this science activity is homemade invisible ink. Instead of making secret messages, I made a secret cardiovascular system. You can do individual pictures for kids at home, or large ones that kids in your early years classroom can do as a small group project. Learn how to make an invisible heart science activity , or just write secret messages.

17. Snowstorm in a Jar

If you’re looking for winter themed STEM ideas, make sure to try this snowstorm in a jar. Kids as young as toddlers can join in on this one. Not to mention it’s so much fun to watch no matter how old you are.

Learn how to turn a regular jar into an indoor snowstorm , using a bit of simple science.

18. Building Shapes

This is a fantastic engineering and math activity for children. Toddlers can focus on building 2D shapes, while preschoolers can also explore 3D constructions. I used toothpicks for this activity. However, if you’re going to try this play idea with toddlers, then I suggest you use pipe cleaners or paper straws instead. What 2D and 3D shapes will you build with your kids?

19. Popsicle Stick Shape Mats

Here is another way to build shapes, using craft sticks. These shape mats are a free printable that you can download and use today. Best of all, the craft sticks are the exact size on the mats, so everything fits together seamlessly.

Get your copy of the free craft stick shape mats printable , and do a bit of math with your kids.

20. Farm Animal Shadow Matching Game

This is one of the first simple STEM activities I did with my toddlers. In fact, it’s the exact one I used to get my kids interested in puzzles (they were hopeless before this). It’s such a simple puzzle, but you do need to recognise irregular shapes.

This game comes as a free printable. All you need to do is to match the farm animals to their shadows , and maybe make a few barnyard noises while you do. 

21. Parachute STEM Experiment

Can you make one of your toys fly? When we did this activity, we had one very brave cow that got caught in the rose bushes a lot.

This science activity is a simple way to experiment with wind resistance, different materials and parachute designs . Perfect for older kids to make, but still fun for toddlers and preschoolers to play with.

22. Water Cycle STEM for Kids

Did you know that you can make a working indoor water cycle ? One where your kids can taste the difference because it actually turns saltwater into freshwater?

Believe it or not, you can. This STEM idea is a fun way to talk about the weather in a way where kids can get some hands on learning.

23. Car STEM Experiments for Kids

Toddlers and preschoolers love playing with cars and ramps. Use their enthusiasm to learn a bit of rudimentary physics in easy ways. Don’t worry, it really is more simple than it sounds.

What happens when you let cars go down ramps? Kids learn about gravity. What happens when you adjust the ramps or the cars a little bit? Well that’s a whole afternoon of fun experimenting with toy cars .

24. DIY Pirate Ship: STEM Challenge

This engineering challenge is perfect for elementary school children. All you need to do is give them a few basic materials and tell them to build their own boat.

I spent hours as a kid building my own forts in the backyard. Tying the sticks together, and hating when it was not tight enough.

So let your kids build their own ship in the backyard this summer. You’ll have pirates running around all holiday.

25. Sink the Egg STEM Challenge

Simple STEM projects are always a treasure, and this one is no different. What does it take to make the egg sink ? What do you fill it with? What will your kids come up with?

26. Non Newtonian Fluid Science Activity

The non-Newtonian fluid in this play idea is also called Oobleck. Oobleck has the wonderful characteristic of changing form when pressure is applied.

Confused? Basically, when you push down hard on oobleck, it becomes hard and feels solid. But if you let it go and just hold it in your hand, it will flow like a liquid.

Can you imagine what a great time your kids will have playing with this amazing stuff? Learn how to make oobleck here.

27. Snowball Balance

Do you save your large cardboard tubes? Make sure that you do because it’s amazing what you can do with them. 

Here you are using the tubes to balance crumpled up paper balls . This is a fantastic activity for toddlers because it’ll help with hand-eye coordination and other fine motor skills as well.

28. Easy Heart Pump Model

How does the heart work? Here you can explore how the heart pumps blood with a working demonstration. How amazing is that?

29. Seed Germination Experiment for Kids

Growing seeds and beans is a science classic for a reason. The kids will learn about how plants grow, where food comes from and hopefully a little bit of healthy eating habits at the same time.

I’ve done this experiment a few times with my kids and they just love looking at how the plants grow more and more each day.

30. Water Transfer Activity with Sponges

Why do sponges hold water? Are they the best option when trying to transfer water from one container to another? Why?

Playing with sponges and water is a great summer time activity, especially if you’re trying to cool down.

31. Exploring Vegetable Seeds

What do you find when you cut open a capsicum (bell pepper)? A whole lot of tiny seeds that are perfect for exploring.

If you got excited about the idea of growing seeds, then imagine how excited your kids will be when they see where seeds come from .

32. DIY Balance Scales

Have you ever thought about using a regular clothes hanger to make a set of scales? Exploring simple machines with your kids can be as easy as this play idea. 

This is a fantastic way for kids to explore the concept of weight, and experiment with heavy and light objects . Which side will go down and why?

33. Sink or Float

Here is a science activity that you can try at bath time. What sinks and what floats ? Even toddler age children can explore this STEM concept while they splash around.

34. Static Hair

I definitely saved the best for last. At least I think so because I absolutely LOVED doing this as a child myself. 

Why does static electricity make your hair stand up ? You’re going to have a whole lot of fun and giggles while you’re finding out.

35. Floating City STEM Challenge

Your little engineer will love this toddler STEM activity at bath time. All you need to do is get some foam building blocks and put them in the bath. If your kids is a pro at making towers on dry land, see what happens to their creation once the water moves around. Build a floating city and develop problem solving skills at bath time.

36. Make a Book Invitation to Play

Learning about technology isn’t all about screens. Everyday tools like kitchen utensils and office stationary are technology too. In this make a book invitation , younger children can play around with different tools to make their own book. 

​37. Animal Sorting

Where do the animals belong? This is a super simple science activity that toddlers and even older babies can enjoy. Sort and group (which is a math skills) the different toys by where you can find them. This sorting animals activity is a fun way to explore all of the amazing creatures we find on land, sea or sky.

38. Building Animal Towers

If you’ve got your toy animals out for the previous activity, then keep them around for some more fun STEM activities. Little kids will love trying to build the tallest tower out animals or other different items. Their irregular shapes adds an extra challenge that is fun for the whole family.

39. Free Color Match and Clip Cards

Learning about the different colors is another essential math concept that toddlers can learn. These free printable color match and clip cards will help toddlers with their math and their fine motor skills at the same time.

40. Dinosaur Number Match

This cute dinosaur number match puzzle will get toddlers and preschoolers to practice counting, number recognition, fine motor skills and more. This is a great STEM activity for kids who love anything to do with dinosaurs.

41. Fizzy Heart Bombs

You can use household items to make a chemical reaction that is safe for toddlers and preschoolers to play with. These fizzy heart bombs are a simple experiment that you can use to get kids excited about science.

42. Free Measuring Flowers Activity

Grab your copy of this free measuring flowers activity . This activity will invite children to explore both formal and informal measuring, number formation and various other math concepts.

43. Snowman Shape Puzzles (Free Printable)

Learn about different shapes with these free printable snowman shape puzzles . 2D shapes is a math concept that young children need to learn before they go to school. And these cute little guys are the perfect way to help you.

44. Free Feed the Shark Math Game

Toddlers and preschoolers will have so much fun with this feed the shark math game . This free printable is a simple STEM activity that will get them to practice counting, one-to-one correspondence and even some simple addition.

45. Bauble Balance

Even babies can try their engineering skills with this Christmas themed challenge. Build your own Christmas tree out of pool noodles (or paper towel rolls) and see if you can balance the bauble on top.

Frequently Asked Questions

At what age can you start stem.

You can start exploring STEM with your child from day one. After all, we understand the world around us through STEM. All of our senses, like sound and vision, are all components of science that we experience very early on. As we get older we learn about nature and how the things around us work.

How do you teach a toddler STEM?

The best way to teach STEM is through hands on experience. Play based learning is the best approach when trying to explain concepts to kids. Keep it simple, age appropriate, and allow kids to explore and problem solve by themselves.

Do kids like STEM?

Absolutely. I have yet to meet a child who didn’t have a natural curiosity about the world around them. The key is to make it fun, without any pressure, because that is how they learn best. It’s also a great way to create toddlers and preschoolers who are intrinsically motivated to learn more.

Are you going to try any of these STEM activities for toddlers and preschoolers? Don’t forget to pin the idea for later.

STEM Activities for Kids

Water STEM Activities for kids

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50 Fun Kids Science Experiments

Science doesn’t need to be complicated. These easy science experiments below are awesome for kids! They are visually stimulating, hands-on, and sensory-rich, making them fun to do and perfect for teaching simple science concepts at home or in the classroom.

Top 10 Science Experiments

Click on the titles below for the full supplies list and easy step-by-step instructions. Have fun trying these experiments at home or in the classroom, or even use them for your next science fair project!

Baking Soda Balloon Experiment

Can you make a balloon inflate on its own? Grab a few basic kitchen ingredients and test them out! Try amazing chemistry for kids at your fingertips.

Rainbow In A Jar

Enjoy learning about the basics of color mixing up to the density of liquids with this simple water density experiment . There are even more ways to explore rainbows here with walking water, prisms, and more.

This color-changing magic milk experiment will explode your dish with color. Add dish soap and food coloring to milk for cool chemistry!

Seed Germination Experiment

Not all kids’ science experiments involve chemical reactions. Watch how a seed grows , which provides a window into the amazing field of biology .

Egg Vinegar Experiment

One of our favorite science experiments is a naked egg or rubber egg experiment . Can you make your egg bounce? What happened to the shell?

Dancing Corn

Find out how to make corn dance with this easy experiment. Also, check out our dancing raisins and dancing cranberries.

Grow Crystals

Growing borax crystals is easy and a great way to learn about solutions. You could also grow sugar crystals , eggshell geodes , or salt crystals .

Lava Lamp Experiment

It is great for learning about what happens when you mix oil and water. a homemade lava lamp is a cool science experiment kids will want to do repeatedly!

Skittles Experiment

Who doesn’t like doing science with candy? Try this classic Skittles science experiment and explore why the colors don’t mix when added to water.

Lemon Volcano

Watch your kids’ faces light up, and their eyes widen when you test out cool chemistry with a lemon volcano using common household items, baking soda, and vinegar.

Bonus! Popsicle Stick Catapult

Kid tested, STEM approved! Making a popsicle stick catapult is a fantastic way to dive into hands-on physics and engineering.

Grab the handy Top 10 Science Experiments list here!

Free Science Ideas Guide

Grab this free science experiments challenge calendar and have fun with science right away. Use the clickable links to see how to set up each science project.

Get Started With A Science Fair Project

💡Want to turn one of these fun and easy science experiments into a science fair project? Then, you will want to check out these helpful resources.

• Easy Science Fair Projects
• Science Project Tips From A Teacher
• Science Fair Board Ideas

Easy Science Experiments For Kids

Science Experiments By Topic

Are you looking for a specific topic? Check out these additional resources below. Each topic includes easy-to-understand information, everyday examples, and additional hands-on activities and experiments.

• Chemistry Experiments
• Physics Experiments
• Chemical Reaction Experiments
• Candy Experiments
• Plant Experiments
• Kitchen Science
• Water Experiments
• Baking Soda Experiments
• States Of Matter Experiments
• Physical Change Experiments
• Chemical Change Experiments
• Surface Tension Experiments
• Capillary Action Experiments
• Weather Science Projects
• Geology Science Projects
• Space Activities
• Simple Machines
• Static Electricity
• Potential and Kinetic Energy
• Gravity Experiments
• Magnet Activities
• Light Experiments

Science Experiments By Season

• Spring Science
• Summer Science Experiments
• Fall Science Experiments
• Winter Science Experiments

Science Experiments by Age Group

While many experiments can be performed by various age groups, the best science experiments for specific age groups are listed below.

• Science for Toddlers
• Science for Preschoolers
• Science for Kindergarten
• Elementary Science by Season
• Science for 1st Grade
• Science for 2nd Grade
• Science for 3rd Grade
• Science for 4th Grade
• S cience for 5th Grade
• Science for 6th Grade
• Science for Middle School

How To Teach Science

Kids are curious and always looking to explore, discover, check out, and experiment to discover why things do what they do, move as they move, or change as they change! My son is now 13, and we started with simple science activities around three years of age with simple baking soda science.

Here are great tips for making science experiments enjoyable at home or in the classroom.

Safety first: Always prioritize safety. Use kid-friendly materials, supervise the experiments, and handle potentially hazardous substances yourself.

Start with simple experiments: Begin with basic experiments (find tons below) that require minimal setup and materials, gradually increasing complexity as kids gain confidence.

Use everyday items: Utilize common household items like vinegar and baking soda , food coloring, or balloons to make the experiments accessible and cost-effective.

Hands-on approach: Encourage kids to actively participate in the experiments rather than just observing. Let them touch, mix, and check out reactions up close.

Make predictions: Ask kids to predict the outcome before starting an experiment. This stimulates critical thinking and introduces the concept of hypothesis and the scientific method.

Record observations: Have a science journal or notebook where kids can record their observations, draw pictures, and write down their thoughts. Learn more about observing in science. We also have many printable science worksheets .

Theme-based experiments: Organize experiments around a theme, such as water , air , magnets , or plants . Even holidays and seasons make fun themes!

Kitchen science : Perform experiments in the kitchen, such as making ice cream using salt and ice or learning about density by layering different liquids.

Create a science lab: Set up a dedicated space for science experiments, and let kids decorate it with science-themed posters and drawings.

Outdoor experiments: Take some experiments outside to explore nature, study bugs, or learn about plants and soil.

DIY science kits: Prepare science experiment kits with labeled containers and ingredients, making it easy for kids to conduct experiments independently. Check out our DIY science list and STEM kits.

Make it a group effort: Group experiments can be more fun, allowing kids to learn together and share their excitement. Most of our science activities are classroom friendly!

Science shows or documentaries: Watch age-appropriate science shows or documentaries to introduce kids to scientific concepts entertainingly. Hello Bill Nye and the Magic Schoolbus! You can also check out National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, and NASA!

Ask open-ended questions: Encourage critical thinking by asking open-ended questions that prompt kids to think deeper about what they are experiencing.

Celebrate successes: Praise kids for their efforts and discoveries, no matter how small, to foster a positive attitude towards science and learning.

What is the Scientific Method for Kids?

The scientific method is a way scientists figure out how things work. First, they ask a question about something they want to know. Then, they research to learn what’s already known about it. After that, they make a prediction called a hypothesis.

Next comes the fun part – they test their hypothesis by doing experiments. They carefully observe what happens during the experiments and write down all the details. Learn more about variables in experiments here.

Once they finish their experiments, they look at the results and decide if their hypothesis is right or wrong. If it’s wrong, they devise a new hypothesis and try again. If it’s right, they share their findings with others. That’s how scientists learn new things and make our world better!

Go ahead and introduce the scientific method and get kids started recording their observations and making conclusions. Read more about the scientific method for kids .

Engineering and STEM Projects For Kids

STEM activities include science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In addition to our kids’ science experiments, we have lots of fun STEM activities for you to try. Check out these STEM ideas below.

• Building Activities
• Self-Propelling Car Projects
• Engineering Projects For Kids
• What Is Engineering For Kids?
• Lego STEM Ideas
• LEGO Engineering Activities
• STEM Activities For Toddlers
• STEM Worksheets
• Easy STEM Activities For Elementary
• Quick STEM Challenges
• Easy STEM Activities With Paper  

Printable Science Projects For Kids

If you’re looking to grab all of our printable science projects in one convenient place plus exclusive worksheets and bonuses like a STEAM Project pack, our Science Project Pack is what you need! Over 300+ Pages!

• 90+ classic science activities  with journal pages, supply lists, set up and process, and science information.  NEW! Activity-specific observation pages!
• Best science practices posters  and our original science method process folders for extra alternatives!
• Be a Collector activities pack  introduces kids to the world of making collections through the eyes of a scientist. What will they collect first?
• Know the Words Science vocabulary pack  includes flashcards, crosswords, and word searches that illuminate keywords in the experiments!
• My science journal writing prompts  explore what it means to be a scientist!!
• Bonus STEAM Project Pack:  Art meets science with doable projects!
• Bonus Quick Grab Packs for Biology, Earth Science, Chemistry, and Physics

Subscribe to receive a free 5-Day STEM Challenge Guide

~ projects to try now ~.

• Grades 6-12
• School Leaders

Teach students checking vs. savings accounts!

72 Easy Science Experiments Using Materials You Already Have On Hand

Because science doesn’t have to be complicated.

