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Mad Scientist Party Ideas
Let the kids enjoy a mad scientist party that offers a close look at the wonders of science.
It can be magical, tasty, silly, and fun when you create a few amazing experiments. Slip on the lab coats - it's time to explore the mysterious realms of weird science!
Resources:
Party Supplies Free Printable Invitations
Invitations
Make science party invitations that appear right before your guests' eyes using this scientific experiment. Use paintbrushes or toothpicks to write the mad scientist party details with milk on white paper. Tell your guests to heat the paper over a candle or in the oven, with adult supervision. The heat will reveal the words!
Your mad scientist party invitations can say "Ooze on over to (your child's name) Lab for a Weird Science Birthday Party!" Then include the rest of your party details.
As a variation, put pictures of Albert Einstein with his tongue stuck out on the front of your invitations. Write "You're invited to the Mad Lab!" in 'wacky font' on the front. Include party details inside of the cards.
Lastly, you can get plastic test tubes for the invitations. Fold paper with party details written on it, and stick it in the test tubes. Hand-deliver the invitations to the young scientists.
Decorations
Cut out question marks from black construction paper, and tape them to the fence or the wall outside your house. You can use 'weird font' to write signs like "Electricity", "Gas", "Chemicals", and tape them around the party area. Put up a sign that says "(Your child's name) Lab" on the front door.
Have several tables in your mad scientist party room. Cover the tables with plastic vinyl covers to make them look like lab counters. Place jars or beakers filled with colored water on the table, and run clear hoses from one jar to another to look like experiments. Borrow microscopes, chemistry sets, molecule models, magnifying glasses, compasses, and so on, and place them on the table and all around the party room.
To add more to your scientific table decorations, put a rubber band around six or seven large test tubes. Tie a ribbon bow over the rubber band. Arrange tubes to they stand with open ends up. Fill them with water and add a flower or two.
Place various scientific theme posters on the walls. Decorate the mad scientist party area with balloons and streamers of neon green, neon orange and neon blue colors.
Make tiny messages for your guests. Put a magnifying glass or a microscope on the table so the kids can read them.
Cover food table with a theme tablecloth. Fill beakers with candies and snack mix and put them on the food table for a centerpiece. Hang a personalized banner in the area with a "Happy Birthday" message.
Guest Arrival and Introductory Activities
When your guests arrive for the mad scientist party, have a "Scientific Assistant" (one of the helpers) greet them and give bags with science gear (child safety goggles, nylon lab aprons, notebooks, and magnifying glasses). Explain to the kids what you'll be doing during the science birthday party, and establish ground rules right away (e.g., no running around tables, no fooling around with ingredients, etc).
*Professor-X Lab Coats: Cover the table with newspapers or freezer paper. Lay out fabric markers.
As your mad scientist party guests arrive, give each one a plain white shirt to decorate as a lab coat. You can use T-shirts, or look for used front-buttoning shirts at thrift shops. Make glasses for each scientist out of black pipe cleaners, or provide toy glasses, if you like.
*Toothpick Towers: Prepare large Ziploc bags with kids' names written on them before the party. Put small Ziploc bags inside the large ones. Fill one small bag with about 100 toothpicks, another one with Tootsie Rolls, another one with Cheese Puffs, and the last one with Gummy Bears.
The kids' task is to build the tallest, most stable structure, using the materials provided. Children will love creating their own "towers."
You can have the kids make structures that resemble molecule shapes using the same materials. The activity then becomes "Make a Molecule Center."
Favors
Send the scientists home with magnets, compasses, magnifying glasses, kaleidoscopes. You can also offer the kids easy-to-do scientific experiments to take home as mad scientist party favors.
Mad Scientist Party Games
You can organize your science birthday party area into various "experiment stations," if you choose. Have a station set up for each experiment. If you have many kids attending your party, split them into two or three groups.
*Slime Creation: Help kids in making slime.
Mix 2 cups of white glue and 1 1/2 cups of water in a large bowl. Add a few drops of food coloring. In a separate container, dissolve 2 tsp of Borax in 2/3 cups warm water. Mix well.
Combine the Borax solution with the glue solution and watch what happens to the mixture. Distribute to the guests for exploration. Tell the kids not to eat the Slime!
*Magnifying Objects: Before the mad scientist party, take close-up pictures of everyday items. Print the pictures, and glue them onto colored construction paper. Draw a magnifying glass around each picture, so they look as though they are being viewed through a magnifier.
Have the kids examine the pictures and try to guess what everyday items are represented. Since the items have been enlarged, identifying them should be a challenge.
*Active Volcano: A day before the mad scientist party, form a piece of modeling clay about the size of a baseball into a mountain shape. Put the shape on waxed paper. Using your fingers, pinch the sides of the clay to form lumps that look like lava coming down the sides of the volcano. Poke a hole in the middle of the volcano. Let the clay dry overnight.
In the morning of the party, paint the volcano with brown paint. Let the paint dry thoroughly.
