Caution: Little Scientists at Work!

Last weekend was my son’s 7th Birthday, so we decided to throw him a Scientist party.  By the end of the day, our house was trashed, but we had SO MUCH FUN! We did tons of experiments, ate pizza, then had all the boys spend the night.

We decorated the house with cool signs (A big THANK YOU to Erin for helping me out with these!!):  

Then all of his friends came over and we did science experiments!

We started out with the good old "Mentos and Diet Coke" experiment.  If you drop a package of mint Mentos in a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke, it explodes straight up into the air! Directions on how to do this project can be found HERE.

After that, we shot off Film Canister Rockets.  I didn’t get any photos of this because I was so busy helping kids…and frankly, I was having too much fun making my own rockets.  We could have done this experiment the whole party and been happy….

After our messy outdoor experiments, we moved indoors. Our next experiment was Cleaning Pennies.  I started out by giving the kids wet paper towels and telling them to clean the dirt off the pennies.  No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t get them clean!  Then we showed them how to drop the pennies in the vinegar and salt solution…they LOVED watching their pennies get clean!  (Thanks to Erin Rily for taking so many of these pictures for me while I helped with the experiments!!!)

Next, we learned how to Skewer Balloons.  You should have seen how funny these kids were…they were SO PROUD when they figured out how to do it!!!!

Next we made Cornstarch Suspension.  This was our messiest experiment.  This mixture is neither a solid OR a liquid, but something called a Suspension.  When you squeeze the mixture, it becomes a solid, but when you let it go, it becomes a liquid again.  The kids had a blast rolling it into balls, then watching the balls melt back into a liquid when they stopped rolling it.  Pretty cool!!!

Time for gifts!!!

Then came my favorite part:  THE CAKE!  Every year, I spend hours and hours making crazy detailed themed cake for my kids parties.  This year, the cake was really simple to make, but looked SO SO COOL!!!!

Please ignore the fact that the brain is backwards…I was really tired when I made it. Fortunately non of the kids noticed it…

I bought a Brain Jell-O Mold and filled it with a mixture of orange Jell-O, raspberry Jell-O, evaporated milk and a few drops of blue food coloring. The color of the brain turned out perfect!  Then I made a red velvet sheet cake, sliced it in half and laid them out side by side.  I cut out the profile of a person, then frosted it a peachy skin color.

Voila!  A brain cake for a scientist party!

I also had earthworm cupcakes made by my mother in law for those kids who were too grossed out to eat brains!

All of the Happy Birthday singing made Orrin cry….

All in all, it was a fantastic birthday!  Thanks to my wonderful hubby for helping me with the experiments, and to all my girlfriends who helped out behind the scenes to make signs, helped me clean up, and helped me run the experiments.  You guys are the best!

And Happy Birthday to my big boy..I can’t believe he’s getting so old!  I love you, buddy!!!!