Did you ever make homemade scratch-art paper pictures as a child? I remember making them using coloured pencils with black crayon over the top. They took an age to make and never worked that well. If only I’d known then that oil pastels make it so much easier!! If you don’t have oil pastels, crayons are…
Winchester Science Centre is always a great day out even without a special event running, so I was confident that the Santa and the Elves Christmas Experience would be the perfect way for us to see Santa this year. The experience includes admission to the science centre, a special elf led planetarium show, and an…
Here at Science Sparks, we’re big fans of all things Dr Seuss and at this time of year, The Grinch is one of our favourite books to read before bed as it has such a lovely heartwarming message. Did you know it’s 60 years old this year? Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Maybe…
Can you build a marshmallow snowman? This is a super simple science investigation where children test different strengths of icing sugar to discover which sticks the marshmallows together the best. This activity is also one of my 24 days of elf science ideas. I also have a gingerbread house version and some Christmas candy experiments…
Do you know how to find the North Star? Most people think of the North Star ( Polaris ) as being the brightest star in the sky, but there are actually many stars much brighter. The reason Polaris is so important is because the axis of Earth is pointed almost directly at it, meaning Polaris…
We couldn’t resist making some mini fizzy pumpkins this week. These are super easy and such a lot of fun. Baking soda and vinegar reactions never get boring! Baking Soda is alkaline and reacts with acids (in this case, vinegar), releasing carbon dioxide (a gas) and water. It’s the bubbles of carbon dioxide that produce…
It’s almost Halloween so we’ve been busy making goo, potions and practising spooky mirror writing! Mirror writing is harder than you think and might take a bit of practice. Materials Black card Chalk pen Mirror Instructions Try writing your name backwards using the hand you normally write with. Do you have to think more carefully?…
Did you try any of our easy Christmas science activity ideas last week? Are you ready for more? Day 8 First up is this fun STEM Challenge helping the elves make a pulley, to make lifting Christmas presents easier. Day 9 Introduce the concept of chemical reactions with this fizzy elf lab. This was a big…
I’m not sure how it’s December 2nd today, how did that happen? I’m sure time goes faster each year. I do however have a fun collection of Christmas science ideas to make the run up to Christmas and beyond even more fun than usual! I’ve split them into three posts to make them more manageable. As…
We’ve given learning about food chains a fun, festive twist for today’s activity. Learn about producers and consumers, predators and prey using winter animals as examples. What is a food chain? A food chain illustrates how plants, animals, and humans rely on one another for food. We’ve been making the most of the festive season…
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