Ian's Mad Science Party

Ian's Mad Science birthday party was so much fun to plan! I had brainstormed with him three or four themes that would be workable and then I left it up to him to decide. I was excited this was the one he chose. There were tons and tons of great ideas on Pinterest. (I'll try to give credit when I remember where I borrowed the idea from. Nearly all of the ideas are copied or modified from somewhere else. :))

Ian helped to make the signs for his party. He thought his flask should have lots of bubbles coming out of it :)

 

We kept our decorations relatively simple. Matt was able to borrow some science glassware from the high school. We used colored water of varying heights to add interest.

 We also hung balloons, crepe paper, some fun poster board flasks (thanks, Amy!), and some caution signs.

We got his "welcome table" ready the night before. A friend had gotten some disposable lab coats donated from his workplace. We purchased some fun, colorful safety goggles on Amazon. We bought a new Magic School Bus book as a birthday "guest book" for his friends to autograph.

We decorated our entryway with a "Welcome, scientists" easel, a caution sign, and a "scan hand to enter"poster. Doesn't Ian look cute in his lab coat, goggles, and "Future Scientist" t-shirt? (Thanks, Grammy and Papa!)

 Friends started arriving promptly at 2:00 on the day of the party. Ian welcomed each of his six guests and showed them where they could pick up a lab coat and goggles and sign his book.

We got a picture of Ian with each of his scientist friends in their science gear. (Uncle Jon served as primary photographer. He did a great job! Thanks, Jon!)

with best buddy, Caleb L.

The boys thought the dry ice in the punch was super cool. (Thanks for buying it for us, Grandpa and Grandma.)

We spent the first thirty minutes doing stations. The goal was to have the boys move independently through these stations -- to start when they arrived and then rotate as they finished. Since they all arrived at about the same time and completed the activities at about the same rate, though, the boys basically did all three stations together. It ended up working fine that way as well. We're blessed to have a family full of teachers. Grandma, Grammy, and Amy were all willing to lead one of the stations, and they all did a great job adding their own flair and teaching excitement to the stations.

Grandma was in charge of the first station -- Color Changing Milk (from Steve Spangler's website). The boys had fun seeing what happened when they put dishwashing soap on the food coloring drops in milk. They were very careful and listened intently to Grandma's directions.

Grammy led the next station. She taught the boys how to use a pipette. Then, they were able to test how many drops of water fit on a penny, nickel, dime, and quarter. (This experiment was found at TheScienceMommy.com.) The boys concentrated very carefully as they counted each drop and recorded their results.

Aunt Amy was in charge of the final station -- building structures out of gum drops and toothpicks. She gave the boys a few choices of what to build, but most thought it would be fun to try to build a structure strong enough to hold a book.

Aunt Amy did a countdown before she placed the book on the boys' structures. Unfortunately, most structures collapsed, but the boys took this as a challenge and kept on trying! They learned a lot about which shapes were the strongest.

Next, I led the boys in three more experiments. I had pre-measured most of the ingredients to save us a little time. First, I led the boys in a cooperative activity -- building a density column (from Steve Spangler's website). The boys had to guess which liquids were most dense and then work together to pour the six liquids (honey, Karo syrup, dish soap, water, vegetable oil, and rubbing alcohol) into the graduated cylinder. Because I had colored the water and rubbing alcohol, the final result was a beautiful rainbow!

The next experiment (from Parents.com) was a twist on the baking soda/vinegar reaction. The boys each measured baking soda into a balloon, then carefully dumped it into the vinegar inside an old water bottle. They were excited that the reaction caused the balloon to blow up, although I think they were hoping that the balloon would explode.

We got a picture of the boys with their inflated balloons. (Andres, Paul, Ian, Caleb L., Nate, Christopher, and Caleb B.) Don't they look so cute and grown-up?

The final experiment was Ian's (and probably most of the boys') favorite hands-on activity: Elephant Toothpaste (from Steve Spangler's website). It does have a pretty impressive reaction, with the foamy substance oozing out the top of a water bottle for quite some time.

Then, we took a break for food. Ian had requested some of his favorite foods -- Doritos, popcorn, M & Ms, grapes, strawberries, and cherry tomatoes.

They also drank some steaming (dry ice) lemonade and ate some cake.

The boys did a static electricity experiment where they tested a  bunch of different materials with a charged balloon to see which ones stuck to the balloon.

Finally, Matt led the boys in some "wow" demonstrations. He started with the infamous egg-in-a-bottle experiment. Matt's former science teacher background came out in full force. His energy and enthusiasm were contagious.The boys were hanging on Matt's every word as he talked them through what he was doing. They expressed audible surprise when the egg fell into the bottle -- and again when Matt got it back out by blowing into the jar.

We ended the party with the Diet Coke and Mentos demonstration. Another talented teacher, Aunt Chelsea, explained the experiment and added the Mentos with her hands, and the boys thought it was pretty cool that it made a Diet Coke fountain.

Of course, the boys wanted to do this fun demonstration again. This time, Matt used a special contraption he had made using a drill, floss, a bottle cap, Mentos, and a binder clip with instructions online. The Diet Coke geyser went WAY higher this time and even tipped over to spray Matt as he ran away. The boys thought this was hilarious.

We ran out of time to have Ian open his birthday presents while the guests were there. Ian handed out favor bags to each boy. Inside each bag was a folder filled with science experiment instructions/explanations (all of the experiments we had done at the party plus some new ones that the boys might enjoy doing at home). I don't remember the website I used, but I used the template of another lady who had also given out similar folders at her son's birthday party. We also included a test tube filled with M&M's, a plastic container filled with Nerds, and 2 experiments-in-a-box that I found at Dollar Tree. The boys also were able to take home their lab coats and safety goggles.

Thanks, Jon, for taking pictures! Thanks, Jon and Chelsea, for watching the little boys. And, thanks to the whole extended family for their help in making the party run smoothly. Grandpa's name wasn't mentioned specifically, but he did a lot of behind-the-scenes work and helping boys during the experiments.

This party ended up being a LOT of fun. The boys were busy the whole time and seemed to enjoy all of the activities.They seemed to be at a good age, though I think that kids older than six would perhaps do an even better job on the experiments. I was thankful I had pre-measured a lot of items so that we could avoid some of the mess and confusion. As always, I had too many activities planned. I could have completely skipped the static electricity experiment and maybe even one of the other hands on experiments. But, I'd always rather be overprepared. :) Overall, I wouldn't have done much differently since the boys had such a wonderful time.

What a fun party -- that was also hopefully a good learning experience for the kids as well. :)