If there is one thing that is guaranteed to get your students excited, it’s a good science experiment! While some experiments require expensive lab equipment or dangerous chemicals, there are plenty of cool projects you can do with regular household items. We’ve rounded up a big collection of easy science experiments that anybody can try, and kids are going to love them!

Easy Chemistry Science Experiments

Easy physics science experiments, easy biology and environmental science experiments, easy engineering experiments and stem challenges.

1. Taste the Rainbow

Teach your students about diffusion while creating a beautiful and tasty rainbow! Tip: Have extra Skittles on hand so your class can eat a few!

Learn more: Skittles Diffusion

2. Crystallize sweet treats

Crystal science experiments teach kids about supersaturated solutions. This one is easy to do at home, and the results are absolutely delicious!

Learn more: Candy Crystals

3. Make a volcano erupt

This classic experiment demonstrates a chemical reaction between baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and vinegar (acetic acid), which produces carbon dioxide gas, water, and sodium acetate.

Learn more: Best Volcano Experiments

4. Make elephant toothpaste

This fun project uses yeast and a hydrogen peroxide solution to create overflowing “elephant toothpaste.” Tip: Add an extra fun layer by having kids create toothpaste wrappers for plastic bottles.

5. Blow the biggest bubbles you can

Add a few simple ingredients to dish soap solution to create the largest bubbles you’ve ever seen! Kids learn about surface tension as they engineer these bubble-blowing wands.

Learn more: Giant Soap Bubbles

6. Demonstrate the “magic” leakproof bag

All you need is a zip-top plastic bag, sharp pencils, and water to blow your kids’ minds. Once they’re suitably impressed, teach them how the “trick” works by explaining the chemistry of polymers.

Learn more: Leakproof Bag

7. Use apple slices to learn about oxidation

Have students make predictions about what will happen to apple slices when immersed in different liquids, then put those predictions to the test. Have them record their observations.

Learn more: Apple Oxidation

8. Float a marker man

Their eyes will pop out of their heads when you “levitate” a stick figure right off the table! This experiment works due to the insolubility of dry-erase marker ink in water, combined with the lighter density of the ink.

Learn more: Floating Marker Man

9. Discover density with hot and cold water

There are a lot of easy science experiments you can do with density. This one is extremely simple, involving only hot and cold water and food coloring, but the visuals make it appealing and fun.

Learn more: Layered Water

10. Layer more liquids

This density demo is a little more complicated, but the effects are spectacular. Slowly layer liquids like honey, dish soap, water, and rubbing alcohol in a glass. Kids will be amazed when the liquids float one on top of the other like magic (except it is really science).

Learn more: Layered Liquids

11. Grow a carbon sugar snake

Easy science experiments can still have impressive results! This eye-popping chemical reaction demonstration only requires simple supplies like sugar, baking soda, and sand.

Learn more: Carbon Sugar Snake

12. Mix up some slime

Tell kids you’re going to make slime at home, and watch their eyes light up! There are a variety of ways to make slime, so try a few different recipes to find the one you like best.

13. Make homemade bouncy balls

These homemade bouncy balls are easy to make since all you need is glue, food coloring, borax powder, cornstarch, and warm water. You’ll want to store them inside a container like a plastic egg because they will flatten out over time.

Learn more: Make Your Own Bouncy Balls

14. Create eggshell chalk

Eggshells contain calcium, the same material that makes chalk. Grind them up and mix them with flour, water, and food coloring to make your very own sidewalk chalk.

Learn more: Eggshell Chalk

15. Make naked eggs

This is so cool! Use vinegar to dissolve the calcium carbonate in an eggshell to discover the membrane underneath that holds the egg together. Then, use the “naked” egg for another easy science experiment that demonstrates osmosis .

Learn more: Naked Egg Experiment

16. Turn milk into plastic

This sounds a lot more complicated than it is, but don’t be afraid to give it a try. Use simple kitchen supplies to create plastic polymers from plain old milk. Sculpt them into cool shapes when you’re done!

17. Test pH using cabbage

Teach kids about acids and bases without needing pH test strips! Simply boil some red cabbage and use the resulting water to test various substances—acids turn red and bases turn green.

Learn more: Cabbage pH

18. Clean some old coins

Use common household items to make old oxidized coins clean and shiny again in this simple chemistry experiment. Ask kids to predict (hypothesize) which will work best, then expand the learning by doing some research to explain the results.

Learn more: Cleaning Coins

19. Pull an egg into a bottle

This classic easy science experiment never fails to delight. Use the power of air pressure to suck a hard-boiled egg into a jar, no hands required.

Learn more: Egg in a Bottle

20. Blow up a balloon (without blowing)

Chances are good you probably did easy science experiments like this when you were in school. The baking soda and vinegar balloon experiment demonstrates the reactions between acids and bases when you fill a bottle with vinegar and a balloon with baking soda.

21 Assemble a DIY lava lamp

This 1970s trend is back—as an easy science experiment! This activity combines acid-base reactions with density for a totally groovy result.

22. Explore how sugary drinks affect teeth

The calcium content of eggshells makes them a great stand-in for teeth. Use eggs to explore how soda and juice can stain teeth and wear down the enamel. Expand your learning by trying different toothpaste-and-toothbrush combinations to see how effective they are.

Learn more: Sugar and Teeth Experiment

23. Mummify a hot dog

If your kids are fascinated by the Egyptians, they’ll love learning to mummify a hot dog! No need for canopic jars , just grab some baking soda and get started.

24. Extinguish flames with carbon dioxide

This is a fiery twist on acid-base experiments. Light a candle and talk about what fire needs in order to survive. Then, create an acid-base reaction and “pour” the carbon dioxide to extinguish the flame. The CO2 gas acts like a liquid, suffocating the fire.

25. Send secret messages with invisible ink

Turn your kids into secret agents! Write messages with a paintbrush dipped in lemon juice, then hold the paper over a heat source and watch the invisible become visible as oxidation goes to work.

Learn more: Invisible Ink

26. Create dancing popcorn

This is a fun version of the classic baking soda and vinegar experiment, perfect for the younger crowd. The bubbly mixture causes popcorn to dance around in the water.

27. Shoot a soda geyser sky-high

You’ve always wondered if this really works, so it’s time to find out for yourself! Kids will marvel at the chemical reaction that sends diet soda shooting high in the air when Mentos are added.

Learn more: Soda Explosion

28. Send a teabag flying

Hot air rises, and this experiment can prove it! You’ll want to supervise kids with fire, of course. For more safety, try this one outside.

Learn more: Flying Tea Bags

29. Create magic milk

This fun and easy science experiment demonstrates principles related to surface tension, molecular interactions, and fluid dynamics.

Learn more: Magic Milk Experiment

30. Watch the water rise

Learn about Charles’s Law with this simple experiment. As the candle burns, using up oxygen and heating the air in the glass, the water rises as if by magic.

Learn more: Rising Water

31. Learn about capillary action

Kids will be amazed as they watch the colored water move from glass to glass, and you’ll love the easy and inexpensive setup. Gather some water, paper towels, and food coloring to teach the scientific magic of capillary action.

Learn more: Capillary Action

32. Give a balloon a beard

Equally educational and fun, this experiment will teach kids about static electricity using everyday materials. Kids will undoubtedly get a kick out of creating beards on their balloon person!

Learn more: Static Electricity

33. Find your way with a DIY compass

Here’s an old classic that never fails to impress. Magnetize a needle, float it on the water’s surface, and it will always point north.

Learn more: DIY Compass

34. Crush a can using air pressure

Sure, it’s easy to crush a soda can with your bare hands, but what if you could do it without touching it at all? That’s the power of air pressure!

35. Tell time using the sun

While people use clocks or even phones to tell time today, there was a time when a sundial was the best means to do that. Kids will certainly get a kick out of creating their own sundials using everyday materials like cardboard and pencils.

Learn more: Make Your Own Sundial

36. Launch a balloon rocket

Grab balloons, string, straws, and tape, and launch rockets to learn about the laws of motion.

37. Make sparks with steel wool

All you need is steel wool and a 9-volt battery to perform this science demo that’s bound to make their eyes light up! Kids learn about chain reactions, chemical changes, and more.

Learn more: Steel Wool Electricity

38. Levitate a Ping-Pong ball

Kids will get a kick out of this experiment, which is really all about Bernoulli’s principle. You only need plastic bottles, bendy straws, and Ping-Pong balls to make the science magic happen.

39. Whip up a tornado in a bottle

There are plenty of versions of this classic experiment out there, but we love this one because it sparkles! Kids learn about a vortex and what it takes to create one.

Learn more: Tornado in a Bottle

40. Monitor air pressure with a DIY barometer

This simple but effective DIY science project teaches kids about air pressure and meteorology. They’ll have fun tracking and predicting the weather with their very own barometer.

Learn more: DIY Barometer

41. Peer through an ice magnifying glass

Students will certainly get a thrill out of seeing how an everyday object like a piece of ice can be used as a magnifying glass. Be sure to use purified or distilled water since tap water will have impurities in it that will cause distortion.

Learn more: Ice Magnifying Glass

42. String up some sticky ice

Can you lift an ice cube using just a piece of string? This quick experiment teaches you how. Use a little salt to melt the ice and then refreeze the ice with the string attached.

Learn more: Sticky Ice

43. “Flip” a drawing with water

Light refraction causes some really cool effects, and there are multiple easy science experiments you can do with it. This one uses refraction to “flip” a drawing; you can also try the famous “disappearing penny” trick .

Learn more: Light Refraction With Water

44. Color some flowers

We love how simple this project is to re-create since all you’ll need are some white carnations, food coloring, glasses, and water. The end result is just so beautiful!

45. Use glitter to fight germs

Everyone knows that glitter is just like germs—it gets everywhere and is so hard to get rid of! Use that to your advantage and show kids how soap fights glitter and germs.

Learn more: Glitter Germs

46. Re-create the water cycle in a bag

You can do so many easy science experiments with a simple zip-top bag. Fill one partway with water and set it on a sunny windowsill to see how the water evaporates up and eventually “rains” down.

Learn more: Water Cycle

47. Learn about plant transpiration

Your backyard is a terrific place for easy science experiments. Grab a plastic bag and rubber band to learn how plants get rid of excess water they don’t need, a process known as transpiration.

Learn more: Plant Transpiration

48. Clean up an oil spill

Before conducting this experiment, teach your students about engineers who solve environmental problems like oil spills. Then, have your students use provided materials to clean the oil spill from their oceans.

Learn more: Oil Spill

49. Construct a pair of model lungs

Kids get a better understanding of the respiratory system when they build model lungs using a plastic water bottle and some balloons. You can modify the experiment to demonstrate the effects of smoking too.

Learn more: Model Lungs

50. Experiment with limestone rocks

Kids  love to collect rocks, and there are plenty of easy science experiments you can do with them. In this one, pour vinegar over a rock to see if it bubbles. If it does, you’ve found limestone!

Learn more: Limestone Experiments

51. Turn a bottle into a rain gauge

All you need is a plastic bottle, a ruler, and a permanent marker to make your own rain gauge. Monitor your measurements and see how they stack up against meteorology reports in your area.

Learn more: DIY Rain Gauge

52. Build up towel mountains

This clever demonstration helps kids understand how some landforms are created. Use layers of towels to represent rock layers and boxes for continents. Then pu-u-u-sh and see what happens!

Learn more: Towel Mountains

53. Take a play dough core sample

Learn about the layers of the earth by building them out of Play-Doh, then take a core sample with a straw. ( Love Play-Doh? Get more learning ideas here. )

Learn more: Play Dough Core Sampling

54. Project the stars on your ceiling

Use the video lesson in the link below to learn why stars are only visible at night. Then create a DIY star projector to explore the concept hands-on.

Learn more: DIY Star Projector

55. Make it rain

Use shaving cream and food coloring to simulate clouds and rain. This is an easy science experiment little ones will beg to do over and over.

Learn more: Shaving Cream Rain

56. Blow up your fingerprint

This is such a cool (and easy!) way to look at fingerprint patterns. Inflate a balloon a bit, use some ink to put a fingerprint on it, then blow it up big to see your fingerprint in detail.

57. Snack on a DNA model

Twizzlers, gumdrops, and a few toothpicks are all you need to make this super-fun (and yummy!) DNA model.

Learn more: Edible DNA Model

58. Dissect a flower

Take a nature walk and find a flower or two. Then bring them home and take them apart to discover all the different parts of flowers.

59. Craft smartphone speakers

No Bluetooth speaker? No problem! Put together your own from paper cups and toilet paper tubes.

Learn more: Smartphone Speakers

60. Race a balloon-powered car

Kids will be amazed when they learn they can put together this awesome racer using cardboard and bottle-cap wheels. The balloon-powered “engine” is so much fun too.

Learn more: Balloon-Powered Car

61. Build a Ferris wheel

You’ve probably ridden on a Ferris wheel, but can you build one? Stock up on wood craft sticks and find out! Play around with different designs to see which one works best.

Learn more: Craft Stick Ferris Wheel

62. Design a phone stand

There are lots of ways to craft a DIY phone stand, which makes this a perfect creative-thinking STEM challenge.

63. Conduct an egg drop

Put all their engineering skills to the test with an egg drop! Challenge kids to build a container from stuff they find around the house that will protect an egg from a long fall (this is especially fun to do from upper-story windows).

Learn more: Egg Drop Challenge Ideas

64. Engineer a drinking-straw roller coaster

STEM challenges are always a hit with kids. We love this one, which only requires basic supplies like drinking straws.

Learn more: Straw Roller Coaster

65. Build a solar oven

Explore the power of the sun when you build your own solar ovens and use them to cook some yummy treats. This experiment takes a little more time and effort, but the results are always impressive. The link below has complete instructions.

Learn more: Solar Oven

66. Build a Da Vinci bridge

There are plenty of bridge-building experiments out there, but this one is unique. It’s inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s 500-year-old self-supporting wooden bridge. Learn how to build it at the link, and expand your learning by exploring more about Da Vinci himself.

Learn more: Da Vinci Bridge

67. Step through an index card

This is one easy science experiment that never fails to astonish. With carefully placed scissor cuts on an index card, you can make a loop large enough to fit a (small) human body through! Kids will be wowed as they learn about surface area.

68. Stand on a pile of paper cups

Combine physics and engineering and challenge kids to create a paper cup structure that can support their weight. This is a cool project for aspiring architects.

Learn more: Paper Cup Stack

69. Test out parachutes

Gather a variety of materials (try tissues, handkerchiefs, plastic bags, etc.) and see which ones make the best parachutes. You can also find out how they’re affected by windy days or find out which ones work in the rain.

Learn more: Parachute Drop

70. Recycle newspapers into an engineering challenge

It’s amazing how a stack of newspapers can spark such creative engineering. Challenge kids to build a tower, support a book, or even build a chair using only newspaper and tape!

Learn more: Newspaper STEM Challenge

71. Use rubber bands to sound out acoustics

Explore the ways that sound waves are affected by what’s around them using a simple rubber band “guitar.” (Kids absolutely love playing with these!)

Learn more: Rubber Band Guitar

72. Assemble a better umbrella

Challenge students to engineer the best possible umbrella from various household supplies. Encourage them to plan, draw blueprints, and test their creations using the scientific method.

Learn more: Umbrella STEM Challenge

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Helping you live your best crafty life

17 Easy Science Experiments for Kids Using Household Items

September 29, 2017 by Laura 15 Comments

Last Updated on May 29, 2024

When we’re stuck indoors on a rainy weekend we are always trying to find activities to entertain the kids using things we already have at home.  But usually we end up on our computers for 30 minutes trying to find ideas!  So I thought I’d do a round up post of easy science experiments for kids that only require household ingredients.

This post contains affiliate links. Read more .

Easy Science Experiments for Kids

These experiments are best suited for 3-6 year olds I think.  But honestly I really like them, so maybe they’re for all ages!  I’ve included any of the ingredients that you may or may not have on hand so you can easily pick an experiment that you can do right away!

