July Science Ideas for Kids

Do you have a child who is more interested in science than in arts and crafts? In this post I am sharing several great science and engineering ideas that will delight your kids.

Science at Planet Smarty Pants

Smarty had a “science week” in her Y camp last week. She loved her field trip to California Academy of Science in San Francisco and to local The Round Pizza where kids could see how pizza is made. Camp counselors also showed kids several science experiments including homemade bouncing balls. Smarty came home and begged me to make one with her. First she wanted to just randomly mix the materials and see what happens, but I explained to her that for this experiment it is actually quite important to know how much of what you need.

Honestly, this experiment looks a lot messier in real life than it does on other people’s blogs! It also seems that you need to get ratios exactly right. At least we ended up with silly putty and not with slime, and Smarty had a lot of fun with this chemistry experiment for kids.

Science From After School Participants

Now let’s see what others did this week:

1. Ashley from Life with Moore Babies was a guest on Enchanted Homeschooling Mom where she gave a tutorial on making sun catchers from gelatin. I’d say that this takes messiness level a notch higher than bouncing balls and is definitely a parent-led project, but kids can help with making their DIY sun catchers (also known as window clings) colorful and glittery and deciding where to put them up.

2. Mary Warner, a guest at In the Playroom contributed a tutorial on making classic plastic wrap parachutes.

3. Navigating by Joy introduceds a complex matter of atom composition through food. These atomic pancakes look like so much fun!

4. My co-host The Measured Mom shared a great post about planning science activities for children 3-7 years of age and introducing scientific method.

5. There’s Just One Mommy made a DIY water wall with her kids. I tried to talk Smarty into making one, but she said that this is “for little ones” I think it’s so much fun for kids of any age, especially if they play together.

6. I love child-led projects. Inspiration Laboratories described how her son wanted to invent a bouncing ball dropping machine and how she met him halfway in this creative challenge. That’s really what it means to encourage your child thinking without taking over an entire thing. Definitely recommend checking this post out.

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