Mad Scientist Birthday Party

Parker turned six last week and we celebrated with a Mad Scientist party and 26 of his closest friends. I know, a big group. Yikes!

To set the stage, I created this fun table you could see when you first came into the house. The table included test tubes filled with mini M&Ms, saftey goggles, magnifying glasses and a spinning disco light.

 My mom made this awesome lab coat for the birthday boy (and a smaller one for his assistant).

 

 I also made t-shirt using the freezer stencil method I'm obsessed with here. Parker's said Mad Scientist. Mine and the hubs had some inspired by the song - She Blinded Me With Science.  OK. We're dorks, but don't we look festive?

Since we had so many kids, we decided to set-up experiment stations. Each child was given a colored bracelet to determine what team they were to be on. Here's the "Blow Up Your Balloon" station.

 

There are so many great websites out there with science experiments with kids. I really enjoyed Steve Spangler's and Science Bob. Our three experiements were:

Blow Up Your Balloon. Fill a water bottle 1/3 of the way with vinegar. Use a funnel to add 1 tbs. of baking soda into a balloon. Put the balloon on the top of the bottle and drop the baking soda in. The baking soda reacts with the vinegar to create carbon dioxide, which blows up the balloon. Unlike the pin that's going around on Pinterest says, it does not make helium. The balloons will not float, but they're still pretty fun.

Slime: Mix equal parts of liquid starch (we found it at King Soopers), white glue and water. I also added green food coloring to the water. This was messy and fun. The kids were given an Easter egg to take some home with them. Here's a video link for more on this one.

Quick Sand: This one is also known as oobleck. One box of cornstarch mixed with a cup of water. Slowly add another 1/2 cup for consistency. In the bowl it's a solid and your hand it's a liquid. For more on this one, click here.

I had the supplies to do the experiment three separate times at each station and used dollar store bowls that I could just throw away. This way there was no cleaning and when the group rotated stations, we could just pull out fresh supplies.

We also did the Mentos/Diet Coke fountain, which was a huge hit with everyone. I bought the kit at The Wildlife Experience, but it's also available here.

A test tube pinata finished off the theme - for more on how I made it, check out the blog post here.

Happy birthday little scientist. Love ya, kiddo.