1. Shaving Cream Rain Clouds

Learn about how rain is made or just have fun mixing pretty colours! You’ll need shaving cream and food colouring . From:  One Little Project at a Time

2. Growing Gummy Bears

Compare the difference between using plain and salt water to grow gummy bears. You’ll need salt and gummy bears. From: Play Dough to Plato

3. Walking Rainbow

Watch as colours travel through paper towels to mix in the next jar. You’ll need food colouring and paper towels. From: Steam Powered Family

4. Dish Soap Silly Putty

It’s not quite liquid and not quite solid, but lots of fun! The colour of the putty will depend on the colour of the dish soap you use. You’ll need dish soap (or shampoo) and cornstarch . From: One Little Project

You might also be interested in these posts:

11 Edible Silly Putty, Play Dough and Slime Recipes 13+ Ideas for Teaching Elementary Math Using Games and Play 11 Awesome & Free Educational Websites for Kids

5. Salt Crystal Apples

You could easily make different shapes with this simple experiment! You’ll need pipe cleaners and salt. From: Schooling a Monkey

6. The Science of Yeast

Discover how yeast works. You’ll need balloons and active dry yeast. From: Play Dough to Plato

7. Hatch a Dinosaur Egg

This is such a fantastic idea!  And a great alternative to the standard volcano. You’ll need, small toys or objects, baking soda, food colouring and vinegar. From: Sunshine and Hurricanes

8. Growing Rock Candy

Grow your own rock candy and your kids will love you forever!  😀 You’ll need lots of sugar, skewers or candy sticks and food colouring.  For edible experiments you may want to look into natural food colouring .  You may also want candy flavouring .

The form you have selected does not exist.

My mom used to make this for us as kids, I didn’t know it had a proper name though, we just called it goop! We made this a couple weekends ago and my 5yo spent over 2 hours playing with it. Major success! You’ll need cornstarch and food colouring . From: Babble Dabble Do

10. Ocean Currents

Learn how ocean currents work! You’ll need food colouring . From: Life Over C’s

11. Rainbow Paper

Make pretty paper then turn into another craft! You’ll need black paper and clear nail polish . From: Science Kiddo

12. Constellation Flashlight

My son loves learning about space, so this will be a great way to teach him about constellations! You’ll need a flashlight, black paper and black paint. From: Handmade Charlotte

13. Dancing Worms

This is another fun variation on the classic baking soda and vinegar experiment. You’ll need gummy worms, vinegar and baking soda. From: Play Dough to Plato

14. Make Pennies Turn Green

Learn about chemical reactions and make observations with a free printable. You’ll need copper pennies and vinegar. From: Buggy and Buddy

15. Mentos Geyser

Who doesn’t love a good explosion? You’ll need a 2L bottle of dark coloured soda and a pack of Mentos . From: I Can Teach My Child

16. Disappearing Eggshell

Is there anything vinegar can’t do?! You’ll need a mason jar with a lid, eggs and vinegar. From: Premeditated Leftovers

17. Chromatography

These instructions call for a canvas tote bag , but I think a piece of cotton fabric would work too. You’ll need fabric, black water based markers and rubbing alcohol . From: Babble Dabble Do

Which of these looks like the most fun?!  I can’t wait to try the dino eggs!

Happy Experimenting!

Reader Interactions

May 21, 2018 at 6:34 pm

These are such great ideas! I cant wait to try a bunch this summer!

May 31, 2018 at 6:59 pm

I hope you do! They’re fun!

February 19, 2018 at 2:35 pm

recently I looks for something different and you helps me a lot. Thanks for the magical ideas.

October 3, 2017 at 1:56 pm

Love these! They look so fun too. Wondering if I can do some of them with my toddlers? Perhaps the shaving cream one?

October 3, 2017 at 3:27 am

Oh these look like soooo much fun! Pinning for later!!!

October 3, 2017 at 2:34 am

Thank you for this post! My five year old wants to be a scientist when he grows up, so we do a lot of science experiments in our house. I love the rainclouds, goop, and constellations.

October 3, 2017 at 1:10 am

These look so fun! I’m sharing so I can come back and do some of these with my kids.

October 2, 2017 at 6:29 pm

My kids will LOVE these! Sharing on my Facebook page for other mamas to see!

October 2, 2017 at 9:40 pm

I’m so glad! Thanks for sharing!

October 2, 2017 at 4:34 pm

These are awesome! My 8 year old son loves doing science experiments so I am saving this one for him! Thanks for sharing!

October 2, 2017 at 9:39 pm

I’m glad you liked it! Have fun experimenting! 🙂

October 2, 2017 at 12:58 pm

Wonderful round up of science projects to do with children. Nice you can make these from common household items.

Yes! So many times I’ve wanted to do fun stuff like this but the project requires such specialized ingredients. I love that I have most of the items required for these experiments already in my cupboards!

October 2, 2017 at 12:54 pm

This list is outstanding!! I love the rain clouds and the walking rainbow! It’s my daughter’s birthday this week and we may have to try these with her friends!

October 2, 2017 at 9:35 pm

I love that it’s a super inexpensive activity, you can just grab a couple cans of shaving cream from the dollar store! Have fun with the birthday celebrations!

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32 Cool Science Experiments for Kids (that are Fun AND Easy!)

Do you ever want to do science experiments at home with your kids, but you’re not quite sure what to do? Not just any old kitchen science experiment will do – you want something cooler than vinegar + bicarb soda! But, you also want something simple and easy to do – because no-one wants a huge mess from their kids doing crazy science experiments at home!

We understand, and that’s why the writing team here at STEM Geek has put our heads together to come up with the most awesome at-home science experiments for kids! As science enthusiasts and educators, we also wanted to make sure that these are genuine science learning opportunities. So not only are they captivating for the kids, but we also emphasize what questions can be asked as kids explore and apply the scientific method! Plus, we’ve arranged them according to how much time they take: up to 1 hour, 1 to several hours, and long-term.

Related Post: Ultimate Boredom Buster: 101 Things To Do When Kids Are Bored

Science Experiments at Home that take Less than 1 Hour

1. tie-dye milk.

Sounds delicious, right? You’re not actually drinking it, but instead watching science magic happens when you combine dish soap with milk and food coloring. This is a very pretty experiment that draws the focus and mind into what’s happening on the plate, and all because of a little chemistry with everyday items. Well, food dye may not be an everyday item, but it might be after your kids get a hold of this!

So, what’s going on here, scientifically-speaking? Milk is made up of two major ingredients: water and fat. When you add a little dish soap, it bonds with the fat in the milk so strongly that it literally pushes the food coloring and water away from the cotton ball. On a microscopic level, the dish soap is wandering around the milk, which causes the colors to swirl and swirl.

Questions to ask beforehand:

• Before knowing what will happen to the food coloring, ask the kids what they think will happen when dish soap mixes with milk.
• Since the major catalyst is fat in the milk, what would happen if you used other types of milk: Skim milk, soy milk, coconut milk?

You’ll need:

• Round cake pan or plate with high edges
• Cotton ball (some tutorials show cotton swabs)
• Dish detergent
• Different colors of food dye (three or four should do)

Procedure/Instructions:

• Fill the pan halfway with milk.
• Drip one color of food dye in one section of the plate away from the center. Four to five drops works and later you can play around with more or less. Do the same for the rest of the colors around the plate.
• Soak the cotton ball in dish detergent, and when you’re ready for action, place the cotton ball into the center of the pan.
• Watch the colors racing around, creating a psychedelic tie-dye effect!
• You can add more cotton balls throughout the dish to see more action.
• If some food coloring hugs the wall of the plate, take a cotton swab dipped in dish detergent and place it into the food coloring. It will move away!

2. Saturn’s Glowing Rings

I don’t know about you, but I love everything about space. This experiment shows you how Saturn’s rings are made of rocks and ice chunks even though they look so smooth in pictures. You’ll also see why there are big gaps in the rings. Younger kids take delight in using a flashlight and sprinkling powder, while older kids can get more specific with questions about Saturn and how the rocks and ice stay in orbit.

• Do Saturn’s rings give off their own light?
• Why are some rocks and ice chunks more lit up than others?
• Compare the results of light sprinkles to thicker sprinkles.
• Strong flashlight
• Powder (flour, baby powder, etc) in a shaker
• Very dark room
• Darken a room and set the flashlight on the edge of a table or counter, pointing it at a blank wall. Lay the newspaper on the floor between the flashlight and the wall.
• Turn on the flashlight and notice where the light comes from the flashlight and where it hits the wall. You should only see the light from these two places and not from the space between them. This shows you that the light travels through the air without being seen until it hits the wall. The light represents the sun’s light.
• Now to see how Saturn’s rings glow: Hold the powder shaker and sprinkle some powder over the beam of light where you know the light is traveling. You’ll notice the powder lights up and sparkles in the beam of light. The powder shows in glowing clumps, just like in Saturn’s rings.

3. Breaking Down Colors

We all know that the fun, vibrant colors we see in our lives are created by mixing the basic red, yellow, and blue. In this experiment, you and your child will learn which colors make up those fun shades they have in their art supplies. This also teaches some basic chemistry and uses materials you already have at home. It can be done very simply and expanded to create a large-scale investigation if you love it.

• Which colors separate out first?
• Is the same order for each test?
• Which colors make up the original shade?
• Do the different types of color (pen, pencil, paint) separate in the same way or differently?
• Are some separated in a shorter space are the colors the same mixture?
• Coffee filters
• Color sources (markers, colored pencils, paint, etc.)
• A plain pencil
• To complete this experiment, cut the coffee filters into strips, mark one end with a line the same distance from the bottom on each strip.
• Color in each strip (between the bottom and line) with your colors, and write at the top what the color and source are (e.g., purple marker).
• Place each strip in a glass and help it to stand up by folding the top over a pencil (a chopstick, table knife, or any long narrow object will also work) so that it stands up in the glass.
• Fill the glass up to the top of your colored block, and wait. The water will move up the filter, and the colors will separate out as it goes.
• Remove the strip once the water gets near the top of the strip to stop the experiment. 

To make this a true experiment, we recommend testing multiple colors and using markers, colored pencils, and paint (as some starting examples). You could test the same colors from each type of art supply to investigate whether they all use the same mix of basic colors to create the same end product.

This post has a nice full description of the methods if you need more detail.

4. Water Xylophone

This simple experiment will teach your child about sound and pitch using glasses, water, and something to act as a mallet. Don’t let the simplicity deceive you, there are a lot of ways to experiment and learn through this process, and it also brings in an element of music that makes it interesting and engaging.

• Do you think more water makes the sound higher or lower in pitch?
• How do you think the shape or size of the glass will affect the sound?
• How should we arrange the glasses to play a simple song?
• Do you think this will work with a plastic cup, why or why not?
• Some glasses
• Something wood to act as a mallet (we recommend wood so you don’t break the glasses!)
• A great way to start is with glasses that are the same size, shape, and material, and filling them with different amounts of water.
• Have your child use the mallet to test how the amount of water affects the sound.
• From there, it’s a really simple extension to use different sized and shaped glasses (or any glass vessel like jars and bowls) to experiment with how the shape, size, and amount of water in the glass affect the tone. 

To take this one further and really bring in the musical component, you and your child could work out a simple song and create the right tones to play it. If you or your child are musical, you could get very elaborate and creative (try googling harry potter or star wars theme songs on glasses, there are so many options that I couldn’t even choose one)!

5. Ultimate Bottle Flipping

Ah, bottle flipping. The fad that kids can’t get enough of, but parents are well and truly over. The constant thud of semi-filled water bottles being tossed (and hopefully landing upright) is guaranteed to send parents around the twist!

If you can stand it for a bit longer though, there’s a lot of STEM knowledge to be gained in this bottle flipping experiment. As we know, the aim of bottle flipping is to flip a partially filled water bottle underhand and get it to land upright.

In this experiment, kids will learn the importance of observing a result multiple times before changing a variable (the amount of water in the bottle).

• How much water should you put in the bottle?
• What is the ideal amount of liquid to get the perfect flip?
• What should be the ideal amount of water?
• Was their prediction correct?
• Why do they think the amount of water affects the chances of landing the bottle?
• A plastic water bottle
• Measuring jug
• Paper to record results
• Get the kids to start by flipping their bottle with no water in it at all. Kidspot recommends flipping it 50 times for each step, but you could do less if you need to.
• Try it again with 50ml of water.
• Keep adding more water until the bottle is full.

If they’re keen, you could try other types or sizes of bottles, or even try different liquids to see if that affects the results!

6. Rainbow in a Jar

This simple science experiment is not only very visually appealing, but it’s also a great way to learn about the density of liquids. Warning though, this one could get messy so make sure kids are in some old clothes and you might want to take it outside! I like this experiment because you’ll probably have most of the materials in your kitchen already!

• Which liquids they think will be heaviest?
• Which ones will be lightest?
• Why do they think that?
• A glass jar
• Food coloring
• Various liquids like honey, corn syrup, dishwashing liquid, olive oil, rubbing alcohol and water.
• Use the food coloring to make all your liquids a different color. A dropper comes in handy here, but if you don’t have one you can manage without.
• Slowly add each liquid to the jar (pouring into the middle of the jar is best).
• Soon, you’ll have different layers of colored liquid forming your very own rainbow in a jar.

You might even get them to draw a diagram of what they think the jar will look like at the end. They can compare this with the experiment results to see if their prediction was correct.

It might also help to talk to your kids first about what density is and how materials are all made of different amounts of molecules. The more molecules a liquid has, the heavier it will be. Playdough to Plato demonstrates a great way of introducing this concept using marbles. 

7. Write Your Own Secret Messages! 

We love science experiments that are made up primarily of supplies that you likely already have in your home.

• Why do you think this will work?
• Which liquid do you think will make the best secret message?
• Why do people write secret messages?
• Juice (eg. Lemon)
• Lamp (or anything else that can be used as a heat source)
• In order to complete this experiment, you’ll need to gather all of your supplies along with a piece of paper, some q-tips, and a lamp or other item that you can use as a heat source.
• Next, you’ll mix your lemon juice with a slight amount of water. 
• Using your q-tip, use the mixture you’ve created to begin writing your message. 
• Allow it to dry. 
• Once dry, apply heat to it in order to get your message to appear.

Extend this project by attempting to write with a juice and water mixture, a milk and water mixture, or any other variation of the liquids we listed as necessary supplies!

8. Create Your Own Butterfly

Your little ones will love practicing their color mixing by creating their very own coffee filter butterflies. Hang them in the windows of your home to spread some cheer and to watch the sun flow through their beautiful wings! 

• What colors can mix together to make other colors?
• How do butterflies fly?
• What do you think will happen when we add water to the markers?
• Water spray bottle
• Allow your child to draw on the coffee filter to their heart’s content.
• Spray it with water and allow the colors to mix together.
• Allow it to dry thoroughly.
• Once dry, fold it like a fan and then clip it in the middle.

Ta-da, you’ve created a beautiful butterfly! 

9. Make A Duck Call

Give your family an excuse to head outdoors by allowing your children to craft their own duck calls. Test them out at a local pond and see if you can get the ducks to come closer to you for a healthy veggie snack! 

• Do you think ducks will be able to hear us with this?
• What other materials do you think could make this noise?
• How is what we have created similar to a duck’s beak?
• Plastic straw
• Push down on the straw to flatten one end and then cut the flattened end into a point.
• Flatten out your straw and then blow into it.
• Feel free to experiment with different amounts of flattening and different point shapes to see how you can adjust the sound.
• When finished, take your duck call into the wild to test it out.

10. Make Ivory Soap Boats

Did you ever carve items out of soap at camp when you were a child? Give your child the same opportunity. Soap can be carved using safe items, like plastic knives. 

• Why are we able to carve soap so easily?
• Do you think our boats float?
• Why do you think they float or sink?
• Carving tools (for kids)
• Allow your child to express their creative side by carving their boat out of soap. 
• Once they have finished carving it, allow them to test them out in the bathtub. . Extend their learning by discussing density with them–the soap floats because it is less dense than the water.

11. Make Your Own Quicksand 

As John Mullaney famously said, “I thought quicksand would be a much bigger problem in my adult life than it would have turned out.” For some reason, quicksand permeates children’s adventure stories – and their imaginations! 

• Where can we find quicksand in real life?
• How do you think quicksand works?
• What do you think we will need to make our own quicksand?
• Cornflower (one cup)
• Water (half cup)
• A container
• To make your quicksand, you’ll need to mix the cornflour and water. 
• Be sure to stir slowly in order to demonstrate – if you stir too quickly, it will become hard and you won’t be able to see it function the way it should!

12. Make Your Own Lava Lamp

We’ve tried this one in our classrooms, and trust us, our kids go wild year after year. Kids love making something that they can use as home decoration, and they love how easy it is to show new people – this is the experiment that lives on and on! 

