{Crazy Hidden Colours Science Experiment for Kids}

Crazy Hidden Colours

Science Experiment for Kids

One of our favourite science experiments from our recent Rainbow Fairy Science Party was this 'Hidden Colours' Experiment. (You can read the story about how this experiment involved fairies here.) It's such a simple experiment and the girls just LOVED it - they could have spent all day on this one, trying every liquid in the house!

It's very simple, but it does require red cabbage powder. We got ours as part of this science kit [affiliate link] for kids, but you can also buy the red cabbage powder here [affiliate link], or make your own red cabbage dye (if you make your own, keep in mind that it doesn't keep fresh like the powder does.)

The first step is to mix a tiny amount of the red cabbage powder into a cup* of water. (Since we did this as part of our Fairy Science Party, we used special Fairy Water - which is glittery!) When I say tiny, I mean really tiny. Our science kit came with a teensy scoop that allowed us to measure out 0.3mL of it. Just put a tiny bit on the end of your smallest spoon and mix it in. 

*We used clear, empty yoghurt pots. As you can see in the photo, we used enough water to mostly fill a single-serving yoghurt pot.

The water will turn a beautiful purple colour.

Then pour the purple water into an ice-cube tray so that each compartment is about 3/4 filled (so that the sections don't run together.)

Next, gather up a selection of household liquids (ones that are safe for kids to handle, obviously.) We used apple juice, orange juice, liquid soap, cola, lemon juice, soda water, tap water, tea, tomato juice, milk, coffee, and vinegar.

Use a pipette [affiliate link], an old medicine dropper, or a squirt bottle [affiliate link] with a small nozzle hole to drop a few drops of each liquid into one of the ice cube compartments. Stir with a toothpick and watch what happens.

We found all sorts of beautiful colours hidden in our household liquids!

Then leave it to sit out a while and see what happens to the colours after some time.

This is actually a pH test of the liquids. Red cabbage is a known pH indicator. Depending on the acidity/alkalinity of the liquids, the purple water will change anywhere from green (very alkaline) to red (very acidic).

Tip: We found that the milk made an especially pretty opaque, lilac colour :-)

{Rainbow Fairy Science Birthday Party!}

Rainbow Magic Fairies

Science Adventure:

An Exciting, Colourful Birthday Party!

Princess Pea turned 7 last week, and this year she really tested my creative party planning skills by requesting a 'Science Fairy' party! (Erm...sure, honey, I can do that!) So, I put on my party planning hat and set out creating a Rainbow Magic Fairies Science Adventure party! It needed to involve fairies, magic, science experiments, and plenty of colourful fun! Read on to see what we did to create this super-fun, super-colourful, crazy party!

Rainbow Magic Fairies

Her favourite books are the Rainbow Magic Fairies series [affiliate link]. If you don't know it, check it out, they're actually pretty good books if your child is into imagination and adventure. The stories are well-written and she also likes that there is a fairy with her name, her sister's name, and the names of pretty much all of her friends, too - there are over 100 books in the series, each named after a different fairy, so there's a good chance you can find one with your daughter's name, too. Although they are fairies (inherently traditionally 'girly' to some extent), the fairies themselves have a variety of interests, so something to match most any interest your children may have - be it animals or sports or dance, or whatever. I think they've really helped my 'girly-girl' to widen her horizons, and I appreciate them for that. 

+ Love of Science

That said, there are no 'science fairies' in the series, so I needed to get creative! Since science is her favourite subject at school, she really wanted to combine those two loves into one birthday party theme! (Eh...lucky me!)

My budding scientist :-)

= Rainbow Magic Fairies Science Adventure!

So, I put on my party planning hat, and set out creating a Rainbow Magic Fairies Science Adventure Party (whew, what a mouthful!) It needed to involve fairies, magic, science experiments, and lots of colourful fun! (While most of the experiments were done with household items, I did order this science kit [all product links in this post are affiliate links,] which gave us some special harder-to-get ingredients as well as 'professional' equipment such as test tubes and droppers. But mostly we used empty yoghurt pots and medium and small squeeze bottles.) 

I created a story to build the party around. In the series, the antagonists are Jack Frost and his band of dull-witted goblins, who always cause trouble by messing with the fairies' magical items that they use to control events in the human world. So in our story, Jack Frost was deliberately mixing up all the colours in Fairyland, which the fairies use to colour our world as we know it, and the fairies needed our help to sort out all the colours again. 

