Last updated on July 13th, 2022 at 10:24 am
How ’bout a Wacky Science Party for a Kids’ Birthday? Kids love doing hands-on experiments that oozes, fizzles and go karplunk! What better way to learn by having fun! These science activities do not have to be for parties alone, do them at home just for fun, for class projects, or for a science fair!
Science Birthday Party Ideas
1.Science Party Invitations
- Wacky Scientists. Every Wacky Science Party needs Wacky Scientists! In the instruction to your guests, instruct them to come with their hair sticking up like a mad scientists. Use clip art of mad scientists as your party invitations. The write-up for the science party invitation could say: “Come On Over For Some Wacky Science Fun at …………’s Mad Lab!
- Test Tubes. Use test tubes with screw caps to mail your invitations. Print out party information on pieces of paper and roll it into a small tube. You can mail them in padded yellow envelopes or hand deliver.
- Personalized Rocket Invitations. Have rocket invitations made with your kid’s name for a custom look. This is an easy option and a great way to customize your invitations without having to make the science party invitations yourself. Invitations are printed on quality card stock with bright, vibrant colors. No minimum order required and less than a $1 per invitation.
- Recycled Paper Towels. Use recycled paper to make miniature rockets with card stock fins, bodies made out of paper towel rolls, streamers as exhaust, and build a nose using silver duct tape and card stock. Write the invitation on the outside of the rocket: “Ready For A Blast at ……….’s 6th Birthday Party!? You can use the miniature rockets as party decor as well by hanging them from the ceiling with fish wire. Hang several of them all over the party room.
2.Science Party Decorations
- Bio Hazard. Decorate the party room and entrance with bio hazards signs, posters, and caution tapes.
- Sanitizing Area. Use white or silver streamers and hang them in front of the door like a curtain. Section a small area at the entrance with another curtain of streamers before kids enter the party room. This is the so-called ‘sanitizing area’ before kids are allowed to leave or enter the party room. When they arrive, they are required to put on safety gear and have a security check (see Guest arrival).
- Mad Scientist Lab Room. Set up the party room with beakers, microscopes, test tubes, and lots of old jars filled with grow toys like hands, brains and feet. Get spider webbing from Halloween stores and drape around the shelves, tables and science area.
- Beaker Containers. Fill various size beakers with colored candy like jelly beans, pop rock, skittles, etc. for a colorful display. Use beakers instead of cups at the party table, as vases, to hold utensils, etc.
- Test tube trays. Place a rack of test tubes with 5 empty test tubes for each place setting. Fill trays of beakers with colored drinks and label them with funny, gross or unusual labels, like “Polymer Insanity”, “Hydrogen Destruction”, etc. Some colored drinks you could use are blue Gatorade, green Sports drinks, purple Kool-Aid, etc. Let kids mix their own drink in each test tube and use the test tube as their mini cup.
- Eerie Fumes. Use dry ice in test tubes or use a fog machine to create the sense of mystery in your science lab.
- Hydrodynamics Kool-Aid. For an extreme sense of fun and wackiness, set up a hydrodynamic system with Kool-Aid. Let the kids, open and close valves, configure piping, and physics to create the ultimate Kool-Aid serving machine. Perhaps have several colored Kool-Aid in different tanks and let them mix to see what tastes best!
3.Science Party Guest Arrival and Introduction
- Lab Coats. Since kids will be entering a Hazard Zone it is best to put on disposable lab coats before they enter the danger zone or get button-downed shirts from thrift or consignment stores. If they are too long, fold up the sleeves or cut off some length with scissors. Another idea is to get large white inexpensive oversized white t-shirts in bulk and cut them open in front so kids can wear over their clothing to prevent spills, stains and to use as lab coats.
- Safety Goggles. Give all kids safety goggles to wear. It may be cheaper to buy swim goggles and give them out as party favors or ask kids to bring their own.
- Badge Clearance. Check to make sure guest have security clearance to enter the “Security Sensitive” or “Bio Hazard” area. Once they have been cleared by a strict security officer (parent), give them a badge. The badges can be made out of card stock with their picture printed on it. Set up an area to take their pictures and print out on cardstock. Let them decorate with stickers, markers, etc. while they wait for others to arrive. Get clip on badge holders to attach to their lab coats.
4.Science Party Crafts, Experiments and Activities
- Baking Soda Rocket. Do an experiment with Baking Soda Rocket using a kit. Easy to assemble, just add baking soda and vinegar. Rocket shoots up to 100 feet high and can be reused over again. This is guaranteed to be the highlight of the party.
- Slime, Flubber or Goop. Make your own Slime, Flubber, or do they call it Goop?! Kids love the squishy and slimy feel of slime and will giggle and squirm as they handle the slime.
- Paper Mache Volcano. Make your own Paper Mache Volcano out of paper mache using recycled strips of newspaper, flour and water. Simply shape a volcano using strips of sheets dipped into the paste and draping over the volcano. Complete Paper Mache Volcano instructions.
- Homemade Play Dough. Make Homemade Playdough with kids and give them rolling pins, cookie cutters, garlic presses, forks, butter knives, etc. to make their own creations.
- Alka Seltzer Grenade. Make grenades using empty water bottles, Alka Seltzer (antacid) and Vinegar.
- Coke and Mentos. The classic coke and mentos experiment that kids always love. Watch as Coke reacts with the mentos and propels out of the bottle using the geyser tube. You can drop the mentos with a tube (make your own) or use a mentos tube with trigger to do the experiment.
- Egg Bridge Challenge. Give kids 20 straws, 10 pieces of tape and one raw egg. Need I say more? Let them try to make an egg bridge to support the weight of the egg. Who ever has the highest height without breaking the egg, wins!
