An idea for a fun and educational children's chemistry project gets them to think about the reaction between acids and bases while making fizzy lemonade. Assist your children by slicing a lemon into quarters and have them squeeze and collect the juice from the slices using a juicer -- children should record how many milliliters of juice they manage to extract. Have children pour the juice into a glass and add an equal amount of tap water. Children should then add 1 tsp. of baking soda and stir thoroughly. Have children taste their solution and add sugar or sweetener by the teaspoon until they are happy with the flavor. Challenge children to think about how the acids and bases involved in this experiment react to make the drink fizzy.
One safe and interesting chemistry experiment that your kids can complete involves looking at how different environmental conditions affect the characteristics of bones. This experiment is a good way to introduce the importance of calcium to your children. Have your children take a small bone, such as the drumstick of a chicken, and submerge it in hot tap water in a heatproof container. After five minutes, have the children strain away the water and study the qualities of the bone -- it should be bendy and flex around in the child's hands. To progress their understanding, have them leave the bone submerged in vinegar overnight before straining the liquid off and assessing the nature of the bone -- it will be rubbery, as the vinegar dissolves the calcium and weakens the bone.
Icy sidewalks and roads are a major concern across the globe every winter. Get your children to think about the different substances that could be used to combat this problem by melting ice in different ways during this experiment. Help your children when handling some of this experiment's substances, which are potentially hazardous. Have children line up six identical glass beakers and place a same-size ice cube in each one. Children should then test each ice cube one by one, leaving one with no added substance for a control and adding 1 tsp. of the different substances, such as salt, sugar, sand, commercial ice melt mixture and calcium chloride, to the remaining five beakers. Children should start a stopwatch, time how long it takes for ice cubes to melt completely and record and compare their results for each substance. Have them ascertain which substance is most effective for melting ice.
Assist your children during this chemistry experiment, as they will need your help when handling hot soap and operating a microwave. Provide children with a bar of Ivory brand soap (other bars of soap will not work) and fill a bowl two-thirds with cold tap water. Have children observe the bar of soap as it floats on the surface of the water because of the air-injected manufacture of Ivory soap. Then, have children lay their soap out to dry on a paper towel and place the soap and paper on a microwave-safe plate. Help your children by programming the microwave to subject the soap to maximum power for 90 seconds. Get children to watch the soap in the microwave as it expands. After 90 seconds have elapsed, allow the soap to cool for five minutes before removing the plate from the microwave -- make sure you wear a heatproof glove. Children will observe a large white, puffy cloud of soap on the plate.