To set the scene for this fun date night, I set out this adorable invitation for my hubby to find the day before. It probably didn’t hurt that I paired it with his favorite candy: Skittles! To start the night off right, serve your hubby this magic elixer. Follow the directions created by Jennifer Sbranti outlined on this page to concoct a drink that changes color before his eyes! To go along with the scientist theme, I prepared the drinks in Erlenmeyer flasks that we had from a prior Halloween party. (Just a tip: the food coloring took a lot longer than I expected to dry in the glasses… about a day!)
Now, for the fun part: conduct a few science experiments! See if your hubby can guess the science behind all these cool reactions. Here are the 3 experiments we tried out (click on the title to be directed to a page of instructions): 1. Making Clouds from a bar of Ivory Soap:
Our experience: I’ve seen this experiment floating on the Internet but it truly is fascinating to watch the soap transform in a matter of seconds! We tried making different shapes with the ever-expanding cloud! This page has a great explanation of the “science” behind the fun. 2. Creating a secret note with lemon juice:
Our experience: Definitely, be careful with the heat source you are using. The above link recommends using an iron, however, we have also read that a light bulb would also do the trick. James thought he remembered using a candle to decipher a message with lemon juice ink when he was younger. When we tried this approach, we ended up burning a hole through our paper… oops! 3. Constructing a homemade Diet Coke and Mentos geyser:
Our experience: This was by far our favorite experiment! It was easy to conduct and the explosion was truly memorable. We used a small bottle of Diet Coke and only 3 Mentos- can you imagine what would happen with a 1 liter bottle?! If we had more time, we might have tried making our own slime or baking up a batch of glow in the dark Jello! Need a little more inspiration? Check out Steve Spangler’s newest book that is full of ideas on how to whip up a bit of scientific mystery: Fire Bubbles and Exploding Toothpaste: More Unforgettable Experiments that Make Science Fun After all the fun in the kitchen, take your experimenting upstairs! Wendy’s post, “Guess the Flavor,” explains one last experiment that you could run with your hubby (wink!) No further explanations necessary!
