1. Inverted balloon: We have a couple of family birthdays just around the corner, so we have plenty of balloons for science experiments right now. While this experiment was impressive, I ended up breaking one of our glass bottles. Water, a hot bottle, and a balloon make for an extra slippery situation. Despite the mess, we will definitely repeat this activity. Once the bottle cooled off, the balloon stayed inflated and our kids were able to examine it for as long as they desired. It’s still on our kitchen counter.
2. Reaction time: I had completely forgotten about this simple game. I remember doing this activity as a kid and trying to catch the ruler higher and higher and higher up. We’ve had our rulers out a lot recently because our son’s been measuring objects at school. When I came across this activity online I knew he would enjoy seeing how to use a ruler to measure something other than length, width and height.
3. Salt water floating egg: Demonstrations are wonderful, but I just love experiments like this where kids can take the reins. Nothing is too hot or otherwise dangerous for them to touch. And they can dump as much salt into the water as they want.
4. Lego pulleys: Our kids’ Lego collection keeps expanding every holiday. Now that we have a wide variety of pieces, it’s fun to browse Pinterest for Lego ideas. This pulley was much easier to build than expected and it was a big hit. Sometimes Lego structures (especially ones that are made without instructions), are too fragile to really play with. This pulley was stable and easily incorporated into our son’s play.
5. Laundry baskets and tennis balls: When our son was a toddler I wrote a post about throwing tennis balls into laundry baskets with great grandpa. I’ve enjoyed repeating this activity with all of our kids. My older kids still enjoy the game, but need a couple tweaks to make it more age appropriate. Last time we simply assigned different point values to each basket. A great way to burn off extra energy indoors.
