Science experiments for kids at home: do each twice

Science experiments for kids

Kitchen science, done twice

Easy experiments with things you already have at home. Try each one first on screen in Extreme Drawing, where nothing spills and you can repeat it as often as you like, then do it for real at the kitchen table with a grown-up.

Play in your browser See the experiments

Ages 4 to 10
Household things
Real safety notes

Painted illustration of the painter, goggles on his beret, studying a bottle foaming over in stripes, with red cabbage juice in pink and green glasses and fizzing baking soda.

On screen first, then for real

In Extreme Drawing the paper behaves like the real thing, so the experiments do too. Soap really pushes the colours across the milk, mould only grows where there's food, and red cabbage juice follows the real colour chart from pink to green. On screen your child can predict, try, undo and try again in seconds, with no spills and no waiting.

Then comes the best part: doing it for real. Every page below has a full recipe for the kitchen, with a materials list, step-by-step instructions, the safety notes and clean-up, and an explanation for kids and one for grown-ups. Doing both shows what the screen gets right, and what only real milk, real foam and a real smell can teach.

Group 1

Kitchen chemistry

Mix two things and get something new: a gas, a colour, a brown mark that won't go away.

Painted illustration of a bottle on a tray pouring out a fat foam snake in pink, yellow, blue and white stripes, the painter in goggles leaning back, amazed.

Elephant toothpaste

A warm, stripy snake of foam pours out of a bottle. For real: the safe 3% peroxide version, with an adult pouring.

Painted illustration of the painter pouring red vinegar onto a heap of baking soda on a tray, which fizzes up into pink foam.

Baking soda and vinegar

Drip vinegar on a heap of baking soda and it fizzes up into foam that runs like lava, in the colour of any dye underneath.

Painted illustration of the painter pouring purple red cabbage juice into a row of glasses that go from pink through purple and blue to green, with a lemon and baking soda.

Red cabbage pH indicator

Purple juice turns pink with vinegar and green with baking soda. Dip the whole page and paint with acids.

Painted illustration of the painter pointing at a golden-brown heart and star that appeared on paper after ironing, with an iron, half a lemon and a cotton bud.

Invisible ink

Write with lemon juice, let it vanish, then bring it back brown with the iron. For real: a hair dryer or an adult with an iron.

Group 2

Living things and time

Mould, seeds and yeast are alive, and they take their time. In the app you can skip ahead; for real, you watch it happen day by day.

Painted illustration of the painter peering through a magnifying glass at bread and a strawberry with fuzzy mould spots, beside a calendar with three days crossed off.

Mould in 3 days

Leave food out, tap Wait 3 days, and fuzzy colonies bloom. Salt keeps them away. For real: bread in sealed bags.

Painted illustration of the painter spraying water on cress sprouting in a heart shape on damp kitchen paper, with a seed packet and seeds.

Growing cress

Seeds only sprout while they're damp, and wilt when they dry. Cress seeds are in the full toolbox; chia seeds from the Kitchen sprout too.

Painted illustration of the painter in oven gloves sniffing a golden loaf, with a ball of dough, a rolling pin, a bowl of yeast and a pretzel.

Bread and yeast

Flour and water make dough, yeast makes it rise when it's warm, and the oven bakes a golden crust.

Group 3

Changes of state and mixtures

Nothing new is made here, but things move, separate and escape in surprising ways: gas bursting out of a liquid, colours racing apart, oil refusing to mix.

Painted illustration of a cola bottle on the grass shooting up a tall fountain of foam as mints drop in, the painter in goggles laughing beside it.

Mentos and coke

A cola fountain that rains sticky drops, and the ants come for the sugar. For real: outdoors, with goggles.

Painted illustration of the painter touching a dish of milk with a soapy cotton bud while red, blue, yellow and green food colouring swirls outwards.

Magic milk

Food colouring sits on milk until a touch of soap makes it burst and swirl. Five things from the kitchen.

Painted illustration of the painter shaking a jar, beside a jar of golden oil floating on blue water, a jar of creamy mayonnaise, an egg yolk and mustard.

Oil and water

Oil floats and separates, but beaten with egg yolk it holds together as mayonnaise.

Painted illustration of paper strips and a coffee filter in glasses of water, where black marker dots have spread into blue, pink and yellow bands, watched by the painter.

Paper chromatography

A drop of water on a black marker dot spreads into rings of blue, pink and yellow.

How to choose: by age and by mess

Every child is different, so treat these as starting points. Younger children love the moment something happens; older ones can change one thing at a time and compare. Whatever you pick, the on-screen version works at any age, and the real version always comes with a grown-up close by.

Ages 4 to 6

Short, colourful and safe to touch: magic milk, growing cress, baking soda and vinegar.

Ages 6 to 8

Add a prediction and a second try: red cabbage, invisible ink, bread, oil and water.

Ages 8 to 10

Fair tests and day-by-day records: the mould bags, chromatography, cola and mints heights.

Low mess or high mess

Hardly any: magic milk, invisible ink, sealed mould bags. Bring a tray: elephant toothpaste, the volcano. Outdoors only: cola and mints.

Painted illustration of the painter putting a closed bleach bottle away on a high shelf, the vinegar kept on another shelf, beside an open window.

Some things stay on the screen

In the app you can also set paper on fire, focus the sun with a magnifying glass, and see what happens when bleach meets vinegar. Those are on the screen only: there are no real instructions for them on this site, ever. Instead, the safety pages explain what you saw, why it's dangerous and what to do if it ever happens at home.

Safety pages

Questions about the experiments

What are easy science experiments for kids at home?

Magic milk, red cabbage juice, invisible ink and baking soda with vinegar all use things from the kitchen cupboard and take under half an hour. Each page here has the full recipe and the safety notes.

Which experiments need an adult?

All of them need a grown-up nearby, and some need one to do a step: pouring the peroxide for elephant toothpaste, the hot water for red cabbage, the heat for invisible ink, and dropping the mints outside for the cola geyser.

Why try an experiment on screen before doing it for real?

On screen children can predict, try, undo and repeat in seconds, without spills or waiting days for mould. Then the real version is about checking: does the real milk do what the screen showed?

Start in the Science tab

Pour some milk, drip some colour and touch it with soap. Then pick an experiment to do for real.

Play in your browser For teachers