• How do you think density is involved in this experiment?
• Why don’t the water and oil mix?
• Why can’t we shake our lava lamps?
• Clear Plastic Bottle
• Vegetable Oil
• Food Coloring
• Alka-Seltzer
• Pour water into the plastic bottle until it is approximately one quarter full. 
• Then pour vegetable oil in until the bottle is almost completely filled. 
• Allow some time for the oil and water to separate. 
• It is important that your children do not shake the bottle in this step. It will extend the experiment for no other reason than you waiting for the bubbles to dissipate. 
• Add as much food coloring as your child deems fit and then drop a piece of Alka-seltzer tablet into the bottle for the lava lamp fun to begin.

13. Guess the Smell

This one will take a little more prep work, but it’s a great touchstone for your children to begin discussing one of their five senses: the sense of smell! 

• What are examples of times we use our sense of smell?
• What other senses do we have?
• If you could only use one sense for the rest of your life, which one?
• Plastic Cups
• Smells (eg. coffee, cinnamon, vanilla, lemon juice)
• Place a variety of common smells in small plastic cups. We like to use coffee, cinnamon, vanilla, and lemon juice. 
• Pour these in and place tin foil securely over the top of the cup. 
• Poke small holes in the top of the foil. 
• Secure the foil with tape (on the sides, not over the holes). 
• Allow your children to guess the smells and record their findings on paper.

Home Science Experiments that take 1 to Several Hours

14. mangrove bioshield  .

Ecologists and conservationists are pushing for more regulations in building and saving mangrove forests around coastal areas. The reason is represented in this STEM activity. The trees act as a mangrove BioShield (bio = life, shield = protection), showing how natural obstacles can prevent critical damage from marine natural disasters such as tsunamis.

The mangrove BioShield can be for older elementary kids through to high school. Obviously, the younger they are, the more parent involvement. This experiment is done twice to show the effects of having and not having a BioShield. The first part uses little to no trees, and the second uses a forest of trees and rocks.

• What will happen in a tsunami if the village is without a BioShield? And the village with a BioShield?
• Would a BioShield help with hurricanes?
• Would you want to encourage people to save manatee forests if they are beneficial?
• Medium to large clear, plastic container
• Newspaper – wad into balls, then cover half of the bottom container – this help to keep the ground sturdy
• Mud – cover the newspaper and press it in to form a slope down to the empty side of the container. The top side should be flattened for the cardboard houses, then it slopes down into the empty half of the container.
• Cardboard houses (use the bottoms of milk cartons for the house and popsicle sticks for the roofs, place houses on the mud towards the top of the high slope
• Model trees or leafy stems from plants – Different amounts for activity 1 and activity 2
• Several small rocks
• Cardboard – long enough to fit across the container and tall enough to hold it from out of the water
• Water – enough to go halfway up the slope

A tsunami without the mangrove forest – insert only one or two trees down the slope. Place the cardboard piece into the water end of the container and move back and forth to create waves. Notice how easy it is for the water to destroy the village you’ve created.

Repeat the process of constructing the village, but this time insert a lot of trees down the slope to where the water meets the mud. They need to be deeply rooted like mangroves, and I’ve found that aquarium plants work well for this reason. Place the rocks within the mangrove forest and in front of the trees. Add a little bit more water. Insert the cardboard again and move it back and forth to create waves.  

15. A Greater Crater

When you look at the night sky and see the moon, one of the first things you notice is its craters. The moon is completely covered in them, and some are so large we can see them from Earth. Meteorites often make the craters that we see when they hit the surface, but it makes us wonder why some craters are so much bigger than others.

This experiment will help you to investigate one of the main reasons why craters come in different sizes.

• What causes craters?
• How big do the meteorites have to be to make a crater?
• What is it about the meteorite that causes the size of the crater?
• Paper to record your results
• Flat floor surface for the experiment, large enough for the newspaper to cover
• Shallow metal pan at least 2 inches deep
• Flour to fill 2 inches of the pan
• ¼ cup hot chocolate powder
• Mesh strainer or flour sifter
• Large marble (and others of varying sizes if comparing results)
• Metric ruler
• Tongs or long tweezers
• Pour the flour into the pan until it reaches 2 inches. Place the pan on top of the newspaper on a level surface.
• Sift a layer of hot chocolate powder over the flour (this is so you can better see the rays and other features of the craters).
• You will be dropping your marble from three different heights, then comparing the sizes of the craters. Measure the diameter (side to side) of the marble and record this on your paper as Marble 1. Hypothesize how large the crater will be and write that next to the diameter of Marble 1.
• Stand next to your pan and hold the marble at knee height above the flour. Drop the marble (do not throw it, just let it fall from your fingers) into the flour and study the shape of the crater. Look for a rim around the crater or any rays coming from the edges.
• Measure across the widest part of your crater, from rim to rim and record on your data sheet as Marble 1 – Knee Height – Width or something similar. You can also draw a picture of your results.
• Very gently use the tongs or long tweezers to remove the marble without destroying the crater.
• Repeat this procedure from waist height, shoulder height, top of head height. Make sure you aim in different parts of the flour so you don’t land on top of another crater. Record all of your results as the different heights you’re using.
• Compare your results.
• You can try again with a different sized marble as “Marble 2” to compare those results with each height as done with Marble 1.

Perhaps now, you’ll look at the moon a little differently!

16. Rube Goldberg Chain Reaction Machine

We’ve all seen them, some pretty far-out there chain reaction machines to complete simple tasks, usually in movies. But they are real , and are becoming even more popular now that we’re all stuck at home for a while. This is a fun way to explore physics with stuff you have at home.

Ask your child to decide what the end goal is (e.g. get the ball into the cup), and ask them to think about creative ways to make it get there. Working together, you can start with small pieces of a circuit to find out how your ball reacts to the set-up, and grow it from there. You can even refer to this video for more ideas:

• What will happen when the ball bounces off of this wall?
• How will these dominoes change the speed of the ball?
• What can we use to make sure that the ball goes in the direction we want it to at this point?
• What should we put here to get the best bounce? 
• Paper towel
• Toilet paper tubes
• Fixed objects like walls or furniture
• Any other toys and materials that can be used to build your circuit

To make this a true experiment, it needs to include more than a one-off demonstration, and there are a lot of ways to accomplish this.

• Set up parallel courses and use different sized or weighted balls to go through the circuit.
• Set up one elaborate circuit and use different objects one at a time.
• Set up circuits in different ways to see how different set-ups affect your end goal.

Another experimental component is the process used to create a circuit that reaches your end goal ( like this video about getting the ball into the cup, but you could come up with lots of other endpoints!). Along the way, you and your child get a lot of time to learn about momentum, velocity, friction, energy transfer, and interference (e.g., the cat). 

17. Melting

This is a simple and fun experiment that can be set up in a short time and then fill-up your day with observations and new experiments. Using only things you already have at home, you can set-up an engaging experiment with your kids!

Ice melts at different rates depending on a variety of factors including temperature, pressure, and if there are impurities (think salt, sugar, dirt) in the ice or touching the ice. There is a lot of opportunities to get creative and do the experiment in multiple ways, keeping your kids engaged and developing their investigative, experimental, and critical thinking skills.

• Which ice melts the fastest, slowest, and if they have any guesses about why?
• What other ice-melting experiments they think would be fun: Using different temperature liquids? Using different amounts of ice? Different sized cups?
• Lots of ice
• Several matching cups (i.e., they are the same size, shape, and color)
• Measuring cups
• A variety of liquids for the test
• Paper for writing down observations
• Measure the same amount of ice and place it in each cup.
• M easure equal amounts of each liquid and place them in the cups: try to complete this part quickly so that the ice in each cup is in liquid for as close the same amount of time as possible.
• Set up your cups in a place that is easy for your child to watch and observe.
• Ask them to check in at regular intervals (every 15 minutes, every hour) and record or talk to you about their observations.

Other potential experimental examples:

• Using different liquids to test if they affect melting time;
• Using the same liquid and placing ice in different locations to test what conditions throughout your home affect melting;
• Test if different amounts of ice melt at different rates;
• Test if different kinds of cups change melting time.

There are endless possibilities for you to come up with new ways to complete these simple experiments. You get the idea. Explore more!

18. Breathing Leaves

Science experiments don’t get much more simple than this one!  It’s effective though and kids will enjoy watching their leaf ‘breathe’. Learning about plant science is often tricky because it can seem a bit abstract. This experiment allows kids to see the process of plants making oxygen right before their eyes!

A question to ask beforehand:

• What do you think will happen if we leave it for a few hours?
• A fresh leaf from a tree
• A bowl of water
• Pluck a fresh leaf from a tree and place it in a bowl of water.
• Use a rock to weigh it down and leave the experiment out in the sun.
• Have your kids predict what they think they will see when they come back in a few hours (they can write their prediction down or draw a diagram if that’s more their style).
• After a few hours, your kids will see lots of tiny little bubbles on the edge of the leaf and in the glass bowl of water (use a magnifying glass to get a closer look if you have one).

So, what’s happening here? Leaves take in carbon dioxide and convert it to oxygen during photosynthesis. The bubbles you can see are the leaf releasing the oxygen it’s created. You could explain to your kids how trees and plants make the oxygen we need to breathe. Kids Fun Science explains this experiment in more detail and suggests taking it further by leaving the plant for a longer period of time (do you see more or fewer bubbles?) or placing a leaf in a dark area to see what difference that makes!

19. How Does Sunscreen Work?

If there’s one thing I know, it’s that kids hate wearing sunscreen! Trying to get it on them is like wrestling a crocodile. Maybe if they knew how sunscreen worked they’d understand how important it is to wear it when they’re out in the sun (and be slightly more cooperative when we’re lathering it over their little faces). This is a simple experiment that shows kids the difference wearing sunscreen will make to their skin.

• What do they observe when they come back?
• Why do they think one side faded and the other not?
• A piece of colored cardboard (a dark color would be best)
• Your usual bottle of sunscreen
• Have your kids smear the sunscreen over one part of the cardboard and leave the other part clear.
• Kids can then predict what they think will happen when they return to the experiment after a few hours.
• Talk to them about how the sun’s UV radiation is absorbed by the sunscreen so it can’t get through to damage the cardboard.

You could even take it further by trying different kinds of sunscreen or leaving your cardboard out during different times of the day.

20. Make A Rubber Egg

Imagine a world in which eggs can be used like bouncy balls. Well, with a couple of home supplies and a little bit of science, you can live in that world. Your child will be dazzled as they remove eggshells from eggs while leaving the insides intact. 

• Is vinegar an acid or a base?
• Is there another substance that could do this?
• Simply leave the egg in the vinegar for a few hours and wait to see what happens. Because of the transformative nature of this experiment, it lends itself to science journaling. 
• Consider having your kiddos draw before and after pictures of the eggs in order to track their journeys. 

21. Flying Tea Bags

Nothing will get your kids’ attention faster than telling them that you are going to spend some time creating something that will fly. However, because this experiment will involve fire, please ensure that you select a time in which you will be able to provide ample adult supervision. 

• How do we stay safe with fire?
• How do we make sure we don’t damage the surface we are working on?
• Why do you think the tea bag will fly?
• Single Serving Tea Bags
• A Small Bowl
• A Non-Flammable Work Surface
• First, open the tea bags and unfold them. 
• Empty the leaves from the bag. 
• Stand the tea bags up on your surface and light the top of each bag on fire. 

As they begin to burn, they will float into the sky! 

22. Make Wax Paper Lanterns

Your children will love the chance to display their fantastic art skills by creating these paper lanterns. If you want to add a culture lesson, have your children research German’s St. Martin’s Day and learn about why children parade through the streets with lanterns. We promise there’s a good moral story involved here! 

• When could we use lanterns?
• What safety considerations do we need to use in this project?
• Why can we see the light through the wax paper?
• Popsicle Sticks
• To begin, tear a ten-inch piece of wax paper off of the roll and cut it in half. 
• After that, fold each piece in half. 
• Allow your child to color their image on top of the wax paper. (This is a great place for an impromptu lesson in color mixing). 
• Fold the wax paper and iron it (consider something in between the crayon mess and the iron you use on your clothes). 
• Finally, glue the craft sticks into squares, add the wax paper, and turn it into a cube.

Voila, you’ve created your own lantern!

23. Create an Insect Habitat

Alright, this one isn’t for the faint of heart. Draw up your courage and send your child into the backyard to collect all of the creepy crawlies they’d like to.

Now you have a home for them. Better yet, you can keep your child entertained for hours as they track the growth of their bug friends.

• What do bugs need to survive?
• What do bugs eat?
• What is the difference between a need and a want?
• Imagination
• Find something that you’re willing to sacrifice to the bugs in order to create a habitat for them – we recommend a shadowbox so that your child can see inside, but a cardboard box will do just fine as well. 
• Ensure that there is breathing room for the bugs. 
• Create a habitat with sticks, bark, small rocks, dried leaves, and whatever else you can find.
• If you’re willing to hang onto the habitat long enough, use it as an opportunity to talk about decomposition as the bugs begin to break down the twigs.

Long-Term Science Experiments at Home

24. crystal kingdom.

This is the oldest trick in the book, but it’s popular because it’s so effective, fun, and has great results. The only drawback to most crystal-growing recipes is that they take ages to grow, and to be quite honest this one is no exception. In fact, these crystals will take several days to grow but the end result is worth it. The reason is that this experiment involves growing a whole landscape of beautifully colored salt and bluing crystals. Here’s a video for visual reference: 

A few things to keep in mind: Allow for plenty of air circulation, preferably inside rather than outside. Ammonia is not necessary but does help in the process.

• What will happen when you add ammonia?
• Why does more salt and less liquid create faster crystallization?
• What part does the bluing solution have in crystal growing?

(Answers can be found here )

• Two bottles of bluing solution
• Large tray/cookie sheets with sides
• Measuring cup
• Liquid watercolors
• Eye droppers
• Cut sponges into large pieces. Spread them out on the tray.
• Measure out 1 cup of each of salt, water, and bluing and then gently mix together.
• Evenly coat or sprinkle the mix over the sponges.
• Add 1 cup of ammonia to the sponges.
• Coat an extra 1 cup of salt on to the sponges.
• By now you’ll see some crystals growing . Sprinkle the magic mix again: 1 cup each of salt, water, and bluing. You can pour the ingredients onto the tray instead of on top of the crystals to keep them from breaking. Don’t worry, more will grow!
• Take an eyedropper, and drop a tablespoon of each liquid watercolor (undiluted) in different patterns over the sponges and crystals.
• Take note of your garden and what the crystal formations look like. You can make a sketch in your notebook as a before and after. Ask questions and observe!
• Observe how the crystals are bigger than before, and notice the colors aren’t as vibrant. Compare the differences in shapes, sizes, and colors.
• If you want more crystals to grow, add a little more water, bluing, and salt.

25. Blow up a Balloon with Yeast

We are surrounded by science in action, but sometimes it is really difficult to see what is happening, especially when it is on a small-scale. When we make bread, yeast ‘eats’ the sugars in the food and creates CO2, giving bread its airy texture. This experiment lets you both visualize what happens when yeast consumes sugar and is a great set-up for an experiment that can be observed throughout the day.

Depending on your supplies and time, you could start with a demonstration and use that to think of other tests, or you could set up several parallel tests at the same time.

• How quickly does the balloon filled with air?
• When does it stop filling (at some point the yeast will run out of food and will stop making gas)?
• Does the starting temperature affect the experiment?
• Does the balloon fill faster in different places in your home (try especially for different air-temperatures, you could include an outside location)?
• Some balloons
• Blow up the balloon a few times before starting so that it’s loosened up a bit.
• Fill the bottle with about 1 inch of warm water (heat is required to activate the yeast, but you could experiment with different temperatures), add the yeast and swirl to dissolve.
• Add the sugar and swirl more.
• Place the balloon over the opening to the bottle and wait. You should expect to see the balloon begin to inflate after around 20 minutes.
• Continue checking and observing how much the balloon inflates throughout the day.

More example experimental setups include:

• Do different temperatures – either with the water you start with or the air the yeast lives in – affect how quickly the balloon blows-up?
• Does using 2x the yeast result in a balloon that is 2x bigger, or blows-up 2x faster?
• Do different types of sugar (e.g., white sugar, honey, syrup, flour) affect how quickly the balloon blows up or how big it gets?

A sk your child to think of new experiments (you could prompt with some of the examples above, or ideas from this post ). 

26. Seed Germination

A really simple but fun multi-day experiment is germinating seeds under different conditions. This means finding some quick-sprouting seeds such as beans and putting them in different conditions to see how that affects germination (sprouting leaves and roots) and growth.

I love using seed experiments because they are inexpensive, simple, and leave a ton of room for creating your own unique experiment.

