Have you ever tried making your own ghosts? We made some active ghosts as we played in the kitchen using ordinary, everyday ingredients and a bit of chemistry.
To make ghosts, put a few spoonfuls of baking soda into a bowl. While a grownup slowly adds water to the baking soda, kids can stir. Only use enough water to make a thick paste. Once that’s ready, fill a few spaces in an empty ice cube tray. We put 2 googly eyes in each cube and then put them in the freezer.
After an hour or so, or you can leave them longer, we popped them out of the tray and into a clear container. Now, for the chemistry. Pour some vinegar into a small bowl and using an eye-dropper squirt vinegar onto the baking-soda ghost cube. The ghost starts to fizz and foam and the googly eyes move in the liquid.
This was easy to do and quite exciting to watch for a 3 year old and a 6 year old. The soda cube got smaller and smaller with each squirt and there was more and more bubbling and fizzing. Afterwards, Big Sister wanted to know if water would work instead of vinegar. We tried plain water on one of the cubes, which melted but didn’t fizz. Little Sister liked making the cube smaller and smaller and all ‘melty’.
Kids are scientists by nature. They are always trying to see what will happen, from constantly dropping a spoon over the edge of a high chair to putting the cat in the kiddie pool. Kids like to explore and discover. Did you know that kids ask more than 300 questions a day? Besides answering all these questions, we can support their curiosity with some simple science in the kitchen. Would your kids be interested in making their very own ghosts for Halloween?