Science experiments are a fun way to get kids interested in science with hands-on experiments. Simply learning the facts doesn’t seem to interest a lot of kids – but actually seeing it does. Here are a few fun at-home science experiments you can do with whatever you have lying around the house:

Floating Egg

An egg sinks to the bottom of a glass of water normally, right? If you add salt to a glass, the results are very different.

Directions:

1. Pour water into a glass about half-full.
2. Stir in about 6 tablespoons of salt.
3. Pour in plain water until the glass is almost full – make sure not to mix the salty water with the plain water.
4. Gently place the egg in and watch!

Why?

Salt water is denser than ordinary water, so the egg is able to float. The egg goes through the tap water and starts floating when it it’s the salty water – enabling the egg to float in the middle of the glass!

Quick Sand

Make your own quick sand with this experiment!

Directions:

1. Mix 1 cup of maize cornflour and half a cup of water in a container to make  “instant quicksand.”
2. Stirring it quickly will make it hard, and poking it quickly will show the quicksand effect.

Why?

If you add just the right amount of water and courflour the mixture becomes very thick when you stir it quickly because the grains are mixed up and can’t slide over each other due to the lack of water between them.

Glowing Water

Directions: 

1. Break open a highlighter pen and carefully remove the felt and soak it in a small amount of water for a few minutes.
2. Or, if you have tonic water, you don’t need a highlighter.
3. Find a dark room.
4. Turn on the black light near the water.

Why?

Black light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum and can illuminate objects that contain phosphors. Both tonic water and highlighters have phosphors in it.

At-Home Rainbow

Directions 

1. Take a glass of water about ¾ full and put it near a window.
2. Hold the glass of water above a piece of paper and watch as the sunlight passes through the glass, bends, and forms a rainbow on the sheet of paper.
3. Try holding the glass at different highest and angles to see it change.

Why?

Rainbows form in the sky when the sunlight refracts (bends) as it passes through raindrops, just as it does when it passes through the glass of water.