Science Birthday Party

I realized I've been putting off doing this post because I didn't want to spend hours putting it together. So I won't. What I will do is say that last Saturday we had a birthday party for John and Ben with several of their friends and we had a blast! The theme was science experiments. Here are some pictures along with links giving more details about how these experiments were conducted, if you're interested.

It was a bit of work putting this together, but not as much as you would think and I had a great time planning it. Thanks to all of you who helped contribute materials. Deb gave me a great idea for the cake, but I didn't have time to really put it together. If we do a science experiment party for Chris in December, I'll use her cake idea then. :)

One of my least favorite things about putting a party together is the rushing around I'm usually doing right before the party begins. My goal this year was to have the house cleaned, decorated, and everything else ready an hour before start time. We hit that pretty close and it was sooooo nice. These first few pics were taken by the kids while we were waiting for the guests to arrive:

Chris took a picture of my feet. Where do kids come up with these things?

A little pre-party dipping...

Science supplies standing by...

Cutie patootie

Admittedly, the "decorations" for this party were excessively simple. One of the many nice things about raising boys is they just don't care about that kind of thing. As long as they have some balloons to pop when it's all over, they're happy. :)

Okay, first experiment. (This was one of the experiments we saw in John's Webelos book, for the Science Activity Badge, so I don't have a link for it.) Basically it's demonstrating that the pressure of a gas (like air) decreases the faster it goes - the principle which allows planes to fly. I was a little apprehensive about bringing out my sewing kit for the first experiment, but it worked out fine.

We learned the hard way that not all spools are created equal when it comes to this experiment. Ah well...

Okay, this is the "straw oboe" experiment and it was a hit! Some of the kids had a hard time making the sound, so I wouldn't try this for a younger group. The ones who managed it loved it!

An experiment demonstrating atmospheric pressure (another from the Webelos book). It's a fine experiment, but I'd cut this if I had to do it again just because it doesn't have the fun or "wow" factor that some of the other ones did. At least it was short, so I don't think they had time to get bored. This is a great one to do at home with the munchkins where you can really have them think about it, take the time to explain, etc.

Mini lava lamps. This is a cool one!! Check out the video at this link.

This is a "tie dye" experiment using colored Sharpies and rubbing alcohol.

Okay, we don't have a good picture of this, but this was a fun one too. In my left hand is an empty Powerade bottle, upside down. In my right hand is a de-shelled hard-boiled egg, with two lit birthday candles in the narrow end. (This IS a birthday party, right?) To see what I did with that, go here.

Making CO2 sandwiches. Boys love to make things go BOOM!

Another fun one. Take a mason jar and fill it with water. Fit a piece of screen into the ring of the lid and put it on the jar. Cover the opening with a playing card (since this jar was big, I had to cut a big piece from a laminated piece of cardboard that used to be a JoAnn's mailer). Flip the jar over and carefully remove the card. The water stays in the jar. We even inserted a toothpick through the screen and watched it float to the top! (I saw this at the Steve Spangler site too, but I can't find the link now...)

Ben requested the Diet Coke and Mentos geyser trick, so we did that too. We don't have a picture of the actual geyser because it happens quick!

Then it was time for presents:

... and cake and ice cream.

Then we let them play with dry ice (well, the fog dry ice makes when you put it in water) as we waited for parents to arrive.

This is a dry ice and bubble trick I found at Steve Spangler's fantastic website, where I found most of these experiments.

The dry ice was a huge hit. :)

It was a fun party and about an hour or so after the party was over I completely crashed!! LOL.