• Which seed will sprout fastest?
• Seeds (Beans, radishes, squashes, and many flowers sprout quickly from large seeds, making them good choices.)
• Small pots or paper cups
• Potting soil
• Cloth or paper towel
• Somewhere with good light
• To get started, you’ll need some seeds – feel free to choose something you already have, if you’re a gardener you might have some seeds ready for the coming season and could spare a few – or find something online or at your local nursery.
• Use small pots or paper cups and fill each with your growth material (we recommend a minimum of 3 for a useful comparison).
• Fill one with potting soil, one with sand, and one with a cloth or paper towel.
• Place them somewhere with good light, and add water.
• Ask your child to predict which seed will sprout fastest, and make observations every day. If possible, make them around the same time each day.
• Once you see growth, you can ask your child what they think caused any differences, and you can use that as a jumping-off point for more experiments

Additionally, you could:

• Use one type of seed and different types of growth media: soil, paper towel, gravel, sand, water, etc.
• You could use different seeds (beans, flowers, grass, herbs) and grow them under the same conditions (soil, water, sun exposure) to see how different plants grow differently.
• You could see how different light conditions (by a window, in the basement, in a bright room away from a window, etc.) affect germination.

You could also extend each experiment by simply continuing to grow each seed to learn whether the different germination time affects long-term growth (you may want to re-pot everything in the soil for this to be effective, depending on the specifics of your initial experiment).

27. Colored Celery

It’s hard to imagine plants having little capillaries inside them that transport water and nutrients, but this experiment shows that in action. It’s easy to set up, but you’ll have to wait at least a day to see some results. Your kids will be able to see how transpiration takes place and plants absorb water from the soil all the way up into their leaves.

• A few stalks of celery (celery works best for this because it’s a bit more visible, but you could also use flower stems)
• Different food coloring
• Place each stalk in a cup of colored water and make your predictions about what will happen.
• After a day or so you’ll see the celery leaves becoming the color of the water they’re standing in.
• Have your kids describe their observations (they can write down what they see or draw it if they prefer).
• If you look at the base of the stem you’ll also see tiny little holes that the colored water is traveling through.

When you’re done with the experiment, make sure you snap the celery and look inside – you should be able to see the capillaries in action. For more ideas, Little Bins for Little Hands has got some great hints and tips for this experiment.

28. Moldy Bread

This experiment is an oldie, but a goodie! Kids love looking at disgusting things and this one will certainly come up with the goods. Not only will kids learn about how mold grows, but they might also take on some lessons about the importance of washing their hands!

You might want to check out the results of this experiment at Science Alert before you start to see if your stomach is up to it.

• A few slices of bread
• Some ziplock bags
• Sticky little hands. 
• Get a few slices of bread and lay them out on your kitchen bench.
• Have your kids touch one piece of bread with dirty, unwashed hands.
• They can wash their hands with soap and water and touch another slice, then do the same using hand sanitizer.
• Leave one piece of bread untouched.
• Place them all in clear, labeled ziplock bags and predict which one will grow the most mold.
• Leave your bread slices for at least a week (it may take a bit longer, depending on the conditions where you live) and get the kids to record their observations.

You can also try wiping your bread slices on other surfaces to see what moldy results you get (their laptop or tablet is a great place to start)!

29. Sprouting Beans

Give your household a real survivalist feel by beginning an indoor garden. We recommend planting your beans in a clear cup so that your children can be privy to all of the processes during the plant’s journey.

• How does a plant grow?
• What does germination mean?
• What is in season to grow in our area now?
• Unprocessed Beans
• If you’d like your child to see every step of the process, consider placing the beans inside of a damp paper towel inside of a ziplock. 
• You can wait, see the germinated seed together, and then plant it inside of a small cup.
• Once inside the cup, watch it grow.

Extend your work by planting various beans and altering the growth conditions in order see what makes your beans grow best! 

30. Begin Composting

Begin your “go green” resolutions by teaching your child the value of composting! Best of all, once the science experiment is done, your family will have a recycling process that will last your entire lifetimes. 

• Why is composting important?
• How else can our household go green?
• Why do we need a foundation layer for compost?
• Compost Bin
• Organic Material
• First, create a compost bin. You can purchase one or build one out of wood. 
• To begin your composting, you’ll need even amounts of brown materials (think shredded paper, dryer lint, etc.) and green materials (think fruit and vegetable waste, lawn clippings, etc.). 
• If you’re really feeling fancy, throw some earthworms in there.

For days to come, your family will be able to discuss what can and cannot be broken down by the decomposers inside of the compost bin. Never-ending science! 

31. Turn Grapes Into Raisins

Your kids may or may not eat raising – but we can guarantee you, they’ve likely never considered the option of creating their own! 

• What other snacks can we make with science?
• Should we ever eat our experiments?
• How does this work?
• For this experiment, you’ll need grapes. (Really, that’s it!) 

Leave your grapes somewhere where they will not be disturbed and use this as an opportunity for your children to journal the changes in the grapes from day to day. Believe it or not, this type of sequential journaling is a valuable literacy skill! 

32. DIY Science Experiment

The best science experiment your child can engage in is the one they create themselves! Begin brainstorming a list of questions and let the world be their oyster as they plan and carry out their own experiments. Some of our favorite brainstorming questions, from Scholastic’s Science-Fair Project Guide, are listed below:

• What is the effect of toothpaste brand on teeth-cleaning power?
• What brand of trash bag can withstand the most weight before ripping?
• How does the type of material affect how long a shirt takes to dry?

Written by Miranda Altice, Kaitlin Anselmo, Mark Coster, Allison Ebbets, and Jodie Magrath.

Mark is the driving force behind STEM Geek. With 20 years of experience in chemistry education and research, and 3 willing children as guinea pigs, Mark has a passion for inspiring kids and adults to combine fun and learning with STEM Toys!

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Preschool STEM Activities

Preschoolers were made for STEM. They want to know how everything around them works and they want hands-on activities. Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean you need to do big complicated experiments. We can still keep it simple.

As your toddler grows into a preschooler they are able to understand bigger concepts. They are also able to think deeper into what is going on in their world and tell you what interests them most.

This is an amazingly fun time to do STEM activities with your kids.

Here is what STEM activities and science experiments should look like with preschoolers, plus a big list of activities your little scientist will love.

What's In This Post?

What Ages Do We Mean?

Engineering, fun and hands on experiences, observations, asking questions, introducing the scientific method, easy preschool stem activities, 3 easy science activities to teach kids how colors work, how did you hear that simple sound science for kids, butterfly steam activities for preschoolers and toddlers, sunscreen painting: steam for kids, how to make a diy stethoscope for kids, number treasure hunt: sensory number sense activity, science by the pool: easy summer stem activities, soap and pepper experiment: how soap works, moon activities for preschoolers, colored flower experiment: spring science for kids, digestion experiment for kids- diy stomach model, popsicle stick catapult: a diy craft stick launcher, how to create a tasty and fun archaeological experience, how to make butter with kids: the science of churning butter, easy weather science experiments for preschoolers and toddlers, at home chemistry: cleaning pennies with ketchup, diy soda bottle terrarium for kids, how to make superhero straw shooters, exploding bag experiment for kids, leak proof bag experiment, simple, strange, and fun human tricks to mess with your kids, how to make mystery tinker bags and explore creative stem fun, monster sensory bags for toddlers: easy and fun learning activity, the science of slime and the best homemade recipes, warm-blooded vs cold blooded animal activity (with color changing slime), diy confetti poppers for kids, how to make an easy easter egg rocket, kids can code simple and fun lego coding activities, funicular trains: pulleys for kids, easy heart pump model: cardiovascular stem for kids, working lung model for kids, how to make a model spine: anatomy stem for kids, science experiments for preschool.

I know, the thought of sitting down and doing a real science experiment with a preschooler can seem, well, like a bad idea. Can they sit still? Is it safe? What are they even learning?

Don’t worry, this is going to be fun. STEM with preschoolers is hands-on, exciting, and it does not require a lot of work or a big mess.

First up, what ages are we talking about here? For these preschool ages, we mean 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds. They aren’t young toddlers anymore, but they aren’t kindergarten-ready either.

You will see that many of the activities here can also be found in the toddler STEM activities section. That’s by design. Kids don’t flip switches as they get older that suddenly make certain activities bad for them. They are still good, you can just dive deeper.

These activities are also designed to be flexible in terms of age range. This is perfect if you have more than one child. I give suggestions on ways to simplify projects for younger kids and ways to kick up the challenges for older children.

These particular activities work well for 3-4-year-olds, so they are highly recommended for your preschooler.

What is STEM/STEAM?

What does STEM mean again? And how is it different than STEAM?

STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. STEAM is just STEM with Art added. Yes, art is important! Not only for the creative growth of children, but art is also valuable for boosting problem-solving and communication skills. These are key for STEM.

Let’s breakdown what sort of activities would fit into these categories.

This is the more traditional fields when we think of science. Chemistry, biology, physics, etc.

For preschoolers, science is still really getting to know the basics of their world. They are still learning about things like sink or float and color mixing. But they are also learning about the weather around them, the different parts of plants, and what is in our solar system.

You are still building their science foundations, so we don’t need to make things complicated. Preschoolers easily tell us what they are interested in though, so this is a great time to dive deep into dinosaurs, stars, baking soda reactions, or whatever excites them.

This is a good time to explain concepts so children start to become familiar with the vocabulary, but we aren’t expecting mastery yet. Exposure, repetition, and fun are what count.

Depending on your comfort level, screen time can start to play a part in technology learning. It isn’t the whole thing though.

Technology for preschoolers builds early coding skills, which focuses on pattern recognition and understanding cause and effect. (For example, coding in ‘move forward one step’ results in a robot moving forward one step.)

You can practice all of these skills with screen-free activities, and you can start to bring in some games and activities that use screens. The choice of how to do this is yours, but keep those no-screen options to help build fine motor skills too!

Just like technology, you don’t have to think too high level for engineering at the preschool age.

A goal of engineering at this age is to work on problem-solving. How can they create something to solve a situation or even just what can they make to match what is in their imagination. This means that the adults step back and let the child explore.

Creative freedom and the freedom to make mistakes are learning tools here. Your child is going to try something and fail. That’s good, there is a ton of learning in that experience! You as the adult can help model positive reactions to failure and model resiliency.

Math isn’t everyone’s favorite, but it can be pretty fun at the preschool age. There is still a big focus on knowing numbers and building number sense. (Number sense is the understanding that numbers have unique values and those values can interact with each other. Learn more here: What Is Number Sense? )

This means we are still focusing on counting, number matching, and value matching. This is all easy to do just through normal play, or you can do more directed activities. As your child gets older you can move on to bigger numbers too!

There is also still a focus on comparing values and sizes. So talk about more vs less, bigger vs smaller, that sort of thing. This age is also a great time to start basic addition and subtraction concepts. We aren’t talking about anything huge, you can ease these ideas into play. For example, just start combing groups of toys and counting them out to show addition. Then talk through subtraction by taking them back away again.

Goals for Preschool STEM Activities

How do we get the most out of our time doing these STEM activities with preschoolers? What should caregivers be focused on?

As with all activities you do with kids, the number one goal is fun. If they aren’t having fun (and if you aren’t having any fun), what’s the point? No one is learning and it is only going to end with negative associations towards STEM.

So the first thing to focus on is having fun.

The next most important thing is to let your kids get in there and have hands-on experiences. (Obviously, do this as safety allows.) Demonstrations can be a great tool, but try to let the kids take the lead in STEM activities for preschoolers.

Let them touch, smell, see, do, and just experience as much as you can.

Speaking of experiences, we are still heavily focused on observations during those experiences.

A big part of science and STEM activities is observing what is happening. This means helping your child pay attention to what is happening. Ask guiding questions such as What do you see? What do you smell? etc. If it is safe, have them smell and taste what they can too.

Observations are key to data gathering and understanding how our world works, and helping your child to focus on these things will be helpful for future learning and communication skills. (This is also why sensory play is so important. Learn more here:  Sensory Play Learning .)

This is an easy one for a lot of kids to do naturally, but encourage the asking of questions! What do they see? How do they think the activity works? Why do they think the results turned out that way?

The key here for the adult is to listen. Listen to what your child observes and thinks. No, they aren’t always going to be right. But it is important that they feel they can ask anything AND offer up their own explanations without ridicule.

There are no stupid questions. There are not stupid explanations. This is how we build the confidence to explore the unknown. (And yes, after you listen you can guide them to more accurate answers as needed.)

The scientific method is an organized way of running science experiments. This is important even for preschool children. We don’t always follow it exactly when we do casual at-home science experiments, but it is a good idea to help kids learn to use a logical approach to their experimenting.

The scientific method is about so much more than just logical STEM projects, it teaches real-world life lessons and skills. You can read more here about how the scientific method sets kids up for powerful problem solving: Life Lessons from the Scientific Method .

Get ready to do activities with preschoolers more than once. Repetition is an important part of learning for kids.

It is very valuable to do the same experiment multiple times. The good news is that if you remember the first goal, fun, then even more learning will take place. Kids learn best through play .

The more we do these activities as adults, the easier they are to do. You’ll experience less stress about doing them and build your own scientific confidence.

Now that we know what our goals and expectations are, let’s dive into the activities. Which preschool STEM activity are you going to try first?

Preschool children love hands-onlearning! These easy and fun STEM activities for preschoolers are fast to put together and packed with learning. The target age for these science experiments is 3 years old to 4 years old, but that doesn't mean they are limited to these ages. Younger and older children will enjoy them too!

Colors are a natural way to get a child's interest and introduce science concepts. These are 3 super easy STEM activities that wow kids and teach fun science basics.

Embrace the noise littles make and turn it into a science lesson! Get super simple sound science activities kids love, including seeing sound waves and making a balloon amplifier.

Butterfly and caterpillar STEAM activities are so much fun! Get crafts that help learn caterpillar life cycles and anatomy, learn about symmetry, and burst out of a DIY cocoon!

Turn sunscreen into a magical art project! This fun STEAM experiment shows kids just how important sunscreen is and is a great creative activity.

Hearing our heartbeat is an amazing way to introduce anatomy science to kids. And you can make an easy DIY stethoscope with recycled materials. Here is how.

What's better than a treasure hunt? Combine sensory play and number sense with a fun number treasure hunt.

Get fun and easy science experiments you can do at the pool- no prep needed! Big pool or kiddie pool at home, this summer STEM is perfect anywhere.

Curious as to why soap is so important for hygiene? Try this simple experiment! A little pepper and water will clearly show how soap works to keep us healthy. Plus get the full scientific explanation!

Space inspires kids from a young age, and there are so many fun ways to learn more about it from here on Earth. Get fun and easy moon activities including tidal locking and a tasty moon phase activity. (Plus a free printable!)

Turn white flowers bright colors! It's easier than you think in this fun capillary action science experiment.

How do our stomachs turn food into fuel for our bodies? This simple experiment shows kids how our stomach muscles and juices work together to break down the food we eat.

Turn craft sticks into a fun catapult! This is an easy engineering challenge that teaches about potential and kinetic energy.

Let your child be an archaeologist with a fun and tasty dinosaur dig! This is a fun sensory STEM experience your kids will adore.

Learn about states of matter and how they change while making butter! This is a great science experiment for getting energy out, and it is very good at showing clear changes kids can understand. And you end up with butter you can actually eat!

5 Fun and easy weather experiments your kids will adore! Make a tornado in a bottle, see rain fall through sensory clouds, make a water cycle bag, and more. All using at-home items, all fascinating for preschoolers!

Can you clean a penny with ketchup? This simple kitchen chemistry challenge will thrill your child and teach them about chemical reactions.

Make your own personal garden and learn how plants grow anywhere! This terrarium from recycled materials is a great way to learn about nature and botany basics.

Every child should see themselves as a superhero, and this STEAM craft makes it happen. Turn your child into a real flying hero with straw shooters!

Turn a simple lunch bag into a fun popping experiment with a super simple chemical reaction! At home items are all you need to learn about limiting reagents and have fun.

Did you know you could put a pencil through a bag of water without the water coming out? Learn how with the leak proof bag experiment!

Dare your child to stand up against a wall on one foot. Can they do it? Get fun and easy (and totally safe) ways to fool your body while your child learns about proprioception!

Make a mystery engineering challenge with tinker bags! Work creative problem-solving skills in a super fun and easy way!

Sensory bags are an amazing way to get the benefits of sensory play with none of the mess. Learn how to turn the fastest sensory bag into an amazing number sense activity with these monster sensory bags!