I'll share more about the details of the experiments in a series of shorter posts, but for now, here's a glimpse of how the party actually went. I don't, unfortunately, have pictures of all of the experiments they did, but here's an overview:

The Letter

The party started off with the girls receiving a letter:

"Dear friends,

What’s your favourite colour? Everyone has a favourite colour… Mine is green, like the grass and the leaves on the trees… But I also love yellow, like the sun and daffodils, pink like roses, blue like the sky…. in fact, I love all the colours of the rainbow! Just think how dull and boring the world would be without colours... 

Well, as it happens, that is exactly what the evil Jack Frost wants! The colours you see all around you in the human world are controlled by the fairies in Fairyland. But Jack Frost and his band of wicked goblins have mixed up all the colours in Fairyland, and now the fairies are all mixed up and confused! And if the fairies don’t get all their colours back and sorted out, pretty soon all the colours in the human world will disappear! 

The fairies in Fairyland are very worried and we are asking for your help… You will need to use your science skills, some science fairy magic, and your powers of observation (looking carefully) to help us sort out all the colours! Work together with your friends. Remember to record all your observations in your science notes so you can remember how to fix the colours. 

Thank you for always helping us! You are truly wonderful friends.

Yours sincerely, 

Fern, the Green Fairy"

The girls were then divided into small groups, each with an adult/helper. Each girl got a packet with the letter, the rest of the story including the directions for all the experiments, and science notes pages for each experiment if they chose to record their observations (some did, some didn't - my daughter took it very seriously, haha!) Then they each got a pair of science goggles to wear (we borrowed them from our science teacher friend), which they thought was really cool!

Magic Fairy Crystals

The first thing they had to do was mix up some Magic Fairy Crystals. 

"The Science Fairies have some SPECIAL FAIRY CRYSTALS that have magic powers. They have sent us some to give us temporary magic fairy powers, so that we can help the rainbow fairies to find all their colours."

Over the course of the party, the tiny magic crystals (which were really water beads) grew bigger and bigger and they had fun playing with them at the end.

Fairy Waterfall

Next, they had to help find the colours in the Fairy Waterfall:

"In Fairyland, there is the most beautiful, crystal clear waterfall that flows into a lake with a rainbow volcano in the middle! Unfortunately, Jack Frost has turned all the water in the waterfall and lake purple!"

Fairy Waterfall Experiment

Hidden Colours

Next was the Hidden Colours experiment:

"Jack Frost has cleverly hidden colours all around us so the fairies won’t find them! See what colours you can find hidden in these everyday liquids."

Hidden Colours Experiment

[Read all about how we did the Hidden Colours Experiment here.]

Test Your Fairy Powers

 "Have you been checking your magic fairy crystals? Are your magic fairy powers working yet? Let’s test them and see…"

They did a cool surface tension experiment to see if their fairy powers (that they'd gotten from the Magic Fairy Crystals, of course) had kicked in yet.

Magic Milk

Now that their fairy powers were working, they were ready to make some magic!

"Now that your magic fairy powers are working, you can make some colours come alive."

    

 Magic Milk Experiment 

Make A Boat

They had to put their understanding of basic physics to work with the next activity. 

"Make a boat to help the fairies float across the fairy lake to where Jack Frost and the goblins are hiding. Choose whatever materials here you think will help you. Then test your boat to see if it floats."

Boat Building

Rainbow Volcano

Their final experiment involved lots of colourful, fizzing fun!

"Lookout! The Fairyland rainbow volcano is about to erupt! Hopefully it will help us to get back some more colours!"

Rainbow Volcano Experiment

Rainbow Blast

The grand finale was blasting Jack Frost and his wicked goblins right out of Fairyland with this Rainbow Blast experiment (otherwise known as elephant toothpaste!) We used a slightly stronger concentration of ingredients to make it really blast out.

Rainbow Blast Experiment

And finally, the girls had fun mixing up their own magic potions and eating some rainbow snacks! 

Mixing Potions

Rainbow jello cup snacks

Rainbow Magic Fairies Birthday Cake

(made by my incredibly talented friend, Masha)

Some party planning notes:

Since the experiments required a lot of set-up, I decided to forego fancy party food and just order pizza instead - plus some fruit/veggie plates and rainbow jello cups. (Can't have a rainbow party without rainbow jello, right?)

I recruited a 13 year old helper to take one of the groups so that each group would have an 'adult' to help them with the experiment directions. We also made it more manageable by only inviting a few friends.

We held the party outdoors, but even so I wanted to minimize the mess as much as possible, so each experiment was set up on a tray or in a large baking dish. It worked well at containing the mess, and the clean up was really easy.

The girls each took home their story/experiment packet (with explanations of what all the 'magical' ingredients really are, in case they want to do them again at home), their boats they had built, and a Rainbow Magic Fairies book as their party favour.

We ordered this fairy-themed party set.

A happy birthday girl!

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