At party time, make your volcano active: put 1 tsp of baking soda in the center of the volcano. Then add 1 tbsp of vinegar to make it erupt. Watch out!
Tip: For safety reasons, it's best to have this experiment outside.
*Sink 0r Swim: Fill a bin with water half full. Place everyday items near the bin. Get the kids to guess which items would sink and which ones would swim. Get them to write their guesses in their notebooks. Then do the experiments to determine if they were right or not.
*Magnet Mania: Get a variety of magnets and magnet sets. Next, bring various objects - both metal and non-metal.
The objective of this mad scientist party station is to discover which objects stick to the magnets and which do not. The kids can learn what effect the magnets have on each other and the objects they touch.
*Acid & Base: Before the science birthday party, boil 1 cup of shredded red cabbage until water is dark. Dilute it with water until medium purple. The purple water will show if something is an acid or a base. If the water turns light green or yellow color (after adding the substance), then the substance is an acid. And if it turns dark green or blue - it is a base.
Divide this liquid solution in several glasses. Have the kids guess what color the water will turn. Add baking soda (turns green), bleach (turns yellow), sprite (turns light purple), etc. Get litmus paper to check the acidity levels.
*Static Electricity: Give each mad scientist party guest a balloon and an empty soda can. Have them blow up their balloons and rub them on their heads.
Put soda can on flat surface, and applying the balloon, see if the can moves. Next, get the kids to stick their balloons on the wall.
*Suck the Egg into the Bottle: First, hard boil an egg. Next, get a glass bottle that has an opening smaller than the egg. (Starbucks' Frappuccino bottle will do the job.) Show the kids that the egg will not go inside the bottle on its own.
Pour boiling water into the bottle. Place the egg back on the opening of the bottle. The air pressure created by the hot water sucks the egg into the bottle. It takes time, but it's so much fun!
*Rocket Launch: Do this mad scientist party activity outside. You'll need an empty film canister (Fuji works best), construction paper, tape, baking soda and vinegar.
Cover the canister with construction paper and make a nose cone by cutting a circle and twisting the paper into a cone shape. Tape the cone to the bottom side of the canister.
Put some baking soda into the canister and add some vinegar. Quickly put the lid on and place the rocket onto a launching pad. The rocket will blast into the air. Repeat the experiment with several rockets asking the kids to predict which one will go the highest and why.
Food and Drink Science Birthday Cakes:
*Volcano Cake: Bake two 8" round cakes and two Pyrex-bowl dome cakes. Trim and stack the cakes to look like a mountain. Frost it brown and sprinkle it with crushed chocolate graham crackers.
Use Fruit Roll-Ups: blue ones for the water around the volcano, red ones down the side for lava, green and yellow for the trees and foliage. Put several sparkles around the top. Cut out a hole from top down inside the cake. Put a tall glass in the hole filled with dry ice. Then add some hot water inside the glass (on top of dry ice) and lit the sparkles!
*Compass Cake: Bake two round cakes. Cover one with frosting, top with second cake, and frost the entire cake with white frosting.
Using a frosting tube, draw a compass face onto the cake, marking north, south, east, and west. Mad Scientist Party Food Ideas:
*Scientific Celery: Cut celery stalks and set them in glasses of water tinted with food coloring. Let the celery stalks soak up the colored water. Then remove them from the glasses, and serve to the kids with cream cheese or peanut butter.
*Popcorn Volcano Eruption: Spread out a large clean sheet on the floor and have the kids sit outside the edge. Set a popcorn maker in the center, and prepare popcorn according to directions. Do NOT put the lid on the popcorn maker!
Watch the "volcano" erupt and shoot "hot lava" all over the sheet. Make sure that everyone stays away from the popper while it's on, so the kids don't get sprayed with hot oil or kernels.
*Mad Scientist Wraps: Prepare or buy tortilla wraps. Slice green stuffed olives, red bell peppers, and shredded lettuce.
At mad scientist party, use olives and pepper strips to make mad scientist faces and bodies: put green olive slices for eyes, whole black olives for arms, pepper strips for mouth, tiny "C-shaped" olive slices for nose. Have lettuce sticking out of the wraps for hair, and two pepper slices for legs.
*Pizza
*Hotdogs
*Meatballs & Spaghetti
*Chips & Dip
*Ice CreamMad Scientist Party Drink Ideas:
*Igor-Ade: Put 1 1/2 cups of apple juice and 3-oz of lime-flavored gelatin in a saucepan. Cook on low heat until gelatin dissolves, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon.
Remove from heat. Stir in another 1 1/2 cups of apple juice. Pour mixture into a pitcher. Chill in refrigerator for 2 hours, or until slightly thickened.
Divide gelatin mixture evenly between 6 glasses. Slowly pour about 1/2 cup of orange-flavored drink down the side of each glass so that it floats on top of the green mixture.
*Various Sodas
*Kool-AidŽ
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