- Egg In A Bottle. Try to get the egg into the bottle using the law of physics by heating the bottle with a match (this can be done by placing hot water in the bottle).
- Make Snow. Add water to snow polymer to make artificial snow. Good experiment to show how chemicals react and change shape.
- Acid/Base Testing. Test various liquids using acid/base paper. Determine the pH of certain liquids and foods.
- Lava Lamps. Create miniature lava lamps using the baby bottle test tubes, oil, food coloring, glitter, trinkets, and alka seltzer tablets.
- Balloon Surfing. Make a balloon surfboard and have fun trying to balance and surf the waves.
5.Science Party Recipes
- Fruit Molecules. Get maraschino cherries, melon balls, grapes, and melon balls, and use tooth picks to connect the different fruit to each other in the shape of molecules.
- Deviled Nucleus. Make deviled egg and place a whole black olive in each one to represent the nucleus of a cell.
- Periodic Table. Make sandwiches and cut off the crust. Cut into four so that you have four small squares. Make at least 20-40 small sandwiches depending on the size of your crowd or what other food you will be serving. Arrange the squares like the elements on a Periodic Table Chart. Use colored softened cream cheese to pipe on the element symbols and numbers. If an element belongs to an orange category, for example, pipe it using orange colored cream cheese, etc. Print out a large periodic table on a sheet, place wax paper on top, then use that as a place mat to place your sandwiches on top. Place on the table and tell kids “It’s time to eat the Table!” You might draw some surprising looks from kids who do not know what a periodic table is but what a fun way to introduce this concept to new budding scientists!
- Cheese Ball Virus. Get a large clear glass or plastic plate and use acrylic paint to paint the “wrong side” or bottom to look like a cell. When dry, use the “right” side to place cheese balls on it. Tell kids that the cheese ball virus is attacking the cells and we need to annihilate them. Give them toothpicks to conquer the task.
- Make Your Own Butter. Get some whipping cream (liquid form in carton) and a clean glass jar with a lid. If the cream has been sitting in the fridge, take it out and let it come to room temperature. Fill half the jar, and shake, and shake, and shake some more. Let the kids take turns shaking the jar. Eventually the cream will become butter. Drain the liquid out and what’s left is butter. Spread on toast that you have shaped and cut out like long test tubes.
Tip: Do not used colored toothpicks since they contain a coloring agent that will color the food.
6.Science Party Cakes and Desserts
- Make Your Own Ice Cream. Use a Ball Ice Cream maker to make your own ice cream. Put rock salt in the outer container and your ice cream ingredients in the inner container. Screw cap on and tighten lid. Sit in a circle facing each other, play some fun music and roll the ball back and forth for 15-20 minutes. After the time period the ingredients should turn into soft ice cream. Give each kid a clean spoon for a taste test. Of course the ice cream is not enough to feed a crowd, so have extra ice cream on hand afterwards!
- Mini Volcanoes. Get mini bundt cake pans and make miniature volcanoes by topping the center with ice cream, strawberry syrup (lava) and fudge. Place sparkling candles in the middle to simulate the explosion.
- Flask Cake with Cotton Candy Smoke. Make a flash cake complete with cotton candy smoke! For more science recipes go here.
- Brain-iac Cake. Make a brain cake! Bake a cake and trim off corners to make it look like a half-round. Use icing and pipe squiggly icing all over to look like a brain.
- Petrie Dishes. Get clean petrie dishes and pour in jello. Place a gummy worm in each one and let it set.
7.Science Party Games
- Periodic Table Elements Scavenger Hunt. Print out the colored version and black and white version of the Periodic Table from ChemistryGuide.org. Cut up the colored rectangles of the colored Periodic Table and scatter them throughout the house before the party. Let the kids know that “….the Periodic Table of Elements has lost all its colors! Please help us find them!…” Give kids each a bag to collect the colored elements. Gather the kids together and call out the elements by name to see who has a certain element like Barium, Iron, Iridium, etc.
- Slime Fishing. Get a large bowl and place small plastic fish and trinkets in the bottom. Place also a special toy, like a small treasure chest in the bottom. The treasure chest is the “prized possession” . Fill a large bucket with slime and blind fold a group of kids. Start the timer for 60 seconds and let the kids fish out as many trinkets as possible with one hand. The more they get, the more they can keep. This activity does get messy so either play outdoors or use a large plastic sheet to protect the play areas.
8.Science Party Favors
- Test Tubes Pop Rock. Use test tubes with screw caps to hold Pop Rock Candy. Tie a thank you tag to the top of the tube that says “You Rock! Thank You For Coming!”
- Sour Powder Candy Test Tubes. Give each guest a test tube filled with sour powder candy. This is a kids’ favorite and comes already filled either in solid colors or striped colors. Exprience flavors like Xtreme Tangerine, Melon Madness, Double Sour, etc. and let the candy color your tongue!
- Test Tubes Experiments. Get test tubes filled with experiments and instructions for kids to take home to further their interest in science. The kit comes with 5 various experiments : (1) Grow color-changing jelly crystals, (2) How to make gooey worms, (3) Write with disappearing ink, (4) Blow touchable bubbles, and (5) Make your own bouncy ball. Divide the kit up so that one child gets one tube.
- Glitter Putty. This glitter putty has wonderful iridescent rainbow colors and is another favorite among kids. The glitter putty comes in egg shell containers so it can be safely stored and reused.
- Space Shuttle Box. Get a space shuttle box filled with space favors. Each space shuttle favor box comes with a space glider, glow star, space shuttle lollipop, glow stick and a Space Mission stickers. It couldn’t be easier!
- Hazardous Waste Treat Bag. Make a simple science party treat bag out of a black gift bag and by sticking a toxic waste patch to the front of it. The patch could also be used as a Boy Scout or Girl Scout badge if the party is for a Troop.