Kids love slime. But what is slime exactly? Is it a solid? A liquid? Get the answers and the science behind how slime comes together. Plus get the easiest recipe to make consistently good slime, plus more recipes for the coolest slimes ever.

Let's learn about animals! Learn all about warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals with easy-to-understand explanations and fun facts. Plus learn how to use color-changing slime to help kids get a hands-on experience they will love! (And trust me, anyone can make this slime.)

Turn any day into a party with easy DIY confetti poppers! Your child will learn about cause and effect with this fun STEAM craft. (And there are tips to limit the mess!)

Want a real STEM challenge? Try making an Easter egg rocket! This is a real science experiment, you will need to experiment and tweak. But when it works, it's amazing.

Screen-free coding! Yes, preschoolers can start learning coding basics of pattern recognition and they can build their own codes using legos! And you'll get free printables to help out.

Time for a physics challenge, making a funicular train! Share the importance of simple machines with this easy pulley system that uses straws and strings.

Learn how the heart works by making a pumping heart model! This is a great project for kids and adults to do together and enjoy a homemade science fair project.

How do our lungs work? This homemade lung model from recycled materials lets kids see how our lungs and diaphragm work to make breathing possible.

Our spine is so important, but how does it keep us upright while still being flexible enough to bend and twist? Make this egg carton spine model and get an awesome visual representation of how the spine works.

Which preschool STEM activity are you going to try first?

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10 quick and Easy science experiments for toddlers that are totally awesome {2 years old and Up}

It is science week here at Tot School, and to celebrate, we had a week full of daily science experiments for toddlers.

If you are looking for easy science experiments for toddlers to learn and enjoy, these are our top favorites so far!

All of these science experiments for toddlers are age-appropriate, fun, and have been tested and approved by my own toddler 2-year-old toddler as well as my sensory students.

The Best science experiments for toddlers

#1 volcanic eruptions.

Also called witches brew. This science experiment for toddlers come in as number 1 in our list because it is so easy to make, it is so much fun to do, and the kids can do it themselves.

To do this experiment, all you need is some baking soda and vinegar. The mixture between the two created a magic explosion that is safe for the little ones and a lot of fun.

Use food coloring to change the color of the bubbles. Add water to the vinegar to dilute and expand the use of it, the kids love to pour and see the bubbles repeatedly, so this will extend the activity for extra playtime.

Learn how to set up this witches brew experiment with step by step instructions

#2 fizzy cubes.

To make fizzy cubes freeze a mixture of baking soda and water. Activate with the vinegar the same way mentioned above.

To change the activity and work fine motor skills , this activity was set up using a dropper to suck the vinegar and squeeze it into the fizzy cube.

My toddler tried it a few times but wanted a faster way to dissolve the cubes. He enjoyed grabbing each of the fizzy cubes and dropping them into the vinegar cup.

Making Oobleck is one of my favorite activities, but it can get very messy! When you grab this substance, it is solid, but it melts and becomes liquid when you let go of the pressure.

To do this science experiment all you need is two parts cornstarch and 1 part water.

Watch our quick video or get the step by step instructions and learn how to make oobleck

View this post on Instagram Make the coolest science experiment for toddlers and am kids of all ages. All you need is water, cornstarch and food coloring. (Be careful as some food coloring can temporarily stain the hand) 1 cup of water to about 2 cups of corns starch A post shared by Alexa | Kid Activities (@kidactivitieswithalexa) on Jul 15, 2020 at 6:38pm PDT

#4 Sink or Float

Understanding weight is one of the first science experiments that you can do at home. All you need is a bowl of water and a few water-safe objects.

Start by identifying what happens when each objects touches the water. Repetition here is key!

Once tout toddler grasps the new vocabulary words and correctly identifies what is happening then try to ask before the item gets dropped to guess what he thinks is going to happen.

You can repeat this experiment during bath time, at the pool or anywhere you have access to water.

Have you played the sink or float game? Well, actually is a science experiment and one of our favorite activities. I usually let Manu set up the whole thing form the beginning. I give him a pitcher of water and an empty bowl for him to pour h the e water into. Then we walk around and find different things to test out. Will it float? Will it sink? I let him pick what he wants to throw (as long as it can get wet and has no batteries) and this freedom lets him explore and learn. Who knew a bowl of water could be so fun! #2yearoldactivities #toddleractivitiesathome Posted by Kid Activities with Alexa on Monday, September 28, 2020

Learn how to set up the sink of float experiment with step by step instructions

#5 hot and cold.

Learn about temperature using sensory bottles. We filled out one bottle of water with cold water and added a few ice cubes and filled out a second one using hot water. We dyed the cold water blue and the hot water yellow to help associate the concepts.

We also paired this opposite lesson with a YouTube video which we learned the lyrics and acted out the finger-play actions throughout the week.

#6 mixing Colors

Once a toddler is familiar with the colors, can identify and name them correctly it is time to add colors into science experiments. Working with primary colors we have started to create a few experiments to make new colors. This week was all about yellow and blue makes green. We did it with some water, food coloring and soap as well as with paint.

What Primary colors make new colors?

• Red and Yellow makes Orange
• Yellow and blue makes Green
• Blue and Red makes Purple/Voilet

Discovering air is one of the very first science concepts that can be taught, Do this experiment if your child knows how to blow out already. Add a squirt of dish soap into a bowl and some water. Provide a straw and show your toddler how to blow to create bubbles.

Look at the colors the bubbles reflect, can you hold it? does it pop? can you blow on them? what happens?

As a variation of this experiment, you can add watercolor paint to the solution and allow the colored bubbles to pop into a paper to create a work of art.

#8 DIY Lava Lamp

This experiment was one of Manu’s favorite. To create your own DIY lava lamp you will need vegetable oil, water, food coloring and effervescent tablets.

For our first try we filled out 1/2 of the glass cup with water and added food coloring (too much!) and the other half with vegetable oil. I crushed the effervescent tablet in many pieces as I knew my toddler would enjoy dropping them tablets into the glass.

Once the tablet hits the water, it starts to dissolve and create bubbles who travel upwards on the glass, passing through the oil and popping into the surface. Because the water doesn’t mix with the oil, you can visually see how these bubbles travel towards the surface and once they pop how the water travel back down.

For our second try, we did only 1/4 of water and used a lot less food coloring and added a lot more vegetable oil to the glass. The lava lamp looked a lot better as the colored water bubbles had more room to travel.

Cutting up the tablets in different pieces was a great ideas. Manu loved creating the bubbles and enjoyed repeating it over and over.

Slime is a great tool to work on fine motor skills, it is also a cool chemistry experiment. Similar to oobleck, slime changes is composition when played with. It is solid but stretches or breaks. For toddlers, of course, they won’t really understand the science concept behind it but they will enjoy playing with the material and making their own little experiments as they learn and understand how slime behaves. Is not like playdough, it is not like oobleck, it is its own unique material.

I like to use fluffy slime , like the rainbow slime or the white fluffy slime with toddlers. Fluffy slime is less stretchy that other types so it is easier to handle by toddlers.

Learn how to make rainbow slime

Learn how to make white fluffy slime.

#10 Exploring light

Learning about light and dark, shadows and reflections are all science activities you can start exploring early on.

Make shadows using cutout woods or use your hands and a flashlight, use the sun to explore the light and it’s reflection. We have done colored bottles to explore the colors reflect on the floor, made apple shaped suncatchers and made a glow in the dark sensory bottle.

Last Thoughts

Science can be a lot of fun and as you can see, you can start even when they are toddlers. Allowing your toddler time and exposure to different materials and experiments helps them understand the world they live in, gives them the confident to experiment and explore and gain a ton of new information when doing so. Don’t forget to always supervise any experiment or invitation to play.

Get tons of creative ideas to do with your toddler at home! Become a PLAY MEMBER by signing up for the newsletter.

Play members get seasonal activity ideas right in their inbox, a special invitation to our Mommy & Me Virtual Circle time, and access to our free library with educational printables and activities to develop your child through sensory play and reach their developmental milestones while getting a head start when entering Pre-K.

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45 Easy Science Experiments for Kids

Hello, STEM! These simple DIY activities can be done at home or in school.

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Imagine blowing the biggest bubbles imaginable — or even making bubbles within bubbles. Or sending vessels — rockets, tea bags, airplanes — soaring through the sky for impossible distances. Now imagine making things explode, or change colors, or reveal hidden messages with just a few simple mixtures.

None of this is magic. It's all science that you can do at home, most likely with ingredients you already have in your house. So, next time you need a boredom-busting indoor activity on a rainy day or a DIY project to get their minds humming, try one of these best at-home science experiments for kids , which cover topics like cover magnetism, surface tension, astronomy, chemistry, physics and more.

First off, it's good to start them off with the scientific method. Give them a journal to record their observations, questions, hypotheses, experiments, results and conclusions. As always, safety counts: wear goggles and coats or aprons if need be (sometimes kids get a kick out of how scientific the protective gear makes them look), and always make sure that the kids are supervised when doing them. (Warning: Some of these are messy!)

These experiments are mostly designed for preschoolers through elementary schoolers — with a couple that are either demonstrations or better for older kids — but if you have a younger one, you can check out these 1-year-old learning activities , toddler learning activities and preschool/kindergarten learning activities , some of which also cover STEM subjects.

Floating Fish

Here's another one that deals with solubility and density.

• Draw the outline of a fish on the bottom of a glass plate or tray in dry-erase marker. Retrace your drawing to make sure all the lines are connected. Let dry for a minute or two.
• Fill the measuring cup with tap water. Place the pour spout just inside the corner of the dish and add water very slowly until it just covers the bottom. Be careful not to pour water directly onto your drawing or make splashes near it. The water will move toward your drawing, eventually surrounding it. Observe what happens. If the water splashes or it doesn’t work on your first try, empty the dish, erase the drawing with a paper towel, dry off the dish, and try again.
• Tilt the dish slightly from side to side. What happens? Jot it down.

The ink in dry erase markers is engineered to be slippery. It’s made with a chemical that causes it to easily release from surfaces. (Permanent markers are made with a chemical that makes the ink stick to surfaces, so be sure not to use these in your experiment!)

The easy-release ink lets go from a surface, but why does it float? There are two reasons. First, dry erase ink isn’t soluble, which means it won’t dissolve in water. Second, dry erase ink is less dense than the water, so it becomes buoyant, meaning it can float. When you tilt the dish, the fish moves around on the water’s surface.

From Good Housekeeping Amazing Science: 83 Hands-on S.T.E.A.M Experiments for Curious Kids! See more in the book »

Brush, Brush!

This one will really get them into brushing their teeth once they scientifically prove all the good things that toothpaste can do.

• Write on sticky notes: Soda 1, Soda 2, Juice 1, and Juice 2. Place them in a row on a counter.
• Fill two glasses halfway with brown soda and place behind the Soda 1 and Soda 2 sticky notes. Fill two glasses halfway with lemon juice and place behind the Juice 1 and Juice 2 sticky notes.
• Carefully place one egg in the bowl. Squeeze a big dollop — about one tablespoon — of toothpaste on top of the egg and gently rub the toothpaste all around with your hands until the egg is completely covered in a thick layer of toothpaste. Repeat with a second egg.
• Gently submerge the toothpaste-covered eggs into the liquids: one egg in the glass labeled Soda 1 and the other egg in the glass labeled Juice 1. Wash and dry your hands.
• Gently submerge the remaining eggs, without toothpaste on them, in the remaining glasses: one in the glass labeled Soda 2 and the other in the glass of juice labeled Juice 2. Wash and dry your hands. Leave the eggs in the glasses for 12 hours.
• After 12 hours, remove the eggs from the glasses of soda one at a time. Rinse them in cool water and pat them dry with the towel. Place each egg by the sticky note of the glass it was in. Are the eggs the same or different colors?
• Remove the eggs from the glasses of juice one at a time. Rinse them under the faucet and pat them dry. Place each egg by the sticky note of the glass it was in. Feel the eggs gently. Does one feel stronger or weaker than the other?
• Write down your observations in your science notebook.

The eggshells in this experiment represent the enamel (outer coating) on your teeth. Toothpaste cleans your teeth and prevents stains: it removes food and drink particles that are stuck on your teeth. Teeth can be stained easily by dark-colored liquids like cola, coffee or tea. The egg without toothpaste will be brown and discolored. The egg covered in toothpaste was protected from turning brown.

Toothpaste also protects your pearly whites from decay (breaking down). The egg without toothpaste left in the lemon juice was worn down and soft to the touch, while the egg that was protected with toothpaste is stronger. The lemon juice is acidic, and those acids broke down the shell just as acidic drinks can wear away your tooth enamel. When a tooth is worn down, a cavity can form more easily. But the fluoride in toothpaste mixes with your saliva to create a protective coating around your tooth enamel. It helps keep your teeth strong and cavity-free.

Grow an Avocado Tree

For an easy lesson in Earth Science, your family can grow an avocado tree from a pit. You can buy an AvoSeedo kit , or just peel the seed and suspend it over water with toothpicks.

Get the tutorial »

Milk Bottle Xylophone

No for an experiment in sound!

• Arrange six glass jars or bottles, all the same size with no lids, in a line. What will each jar sound like when you tap it with a spoon? Make a prediction, then tap each jar. Record your observations.
• Next, put water in each of the jars. Pour 1⁄4 cup (60 ml) of water into the first jar. Add 1⁄2 cup (120 ml) of water to the second jar. Continue in 1⁄4-cup increments, adding 3⁄4 cup (180 ml) of water to the third jar, 1 cup (240 ml) of water to the fourth jar, 11⁄4 cups (300 ml) of water to the fifth jar, and 11⁄2 cups (360 ml) to the sixth jar. Add a couple of drops of food coloring to each jar.
• What will each jar sound like? Will they sound the same or different than when the container was empty? Will they sound the same or different from one another? Record your predictions.
• Tap each jar with a metal spoon. Write down your observations about each jar’s pitch (how high or low a sound is) in your notebook.

Sound waves are created by vibrations, which are back-and-forth movements that are repeated again and again. Pitch depends on the frequency of the waves — how many are created each second. A high pitch is created by high-frequency sound waves, and can sound squeaky. A low pitch is created by low-frequency sound waves, and sounds deep and booming.

When you tapped the jar, it vibrated. The vibrations traveled from the jar to the water to the air and eventually to your ears. The jars with more water had a low pitch. The sound waves vibrated more slowly because they had more water to travel through. The jars with less water had higher pitches. The sound waves vibrated faster because they had less water to travel through. A jar with no water in it makes the highest pitch because it has the least substance to travel through.

"Elephant Toothpaste"

Okay, elephants don't really brush with this stuff, which is made from a chemical reaction between hydrogen peroxide, yeast, dish soap and a few other simple ingredients. But this experiment has a big "wow" factor since, when the substances are mixed, the "toothpaste" foams out of the bottle. You can use it to teach kids about catalysts and exothermic reactions.

Get the tutorial at Babble Dabble Do »

DIY Compass

Explore the way magnetism works, and how it affects everyday objects, by magnetizing a needle and making a DIY compass. You can even spin the compass in the water, and it'll end up pointing the right way again.

Get the tutorial at STEAM Powered Family »

Craft Stick Chain Reaction

Kids can learn about the differences between potential and kinetic energy with this chain reaction. It makes a big impact: Once the tension is released, the pom poms go flying through the air!

Get the the tutorial at Science Sparks »

Color-Changing Invisible Ink

Kids will feel like super-spies when they use this heatless method to reveal pictures or colors written with "invisible ink." You can try different acid/base combinations to see which one makes the most dramatic result.

Get the tutorial at Research Parent »

Paper Bridge

Get the engineering back into STEM with this activity, which challenges kids to create a paper bridge that's strong enough to hold as many pennies as possible. How can they manipulate the paper to make it sturdier? (Hint: Fold it!)

See the paper bridge tutorial at KidsActivities.com »

Challenge your little scientist to lift up an ice cube with just a piece of string. It's possible ... with a little salt to help. Salt melts the ice and lowers the freezing point of the ice cube, which absorbs the heat from the water around it, making the water cold enough to re-freeze around the string.

Get the tutorial at Playdough to Plato »

Marshmallow Catapult

Another lesson in potential and kinetic energy, kids will love sending mini marshmallows flying in the name of science. Change some of the variables and see how that affects the marshmallow's trajectory.

Get the tutorial at Hello, Wonderful »

Leaf Breathing

It's hard for kids to picture how plants and trees "breathe" through their leaves — until they see the bubbles appear on a leaf that's submerged in water. You can also teach them about photosynthesis by putting different leaves in different spots with varying levels of sunlight.

