It's officially potion season! With Halloween around the corner, now is the perfect time to brew up spooky witches' potions. Potions are a much loved activity in our house at any time of year, especially at Halloween! Take a look through this collection of fizzing, slimy, colour-changing, and even dry ice potions and let us know if you try any.
Teaching with Potions
Potion making is a great activity just for fun, but it can also include lots of learning opportunities.
- Weigh and measure out ingredients.
- Learn about density and how liquids of different densities can be stacked in a column.
- Use a measuring jug to measure specific amounts of liquids.
- Learn about simple chemical reactions with baking soda and vinegar.
For younger children, add bowls, ladles, colanders and sieves for a brilliant, hands-on, sensory experience.
The BEST Witches Potions
Fizzy Witch Laboratory
Fizzy potions are easy to make with baking soda and vinegar, and look amazing. I set up a fizzy witches' lab for my daughter, and she loved it.
I used test tubes instead of larger containers, as it meant she could experiment easily with different colours and allowed her to make lots of eruptions with only a small amount of baking soda and vinegar.
What you need to make fizzy potions
Baking Soda ( Bicarbonate of Soda )
Food colouring
Vinegar
Test tubes or other containers
Pipette
Water
How to make a fizzy witch potion
Place a teaspoon of baking soda, a little water and a few drops of food colouring into each test tube.
Use the pipette to add vinegar to each tube. The mixture should fizz up out of the test tube.
TOP TIP - to make an extra foamy potion, add a little dish soap ( washing up liquid ) before adding the vinegar.
Experiment with different amounts of baking soda, washing-up liquid and vinegar to find the perfect fizz!
Spider Slime
This stretchy slime has a great texture and is very easy to make. It can be squished, stretched and poured and feels deliciously gloopy and slimy!
What you need
Chia seeds
PVA glue
Cornflour
Water
How to make spider slime
Soak the chia seeds in water for a few hours.
When the chia seeds look thick and slimy, add a dollop of PVA glue and enough cornflour to make the mixture thick and gloopy. For a drier slime, add more cornflour.
If you're concerned about children trying to eat the slime, you canmiss out the PVA glue. It just won't stretch as well.
Magic Colour Changing Potions
Colour changing potions using red cabbage indicator are a great first introduction to acids and alkalis. Children can experiment to find out how many different colours they can make!
How to make colour changing potions
You'll need
Red cabbage
Water
Pan and stove
Sieve
Containers
Vinegar
Lemon juice
Baking soda ( bicarbonate of soda )
Instructions
Boil red cabbage in water for about 5 minutes. Allow the mixture to cool and save the liquid.
The red cabbage water is the indicator. It changes colour depending on whether an acid or an alkali is added.
Add a little indicator to each container and then add your test substance. The indicator should change colour.
I used vinegar, lemon juice and baking soda to create the colours below.
Edible Magic Potion
I really love the look of this steamy potion, on Fun Crafts Kids. However, remember to check out the safety warnings first.
Goblin Snot Juice
We shared some easy potion ideas with Day Out With The Kids a while ago. Including creepy Goblin Snot Juice and colour-changing bat broth!
This potion is a green liquid with a layer of oil on top. If the container is shaken, the mixture separates into oil and water again! This is a great potion for learning about density.
The oil is less dense than the water, so it floats on the surface!
Witchy Density Jar
This witchy density jar is made in a similar way. Just pour coloured water into a jar with a layer of oil on the top, then try to find different creepy objects to float on the layers.
We found a bouncy ball eyeball floated on the top, and a coin sank to the bottom.
More Potion Ideas for Kids
Print my FREE fizzy potion recipe and create your own potion with the blank recipe page.
More potion ideas for Halloween
The Imagination Tree has a beautiful Fairy Potion that you could turn into a Halloween potion.
We love the look of this polyjuice potion from This Grandma is Fun, too.
If you're looking for an easy Halloween costume idea, Red Ted Art is full of inspiration!
More Halloween Science Ideas
Try our Halloween party science ideas, including fake blood, pumpkin lava lamps and spider decorations.
My book Gross Science, is jam packed full of gruesome, sticky and slimy science experiments for kids! Make jelly scabs, chocolate poo, slimy slugs, a blood model and lots more experiments, sure to creep out your friends and family!
I also have an exciting collection of Halloween STEM Challenges you might like. Including spider drawing robots, blowing up pumpkin balloons and more!
Last Updated on October 7, 2025 by Emma Vanstone
David Cameron says
These are going to be a great display for the next Halloween celebrations. Great experiments with some easy to find materials. Thank you Emma!