Easter Science for Kids: Fun Investigations and Experiments

We had so much fun with eggs and peeps last year that the Lil Divas are begging for more experiments this year. My thinking cap has been on & my mind has been working overtime and I am excited to share some of our science investigations with you...soon.  In the meantime, I thought it would be fun to recap all those Peep and Egg experiments from last year and have them in one handy place for you.

Let's start with some FUN

Peep Experiments
(click the titles and it will take you to the original posts for full details)

The Dissolving Peeps Experiment

Baking Soda & Vinegar Peep Experiment

The Microwaved Peep Experiment

The Super Sized Microwave Peep Experiment

The Lil Divas enjoyed last year's microwaved Peep experiment so much that they asked to do it again this year. When we spotted extra large Peeps at the store, we knew we had to try them in our experiment. The Lil Divas were super excited to see how large these would puff up in the microwave.

Here are the original sized bunny peeps:

Here are a few "action" shots of the peep heating up in the microwave:

We just hit the 1 minute button on the microwave & watched carefully
so I could stop it - it happens fast.

Here's a quick size comparison -

They start shrinking quickly once there's no more heat.

I tried taking a quick photo to no avail,

 the original heated peep was even bigger than this.

See how it takes up the WHOLE plate!
The Lil Divas were beyond thrilled with this giant peep bunny.

Now onto our

Egg Experiments!

(click the titles and it will take you to the original posts for full details)

Dissolving Egg Shell & Bouncing Egg Experiment

The Incredible, Unbreakable Egg 

The Floating vs. Sinking Egg Experiment



If you are looking for some cool Egg Decorating Ideas, check these out:

Tie Dye Eggs

Melted Crayon Eggs

and if you need some cool Egg Craft Ideas, how about these -
Tape Resist & Wet Chalk Eggs (my favorite!)
Tie Dye Coffee Filter Eggs

and if you want even more inspiration check out all our
  Easter posts & our Easter Pinterest board.


Have fun exploring, experimenting & creating,
Bern

The Dissolving Egg Shell & Bouncing Egg Experiment

This egg experiment has been in the works for over a week!

(I may or may not have forgotten to blog about it)

By now, you know the Lil Divas enjoy experimenting
and I love nurturing their curiosity.

This experiment is simple, it involves a lot of observation

but the results are really to watch and the finale was lots of messy fun.

To start with, I talked to the Lil Divas about what they thought

would happen if we put some eggs in vinegar and some in water.

They have prior knowledge of the effects of vinegar based on previous experiments, so they immediately said the egg would dissolve.  I thought it was a good hypothesis considering our recent

vinegar based experiments with Peeps. So we set out to see if they were correct.

What You Need:

eggs

(we used raw eggs - 2 brown & 2 white)

vinegar

water

clear cups

What To Do:

1. Set up 4 clear cups. 

2. Put 1 egg into each cup.

3. Add vinegar to 1 of each cup containing a white & brown egg.

4. Add water to the other 2 cups.

*eggs should be covered completely by each liquid.

5. Observe

Start of Experiment/Day 1:

The Lil Divas observed bubbles in the vinegar eggs right away.

We talked about the bubbles being carbon dioxide -

I know they don't "get it" yet but they asked and I wanted to answer as simply as possible.

After only a few hours we could see that the vinegar was eating away at the shell of the brown egg. It was nice to observe it at this initial reaction stage because you could easily see where the shell was missing and where it was still on the egg. The Lil Divas found this fascinating. 

Day 2:

Day 3:

Day 5:

Day 7:

Now that we had our rubbery eggs, 

we had to test if they could bounce!

The first drop did indeed bounce!

Then the Oldest Diva decided to go higher & splat!

Of course the Littlest Diva followed her lead

(I think she was more interested in the splat than the bounce!)

Here's how they landed -

Of course the Lil Divas had to explore the mess.

It was a bit smelly but still pretty cool.

I'd like to try this again and compare hard boiled to raw eggs.

What egg experiments have you done?

Bern

Fun Ways to Decorate Easter Eggs with Kids!

Happy Easter!

We already shared that we always use

  PAAS kits to decorate some of our Easter eggs!

We had so much fun dyeing our Easter Eggs this weekend -

I know it's a bit late but I just had to share.

Melted Crayon Egg Decorating

 The Lil Divas LOVED decorating this way!

Just look at those hard at work faces below :)

What You Need:

HOT Hardboiled Eggs

Crayons

This was SUPER EASY!

If you have not tried this method - do it!

Just hard boil your eggs and while they are still hot

use crayons to draw/decorate on them.

Tip: Put them on a surface little hands can easily manipulate to minimize them actually having to touch the hot egg. The egg cartons worked well for us. The Lil Divas could shift the carton around to work on the different sections of the egg. I helped when ever the egg had to be lifted/moved.

The crayon glides on smoothly, melting right onto the hot egg

which produces some awesome looking results. 

This looked so fun, even I had to get in on it - 

I decorated the one in the middle!

Shaving Cream & Food Coloring Marbleized Eggs

Ok, this was a bit of a fail and I almost left it out of the post but figured it would be good to show that we don't always have success around here and maybe someone can offer tips to get this to actually work better next time.

What You Need:

hardboiled eggs

food coloring

shaving cream

vinegar

dish or tray to work on

lots & lots of napkins!

Dip your eggs in vinegar before you start dyeing - 

this is supposed to help seal in the color.

1. We started with our shaving cream and added dots of food color

as we did for our Marbleized Hearts - love how this looks on paper!

2. Using the tip of a paintbrush swirl food color to give a fun marbled look.

Tip: You don't want to swirl too much 

or the colors end up getting too mixed and brownish.

3. Drop in egg and cover with mixture completely.

(we used gloves since food coloring will get on your hands!)

4. Remove eggs and let sit with shaving cream mixture.

Here's where something went wrong. :(

After a few hours I used a napkin to wipe off the shaving cream and there was a mere hint of color on the eggs. I have seen this around the web and it was done successfully, so I know it's possible. (See here and here if you are interested). I wonder if it was the brand of food coloring ir if we just didn't use enough? I really wanted this to work but they didn't end up as bright or colorful as I had pictured.

Tie Dye Easter Eggs

This was my favorite! Gorgeous, vibrant eggs!

What You Need:

eggs

food color

paper towels

spray bottle

vinegar

water

plastic baggies

rubber bands

tray

What To Do:

1. Start by putting 3 napkins on a tray or other work surface.

2. Add dots of food color as desired.

3. Fill your spray bottle with water and add a few tsp of vinegar.

4. Spray the napkin till it's wet and colors have bled together.

5. Put hardboiled egg in middle of napkin and wrap it so that

napkin touches each part of egg and excess is on top.

(see photo below)

6. Put wrapped egg in plastic baggie and tie with rubber band.

7. Let sit for a few hours - the longer they marinate the brighter the colors!

These turned out GREAT!

We also made some 

Oil & Vinegar Marbleized Eggs

We did these last year too & they are so easy.

For these just add a tsp. or two of oil into your food coloring mixture

& then dip your egg into 1 color & remove.

 Gently wipe off the excess oil and then dip into another color! 

Dip into as many colors as you like for a cool marbled effect.

We had a lot of FUN dyeing & decorating our eggs for Easter.

Here is one final shot of all the eggs we decorated this year.

Happy Easter 

from our family to yours!

Bern