Get the tutorial at KC EDventures »

Hoop-and-Straw Airplane

We all remember how to fold those classic, triangular paper airplanes, but these hoop-and-straw airplanes fly way better (and straighter). Experiment by changing the length of the straw and the size of the hoops and see how it affects the flight.

Get the tutorial at Mombrite »

Film Canister Rocket

Blast off! You don't need jet fuel to make these rockets go, just Alka-Seltzer tablets and baking soda, but they'll be amazed when they achieve lift-off! (Note: If you can't find old film canisters, tubes of Airborne work, too.)

Get the tutorial at Raising Lifelong Learners »

Coin Inertia

Stack up about five or so coins on a piece of cardboard and place it over a glass of water. Then, flick the cardboard out from on top of the glass. Do the coins drop into the water, or ride with the cardboard? Due to inertia, they drop into the water — a very visual (and fun!) demonstration of Newton's First Law of Motion.

Get the tutorial at Engineering Emily »

Apple Oxidation

What works best for keeping an apple from turning brown? Test to find out! Slice up an apple, and let each slice soak in a different liquid. Then take them out, lay them on a tray, and check the brownness after three minutes, six minutes and so on. Not only does this test the properties of different liquids, it also helps students practice the scientific method if they create hypotheses about which liquids would be most effective.

Get the tutorial at Jennifer Findley »

RELATED: 50 Fun Activities for Kids Will Keep Them Entertained for Hours

Coffee Ground Fossils

By making a salt dough with coffee grounds and pressing various shapes into it (toy dinosaur feet, seashells), kids can get a better understanding of how fossils are made. If you poke a hole in the top before it dries, the kids can hang their "fossils" up in their rooms.

Get the tutorial at Crafts by Amanda »

Chromatography Flowers

Chromatography is the process of separating a solution into different parts — like the pigments in the ink used in markers. If you draw stripes around a coffee filter, then fold it up and dip the tip in water, the water will travel up the filter and separate the marker ink into its different pigments (in cool patterns that you can display as a craft project). This family made the end-result even brighter by adding an LED circuit to the center.

Get the tutorial at Steam Powered Family »

Water Walking

You'll need six containers of water for this one: three with clear water, one with red food coloring, one with blue coloring, and one with yellow coloring. Arrange them in a circle, alternating colored and clear containers, and make bridges between the containers with folded paper towels. Your kids will be amazed to see the colored water "walk" over the bridges and into the clear containers, mixing colors, and giving them a first-hand look at the magic of capillarity.

Get the tutorial at Fun Learning for Kids »

Sunscreen Test

This experiment puts the A (art) in STEAM: Paint different designs on construction paper with different sunscreens, leave the papers out in the sun and compare the results. Then, hang your "conclusions" on your fridge.

Get the tutorial at Tonya Staab »

Marisa (she/her) has covered all things parenting, from the postpartum period through the empty nest, for Good Housekeeping since 2018; she previously wrote about parents and families at Parents and Working Mother . She lives with her husband and daughter in Brooklyn, where she can be found dominating the audio round at her local bar trivia night or tweeting about movies.

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Are you looking for fun and creative science ideas to do with the kids? Well, yay! Because that’s what this blog is all about …

Have a browse through our most recent posts below.

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Join us, as we attempt, experiment and stumble our way through fun science at home.

  Thanks for stopping by. We love having you here. Go science kids!

10 Comments

Saved as a favorite, I really like your website!

Thanks Flora!

Keep this going please, great job!

Yeah,I would say the same. Great job!

My name is Erin Marie. I am a fellow blogger. I LOOOOVE your website and use it all of the time with my daughter. So, I nominated you for the Liebster Award.

You can view the nomination post here: https://luckyinluv.com/liebster-award

Thank You! Erin Marie

Thank you for your exciting, educational and easy-to-follow experiments and activities. I help run a boys’ club (ages 7 to 11) and we are always looking for activities which will make their brains work harder while their hands have a bit of fun! I am looking forward to receiving your emails with more of these science activities.

You take experiments from Home Lab App in Google play

I haven’t heard of that app, so no, I haven’t taken any of their experiments. Although, many of them are ‘common’ science experiments that are available in many science textbooks and the like, so there’s likely to be unintentional double up.

is there a way to print the snowflake activity directions without having to print 20 pages? Thanks!

Ah, yes, I’m working on adding an easy ‘print instructions’ feature. sorry it’s not up and running yet, but watch this space!

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37 Cool Science Experiments for Kids to Do at Home

General Education

Are you looking for cool science experiments for kids at home or for class? We've got you covered! We've compiled a list of 37 of the best science experiments for kids that cover areas of science ranging from outer space to dinosaurs to chemical reactions. By doing these easy science experiments, kids will make their own blubber and see how polar bears stay warm, make a rain cloud in a jar to observe how weather changes, create a potato battery that'll really power a lightbulb, and more.

Below are 37 of the best science projects for kids to try. For each one we include a description of the experiment, which area(s) of science it teaches kids about, how difficult it is (easy/medium/hard), how messy it is (low/medium/high), and the materials you need to do the project. Note that experiments labelled "hard" are definitely still doable; they just require more materials or time than most of these other science experiments for kids.

#1: Insect Hotels

• Teaches Kids About: Zoology
• Difficulty Level: Medium
• Messiness Level: Medium

Insect hotels can be as simple (just a few sticks wrapped in a bundle) or as elaborate as you'd like, and they're a great way for kids to get creative making the hotel and then get rewarded by seeing who has moved into the home they built. After creating a hotel with hiding places for bugs, place it outside (near a garden is often a good spot), wait a few days, then check it to see who has occupied the "rooms." You can also use a bug ID book or app to try and identify the visitors.

• Materials Needed
• Shadow box or other box with multiple compartments
• Hot glue gun with glue
• Sticks, bark, small rocks, dried leaves, bits of yarn/wool, etc.

#2: DIY Lava Lamp

• Teaches Kids About: Chemical reactions
• Difficulty Level: Easy

In this quick and fun science experiment, kids will mix water, oil, food coloring, and antacid tablets to create their own (temporary) lava lamp . Oil and water don't mix easily, and the antacid tablets will cause the oil to form little globules that are dyed by the food coloring. Just add the ingredients together and you'll end up with a homemade lava lamp!

• Vegetable oil
• Food coloring
• Antacid tablets

#3: Magnetic Slime

• Teaches Kids About: Magnets
• Messiness Level: High (The slime is black and will slightly dye your fingers when you play with it, but it washes off easily.)

A step up from silly putty and Play-Doh, magnetic slime is fun to play with but also teaches kids about magnets and how they attract and repel each other. Some of the ingredients you aren't likely to have around the house, but they can all be purchased online. After mixing the ingredients together, you can use the neodymium magnet (regular magnets won't be strong enough) to make the magnetic slime move without touching it!

• Liquid starch
• Adhesive glue
• Iron oxide powder
• Neodymium (rare earth) magnet

#4: Baking Soda Volcanoes

• Teaches Kids About: Chemical reactions, earth science
• Difficulty Level: Easy-medium
• Messiness Level: High

Baking soda volcanoes are one of the classic science projects for kids, and they're also one of the most popular. It's hard to top the excitement of a volcano erupting inside your home. This experiment can also be as simple or in-depth as you like. For the eruption, all you need is baking soda and vinegar (dishwashing detergent adds some extra power to the eruption), but you can make the "volcano" as elaborate and lifelike as you wish.

• Baking soda
• Dishwashing detergent
• Large mason jar or soda bottle
• Playdough or aluminum foil to make the "volcano"
• Additional items to place around the volcano (optional)
• Food coloring (optional)

#5: Tornado in a Jar

• Teaches Kids About: Weather
• Messiness Level: Low

This is one of the quick and easy and science experiments for kids to teach them about weather. It only takes about five minutes and a few materials to set up, but once you have it ready you and your kids can create your own miniature tornado whose vortex you can see and the strength of which you can change depending on how quickly you swirl the jar.

• Glitter (optional)

#6: Colored Celery Experiment

• Teaches Kids About: Plants

This celery science experiment is another classic science experiment that parents and teachers like because it's easy to do and gives kids a great visual understanding of how transpiration works and how plants get water and nutrients. Just place celery stalks in cups of colored water, wait at least a day, and you'll see the celery leaves take on the color of the water. This happens because celery stalks (like other plants) contain small capillaries that they use to transport water and nutrients throughout the plant.

• Celery stalks (can also use white flowers or pale-colored cabbage)

#7: Rain Cloud in a Jar

This experiment teaches kids about weather and lets them learn how clouds form by making their own rain cloud . This is definitely a science project that requires adult supervision since it uses boiling water as one of the ingredients, but once you pour the water into a glass jar, the experiment is fast and easy, and you'll be rewarded with a little cloud forming in the jar due to condensation.

• Glass jar with a lid
• Boiling water
• Aerosol hairspray

#8: Edible Rock Candy

• Teaches Kids About: Crystal formation

It takes about a week for the crystals of this rock candy experiment to form, but once they have you'll be able to eat the results! After creating a sugar solution, you'll fill jars with it and dangle strings in them that'll slowly become covered with the crystals. This experiment involves heating and pouring boiling water, so adult supervision is necessary, once that step is complete, even very young kids will be excited to watch crystals slowly form.

• Large saucepan
• Clothespins
• String or small skewers
• Candy flavoring (optional)

#9: Water Xylophone

• Teaches Kids About: Sound waves

With just some basic materials you can create your own musical instrument to teach kids about sound waves. In this water xylophone experiment , you'll fill glass jars with varying levels of water. Once they're all lined up, kids can hit the sides with wooden sticks and see how the itch differs depending on how much water is in the jar (more water=lower pitch, less water=higher pitch). This is because sound waves travel differently depending on how full the jars are with water.

• Wooden sticks/skewers

#10: Blood Model in a Jar

• Teaches Kids About: Human biology

This blood model experiment is a great way to get kids to visual what their blood looks like and how complicated it really is. Each ingredient represents a different component of blood (plasma, platelets, red blood cells, etc.), so you just add a certain amount of each to the jar, swirl it around a bit, and you have a model of what your blood looks like.

• Empty jar or bottle
• Red cinnamon candies
• Marshmallows or dry white lima beans
• White sprinkles

#11: Potato Battery

• Teaches Kids About: Electricity
• Difficulty Level: Hard

Did you know that a simple potato can produce enough energy to keep a light bulb lit for over a month? You can create a simple potato battery to show kids. There are kits that provide all the necessary materials and how to set it up, but if you don't purchase one of these it can be a bit trickier to gather everything you need and assemble it correctly. Once it's set though, you'll have your own farm grown battery!

• Fresh potato
• Galvanized nail
• Copper coin

#12: Homemade Pulley

• Teaches Kids About: Simple machines

This science activity requires some materials you may not already have, but once you've gotten them, the homemade pulley takes only a few minutes to set up, and you can leave the pulley up for your kids to play with all year round. This pulley is best set up outside, but can also be done indoors.

• Clothesline
• 2 clothesline pulleys

#13: Light Refraction

• Teaches Kids About: Light

This light refraction experiment takes only a few minutes to set up and uses basic materials, but it's a great way to show kids how light travels. You'll draw two arrows on a sticky note, stick it to the wall, then fill a clear water bottle with water. As you move the water bottle in front of the arrows, the arrows will appear to change the direction they're pointing. This is because of the refraction that occurs when light passes through materials like water and plastic.

• Sticky note
• Transparent water bottle

#14: Nature Journaling

• Teaches Kids About: Ecology, scientific observation

A nature journal is a great way to encourage kids to be creative and really pay attention to what's going on around them. All you need is a blank journal (you can buy one or make your own) along with something to write with. Then just go outside and encourage your children to write or draw what they notice. This could include descriptions of animals they see, tracings of leaves, a drawing of a beautiful flower, etc. Encourage your kids to ask questions about what they observe (Why do birds need to build nests? Why is this flower so brightly colored?) and explain to them that scientists collect research by doing exactly what they're doing now.

• Blank journal or notebook
• Pens/pencils/crayons/markers
• Tape or glue for adding items to the journal

#15: DIY Solar Oven

• Teaches Kids About: Solar energy

This homemade solar oven definitely requires some adult help to set up, but after it's ready you'll have your own mini oven that uses energy from the sun to make s'mores or melt cheese on pizza. While the food is cooking, you can explain to kids how the oven uses the sun's rays to heat the food.

• Aluminum foil
• Knife or box cutter
• Permanent marker
• Plastic cling wrap
• Black construction paper

#16: Animal Blubber Simulation

• Teaches Kids About: Ecology, zoology

If your kids are curious about how animals like polar bears and seals stay warm in polar climates, you can go beyond just explaining it to them; you can actually have them make some of their own blubber and test it out. After you've filled up a large bowl with ice water and let it sit for a few minutes to get really cold, have your kids dip a bare hand in and see how many seconds they can last before their hand gets too cold. Next, coat one of their fingers in shortening and repeat the experiment. Your child will notice that, with the shortening acting like a protective layer of blubber, they don't feel the cold water nearly as much.

• Bowl of ice water

#17: Static Electricity Butterfly

This experiment is a great way for young kids to learn about static electricity, and it's more fun and visual than just having them rub balloons against their heads. First you'll create a butterfly, using thick paper (such as cardstock) for the body and tissue paper for the wings. Then, blow up the balloon, have the kids rub it against their head for a few seconds, then move the balloon to just above the butterfly's wings. The wings will move towards the balloon due to static electricity, and it'll look like the butterfly is flying.

• Tissue paper
• Thick paper
• Glue stick/glue

#18: Edible Double Helix

• Teaches Kids About: Genetics

If your kids are learning about genetics, you can do this edible double helix craft to show them how DNA is formed, what its different parts are, and what it looks like. The licorice will form the sides or backbone of the DNA and each color of marshmallow will represent one of the four chemical bases. Kids will be able to see that only certain chemical bases pair with each other.

• 2 pieces of licorice
• 12 toothpicks
• Small marshmallows in 4 colors (9 of each color)
• 5 paperclips

#19: Leak-Proof Bag

• Teaches Kids About: Molecules, plastics

This is an easy experiment that'll appeal to kids of a variety of ages. Just take a zip-lock bag, fill it about ⅔ of the way with water, and close the top. Next, poke a few sharp objects (like bamboo skewers or sharp pencils) through one end and out the other. At this point you may want to dangle the bag above your child's head, but no need to worry about spills because the bag won't leak? Why not? It's because the plastic used to make zip-lock bags is made of polymers, or long chains of molecules that'll quickly join back together when they're forced apart.

• Zip-lock bags
• Objects with sharp ends (pencils, bamboo skewers, etc.)

#20: How Do Leaves Breathe?

• Teaches Kids About: Plant science

It takes a few hours to see the results of this leaf experiment , but it couldn't be easier to set up, and kids will love to see a leaf actually "breathing." Just get a large-ish leaf, place it in a bowl (glass works best so you can see everything) filled with water, place a small rock on the leaf to weigh it down, and leave it somewhere sunny. Come back in a few hours and you'll see little bubbles in the water created when the leaf releases the oxygen it created during photosynthesis.

• Large bowl (preferably glass)
• Magnifying glass (optional)

#21: Popsicle Stick Catapults

Kids will love shooting pom poms out of these homemade popsicle stick catapults . After assembling the catapults out of popsicle sticks, rubber bands, and plastic spoons, they're ready to launch pom poms or other lightweight objects. To teach kids about simple machines, you can ask them about how they think the catapults work, what they should do to make the pom poms go a farther/shorter distance, and how the catapult could be made more powerful.

• Popsicle sticks
• Rubber bands
• Plastic spoons
• Paint (optional)

#22: Elephant Toothpaste

You won't want to do this experiment near anything that's difficult to clean (outside may be best), but kids will love seeing this " elephant toothpaste " crazily overflowing the bottle and oozing everywhere. Pour the hydrogen peroxide, food coloring, and dishwashing soap into the bottle, and in the cup mix the yeast packet with some warm water for about 30 seconds. Then, add the yeast mixture to the bottle, stand back, and watch the solution become a massive foamy mixture that pours out of the bottle! The "toothpaste" is formed when the yeast removed the oxygen bubbles from the hydrogen peroxide which created foam. This is an exothermic reaction, and it creates heat as well as foam (you can have kids notice that the bottle became warm as the reaction occurred).

• Clean 16-oz soda bottle
• 6% solution of hydrogen peroxide
• 1 packet of dry yeast
• Dishwashing soap

#23: How Do Penguins Stay Dry?

