These science activities and projects will get your kids excited about learning science. Here are 7 Homeschool Science Experiments to do on a budget!
Raise your hand if your kids love science experiments.
We LOVE them around here, but they can be super costly! They are such a fun way to learn though – and I have two kids that learn best by doing (and not so much sitting in a confined area).
Budget Friendly Science Experiments
Last fall I searched high and low for experiments that will work well with our budget. We did these experiments over the course of the last twelve months, incorporated them into our homeschool lessons and had so much fun!
Check out these 7 budget friendly homeschooling science experiments.
#1: Colorful flowers
Science experiments can be fun. Place white flowers in a vase full of colorful water. Give it about 20 minutes and the flowers will start changing colors. It’s pretty cool to see the flowers change colors.
We used simple colors like red, green, blue and yellow food dye – then allowed the kids to each create their own color by mixing the food dye (purple, orange, etc). Since most plants drink water through their roots, it took anywhere from a few hours up to a full day to see the colors transpose into the white flowers.
So very fun.
#2: Paper Airplane Fun
If you’re on a super budget, but want to teach your kids some valuable science, then you need to do this experiment with them. Create a paper airplane and watch its flight plan go straight. Create another airplane and fold the corner down. And then watch how the airplane doesn’t really fly all too well.
#3: Pop Rocks Fun
Homeschoolers love to have fun, so why not embrace it? Adding Pop Rocks to a bottle of soda is fun enough, but then place a balloon in the opening. The balloon will inflate and your kids will be amazed. This is so budget friendly, but also so fun.
#4: Melted Crayons
How many crayons do you have laying around? Do you have molds you can use? Peel the crayons and place them inside the molds. Place the “oven safe molds” only into the oven and bake at 200 degrees for 10-15 minutes.
You will have a new purpose for your crayons, plus the kids will love watching this transformation.
We used owl molds for our crayons – even the smallest kids helped out by peeling the wrappers off of the crayons while the older kids broke them in half. It almost seemed like “giving” them permission to break crayons made their whole day.
Who knew?!
#5: Freezing Bubbles
Winter is quickly approaching, which means you can do this fun experiment with the kids. This one is super cheap too. Simply take the bubble blowing outside. The bubbles will freeze in the cold weather.
Although we don’t have “winter” snow and cold here in the Phoenix area, we had a great time doing this experiment with the kids up in Minnesota with the cousins last Christmas.
Eleven kids, lots of bubbles, and a morning of excitement completely turned a “boring” snowy day into a fun experiment to see who could make the biggest frozen bubbles.
My kids said “Mom! This is SO cool! Can we move so we can do this every winter?”
… Unfortunately I’d rather shovel “sun” than snow 😆
#6: Grow Mold on Bread
Every homeschooling family needs to do this with their kids ASAP! Growing mold on bread is fun, cheap, and a great way to learn about mold.
Simply put bread in different environment to see how quickly or not quickly mold can grow. Let your kids get creative with where they put their bread.
#7: Static Electricity
Balloons are the perfect partner for doing science experiments on a budget. You can pick up a pack of balloons are the dollar store. Walk around rubbing the balloons on items. Take note of what has the most static.
Schiphile has some great tips on static electricity and provides instructions for studying static electricity and it’s effect on many different materials.