Penguins, and many other birds, have special oil-producing glands that coat their feathers with a protective layer that causes water to slide right off them, keeping them warm and dry. You can demonstrate this to kids with this penguin craft by having them color a picture of a penguin with crayons, then spraying the picture with water. The wax from the crayons will have created a protective layer like the oil actual birds coat themselves with, and the paper won't absorb the water.

• Penguin image (included in link)
• Spray bottle
• Blue food coloring (optional)

#24: Rock Weathering Experiment

• Teaches Kids About: Geology

This mechanical weathering experiment teaches kids why and how rocks break down or erode. Take two pieces of clay, form them into balls, and wrap them in plastic wrap. Then, leave one out while placing the other in the freezer overnight. The next day, unwrap and compare them. You can repeat freezing the one piece of clay every night for several days to see how much more cracked and weathered it gets than the piece of clay that wasn't frozen. It may even begin to crumble. This weathering also happens to rocks when they are subjected to extreme temperatures, and it's one of the causes of erosion.

• Plastic wrap

#25: Saltwater Density

• Teaches Kids About: Water density

For this saltwater density experiment , you'll fill four clear glasses with water, then add salt to one glass, sugar to one glass, and baking soda to one glass, leaving one glass with just water. Then, float small plastic pieces or grapes in each of the glasses and observe whether they float or not. Saltwater is denser than freshwater, which means some objects may float in saltwater that would sink in freshwater. You can use this experiment to teach kids about the ocean and other bodies of saltwater, such as the Dead Sea, which is so salty people can easily float on top of it.

• Four clear glasses
• Lightweight plastic objects or small grapes

#26: Starburst Rock Cycle

With just a package of Starbursts and a few other materials, you can create models of each of the three rock types: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. Sedimentary "rocks" will be created by pressing thin layers of Starbursts together, metamorphic by heating and pressing Starbursts, and igneous by applying high levels of heat to the Starbursts. Kids will learn how different types of rocks are forms and how the three rock types look different from each other.

• Toaster oven

#27: Inertia Wagon Experiment

• Teaches Kids About: Inertia

This simple experiment teaches kids about inertia (as well as the importance of seatbelts!). Take a small wagon, fill it with a tall stack of books, then have one of your children pull it around then stop abruptly. They won't be able to suddenly stop the wagon without the stack of books falling. You can have the kids predict which direction they think the books will fall and explain that this happens because of inertia, or Newton's first law.

• Stack of books

#28: Dinosaur Tracks

• Teaches Kids About: Paleontology

How are some dinosaur tracks still visible millions of years later? By mixing together several ingredients, you'll get a claylike mixture you can press your hands/feet or dinosaur models into to make dinosaur track imprints . The mixture will harden and the imprints will remain, showing kids how dinosaur (and early human) tracks can stay in rock for such a long period of time.

• Used coffee grounds
• Wooden spoon
• Rolling pin

#29: Sidewalk Constellations

• Teaches Kids About: Astronomy

If you do this sidewalk constellation craft , you'll be able to see the Big Dipper and Orion's Belt in the daylight. On the sidewalk, have kids draw the lines of constellations (using constellation diagrams for guidance) and place stones where the stars are. You can then look at astronomy charts to see where the constellations they drew will be in the sky.

• Sidewalk chalk
• Small stones
• Diagrams of constellations

#30: Lung Model

By building a lung model , you can teach kids about respiration and how their lungs work. After cutting off the bottom of a plastic bottle, you'll stretch a balloon around the opened end and insert another balloon through the mouth of the bottle. You'll then push a straw through the neck of the bottle and secure it with a rubber band and play dough. By blowing into the straw, the balloons will inflate then deflate, similar to how our lungs work.

• Plastic bottle
• Rubber band

#31: Homemade Dinosaur Bones

By mixing just flour, salt, and water, you'll create a basic salt dough that'll harden when baked. You can use this dough to make homemade dinosaur bones and teach kids about paleontology. You can use books or diagrams to learn how different dinosaur bones were shaped, and you can even bury the bones in a sandpit or something similar and then excavate them the way real paleontologists do.

• Images of dinosaur bones

#32: Clay and Toothpick Molecules

There are many variations on homemade molecule science crafts . This one uses clay and toothpicks, although gumdrops or even small pieces of fruit like grapes can be used in place of clay. Roll the clay into balls and use molecule diagrams to attach the clay to toothpicks in the shape of the molecules. Kids can make numerous types of molecules and learn how atoms bond together to form molecules.

• Clay or gumdrops (in four colors)
• Diagrams of molecules

#33: Articulated Hand Model

By creating an articulated hand model , you can teach kids about bones, joints, and how our hands are able to move in many ways and accomplish so many different tasks. After creating a hand out of thin foam, kids will cut straws to represent the different bones in the hand and glue them to the fingers of the hand models. You'll then thread yarn (which represents tendons) through the straws, stabilize the model with a chopstick or other small stick, and end up with a hand model that moves and bends the way actual human hands do.

• Straws (paper work best)
• Twine or yarn

#34: Solar Energy Experiment

• Teaches Kids About: Solar energy, light rays

This solar energy science experiment will teach kids about solar energy and how different colors absorb different amounts of energy. In a sunny spot outside, place six colored pieces of paper next to each other, and place an ice cube in the middle of each paper. Then, observe how quickly each of the ice cubes melt. The ice cube on the black piece of paper will melt fastest since black absorbs the most light (all the light ray colors), while the ice cube on the white paper will melt slowest since white absorbs the least light (it instead reflects light). You can then explain why certain colors look the way they do. (Colors besides black and white absorb all light except for the one ray color they reflect; this is the color they appear to us.)

• 6 squares of differently colored paper/cardstock (must include black paper and white paper)

#35: How to Make Lightning

• Teaches Kids About: Electricity, weather

You don't need a storm to see lightning; you can actually create your own lightning at home . For younger kids this experiment requires adult help and supervision. You'll stick a thumbtack through the bottom of an aluminum tray, then stick the pencil eraser to the pushpin. You'll then rub the piece of wool over the aluminum tray, and then set the tray on the Styrofoam, where it'll create a small spark/tiny bolt of lightning!

• Pencil with eraser
• Aluminum tray or pie tin
• Styrofoam tray

#36: Tie-Dyed Milk

• Teaches Kids About: Surface tension

For this magic milk experiment , partly fill a shallow dish with milk, then add a one drop of each food coloring color to different parts of the milk. The food coloring will mostly stay where you placed it. Next, carefully add one drop of dish soap to the middle of the milk. It'll cause the food coloring to stream through the milk and away from the dish soap. This is because the dish soap breaks up the surface tension of the milk by dissolving the milk's fat molecules.

• Shallow dish
• Milk (high-fat works best)

#37: How Do Stalactites Form?

Have you ever gone into a cave and seen huge stalactites hanging from the top of the cave? Stalactites are formed by dripping water. The water is filled with particles which slowly accumulate and harden over the years, forming stalactites. You can recreate that process with this stalactite experiment . By mixing a baking soda solution, dipping a piece of wool yarn in the jar and running it to another jar, you'll be able to observe baking soda particles forming and hardening along the yarn, similar to how stalactites grow.

• Safety pins
• 2 glass jars

Summary: Cool Science Experiments for Kids

Any one of these simple science experiments for kids can get children learning and excited about science. You can choose a science experiment based on your child's specific interest or what they're currently learning about, or you can do an experiment on an entirely new topic to expand their learning and teach them about a new area of science. From easy science experiments for kids to the more challenging ones, these will all help kids have fun and learn more about science.

What's Next?

Are you also interested in pipe cleaner crafts for kids? We have a guide to some of the best pipe cleaner crafts to try!

Looking for multiple different slime recipes? We tell you how to make slimes without borax and without glue as well as how to craft the ultimate super slime .

Want to learn more about clouds? Learn how to identify every cloud in the sky with our guide to the 10 types of clouds .

Want to know the fastest and easiest ways to convert between Fahrenheit and Celsius? We've got you covered! Check out our guide to the best ways to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit (or vice versa) .

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And A Baby Carriage.

10+ Simple Science Experiments for 3-4 Year Olds

kid activities

My pre-schooler Brady loves it when I tell him we are going to do science experiments .  He gets so excited and totally lights up.  They’re just so much fun!

I try to find science experiments I can do with him that are simple and don’t take a lot of time and patience.  We all know patience is not a virtue of a four-year-old.

I like them to only require a few ingredients and be completely safe and hands-on.  Here are my most favorite experiments I’ve found for a three to four-year-old.

10 Simple Science Experiments for 3-4 Year Olds

(affiliate links included throughout – see  my disclosure  for more information – thanks for your support) 

1.  Oil and water don’t mix , but what happens when you add this special ingredient?  From Play Trains.

2.  Test your kids hypothesis on what would happen if they stepped on raw eggs .  They will love this one!  From Housing A Forest.

3.  You can blow up a balloon with a combination of soda and candy.  So cool!  From Learn Play Imagine.

4.  This exploding baggie experiment is a twist on the classic baking soda and vinegar reaction and is super simple.  From Coffee Cups and Crayons.

5.  Exploding milk is one of the most fun and simple kid science experiments and you only need three kitchen ingredients.  From Laughing Kids Learn.

My friends just wrote a brilliant science books for kids that we just adore! You’ve gotta check out The 101 Coolest Simple Science Experiments .

6.  How do the ice trucks melt snow after a storm?  This is a great demonstration.  From The Artul Parent.

7.  Explain to your kids how sound waves work with this classic experiment.  From We Made That.

8.  Explaining the concept of air pressure to preschoolers can be tricky but this easy experiment shows it perfectly!  From Kids Activities Blog.

9.  Explore how plants “drink” with this experiment showing water moving through a leaf .  From Buggy and Buddy.

10.  Did you know you can make ice grow ?  Here’s how!  From Teach Preschool.

Amazing Science Kits For Kids

Kitchen Science Kit   |  Magnet Science Kit   |  Solar Science Kit   |  Grow A Maze Kit

Want More? Here’s Art Projects for 3-4 Year Olds

Liz is a just a mom trying to keep it real about how little she sleeps, how often she gets puked on and how much she loves them. You can find her here every day writing about real-mom moments.

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March 19, 2015 at 4:04 pm

Fantastic collection! I just bought a ton of eggs from Costco to let my boys try walking on them. 😉 Thanks for including our balloon experiment!

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10 Awesome Preschool Science Experiments

May 10, 2015 by Sheryl Cooper

Last Updated on June 30, 2024 by Sheryl Cooper

Inside: Looking for preschool science experiments? Here are 10 really fun ideas to try in the home or classroom!  

Putting together science experiments in preschool is an exciting part of teacher planning. We acknowledge that young children love to be involved in hands-on exploration.

They want to see it, touch it, work with it.

They love to know what happens next, and will often add their own ideas.

In our classroom, we have a science shelf where we put together a display that the children can explore. We add books and photos and tools, such as magnifying glasses.

We use a nearby table when doing science experiments so that the children have more room to work with materials. We talk about our experiments during our circle time and might even add related art and sensory activities.

Here are 10 favorite preschool science activities you can try with your children!

Apple Volcano Experiment – What happens when you hollow an apple and add vinegar and baking soda?

What’s in the Air Experiment – All you need is a plate, candle, matches, play dough, a jar, and some coloured water. (Happiness is Here)

Fizzy Cloud Dough Experiment – After playing with this cold dough, add vinegar with droppers for some science fun. (Powerful Mothering)

Experimenting with the Changing Shape of Water  – While pouring water into different shaped jars, notice how the shape of the water changes. (Stir the Wonder)

Weather Science – Make a tornado in a bottle! (Little Bins for Little Hands)

Lava Lamp Experiment – Learn what makes this lamp bubble. (Fun Learning for Kids)

Smell and Taste Experiment – Learn how smell work together. (Mum in the Madhouse)

Color Experiment with Water Beads  -See what happens when you place water beads in cups and add food coloring and water. (3 Dinosaurs)

Color Changing Rose Experiment  – Watch what happens to a white rose when placed in colored water. (Homegrown Friends)

Experiment Making Paper – Turn shredded paper into pulp to make new paper while learning about recycling. (You Clever Monkey)

Check out our favorite science toys and materials:

More science resources:

Setting Up the Science Center

Explore Nature with Fall Science Activities

Fun Winter Science Activities

Hands-On Spring Science Activities

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About Sheryl Cooper

Sheryl Cooper is the founder of Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds, a website full of activities for toddlers and preschoolers. She has been teaching this age group for over 25 years and loves to share her passion with teachers, parents, grandparents, and anyone with young children in their lives.

Reader Interactions

May 11, 2015 at 6:31 am

Thanks for including us in your wonderful round up! Pinned to my preschool science board.

May 11, 2015 at 6:48 pm

Thanks for including our color changing rose experiment! Great round up! Scheduled to share tomorrow!

May 18, 2015 at 2:29 am

Thanks so much for including 3 Dinosaurs in your post!

Science Fun

Science Experiments for Kids:

Science experiments you can do at home!  Explore an ever growing list of hundreds of fun and easy science experiments. Have fun trying these experiments at home or use them for science fair project ideas. Explore experiments by category, newest experiments, most popular experiments, easy at home experiments, or simply scroll down this page for tons of awesome experiment ideas!

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Acids and Bases Can Erupt in Your Faces

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STEM Science Kits for Kids Ages 8-12, Wood Craft Building Kits for Boys Girls 7-10, DIY Science Experiment Projects for Engineering Model Kits, 3D Wooden Puzzle Toys for 9-11-14 Years Old

• STEM CRAFT KITS FOR KIDS: These STEM kits include 4 exciting wooden model kits - a motorized Ferris Wheel, Carousel, Music Box, and Fiber Optic Lamp, come with 12 color markers and a detailed instruction manual, making it a great gift for both boys and girls.
• STEM PROJECTS FOR KIDS AGES 8-12: The mini Ferris Wheel and Carousel rotate with electric motors, while the Gramophone music box plays pleasant music once you turn its handle, the Fiber Optic Lamp emits 7 different colors of light in sequence, these projects can serve as ideal STEM toys for the classroom.
• BUILD & PAINT FUN: Inspire your child to assemble and paint their own robotics kits using wood pieces, DC motors, plastic gears, switches, and markers. They’ll get hands-on experience in DIY science games and activities. It’s an engaging engineering toy for kids and teens.
• LEARN THROUGH PLAY: Children will learn fundamental concepts of circuits, optics, mechanics, and engineering. This fosters their curiosity and creativity, while also developing patience and critical thinking skills. Perfect educational toys for boys and girls aged 7 to 12.
• SAFE AND SUPERIOR QUALITY: Our wooden construction sets are made from laser-cut, non-toxic plywood with all edges rounded and surfaces smooth. All components are CPC certified to meet national safety standards.

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Product Dimensions	4 x 3 x 7 inches
Item Weight	1.1 pounds
ASIN	B0D2ZTW8FP
Item model number	3DP-001
Manufacturer recommended age	6 years and up
Best Sellers Rank	#301,995 in Toys & Games ( ) #1,298 in #1,876 in
Customer Reviews	4.7 out of 5 stars
Manufacturer	ORIVAST

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4 Set Creative STEM Building Model Kits

“Let’s play together, build it and see.”

Encourage your child to use wood parts, DC motors, plastic gears and switches to build 4 amazing wooden models:

• Mini Ferris Wheel and Carousel can rotate with electric motors
• The gramophone music box plays pleasant music when you turn its handle
• Fiber Optic Lamp emits 7 different colors of light in turn automatically

Orivast wooden building kits are not only 3D puzzles but also STEM educational toys that bridge the gap between learning and fun.

Crafts activities can be a fun, creative way to practice fine motor skills. It trains hand-eye coordination and hands-on ability by putting small parts together precisely.	It encourages cooperation to complete the building project, and work together in teams to find solutions to problems. A great way to bond and build friendships as they take turns and help each other.	Building models makes kids think and learn in new ways, knowing what fits and what does not fit. Children can express their imagination and original ideas through play.

Kids understand how following directions step by step can help to achieve their goals finally, although it requires them to focus for long periods of time.	All wooden parts are made of high quality non-toxic plywood, laser cutting keeps all edges round and surfaces smooth to ensure safety.	The wooden puzzle models are unique gifts for Easter, birthday, Christmas or parties, especially for 6-12 years old kids, are also perfect gifts for adults who love craft hobbies.

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• 1 x Ferris Wheel
• 1 x Music Box
• 1 x Carousel
• 1 x Fiber Optic Lamp
• 1 x 12 Colors Markers

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