Rainbow Reactions

It is no surprise we love mixing things up, testing concoctions, and making crazy experiments. There rainbow reactions are no different! If you are looking for a great activity to test prediction and learn about chemical reactions, you’ve come to the right place!

RAINBOW REACTIONS

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Chemistry for Kids | Rainbow Reactions

Setting up the Experiment

For this project, I gave the boys the problem of trying to make reactions that we could see and compare. We wanted to record our observations and attempt to make the biggest reactions by mixing a variety of ingredients together that we “thought” would create a bubbling chemical reaction based on what we already knew about the combination of these ingredients.

We decided to color code the different reaction to make it easier to compare and contrast the different mixtures. We even made a simple hand drawn chart of our ideas and our predictions for what we thought would happen.

Science Reaction Kit

Materials:

Baking Soda
Flour
Alka-Seltzer Tablets
Citric Acid

Vinegar
Water
Food Coloring

Test Tubes
Corks (optional)

Creating Rainbow Reactions

The idea behind this activity is to try a variety of mixtures and solutions. We used ones the boys created on their own, but please do not limit your thinking or ideas to what you see here! When we set out, we thought we could make our corks FLY down our sidewalk, but we quickly learned our corks were too porous and let out too much air. We simply adjusted and made it so our reactions overflowed onto the paper, still creating some pretty awesome art!

Here are some of the examples of what we made. {We had some major technical difficulties this week in the form of a certain toddler pouring water all over my computer. Therefore, we weren’t able to get all of the images and videos loaded that we took for this experiment. Hopefully, I can get those updated soon!

Rainbow Reactions with Baking Soda and Vinegar

Vinegar + Baking Soda

Reactions with Water and Citric Acid

Water + Citric Acid {hmmm.. no reaction yet}

 

Rainbow Chemical Reactions

Water + Citric Acid + Baking Soda { Instant Reaction}

 

Rainbow Reactions with Vinegar and Flour

Water + Citric Acid + Flour – No Reaction
added baking soda…. Instant Reaction

As I mentioned before, we continued with these making concoctions and potions to represent each color of the rainbow. Poor Camera 🙁  However, at the end of everything, we had a pretty amazing sprawl of reaction mess.

Rainbow Reactions Art

Steam Activities for Kids

I am excited to be taking part in a month long series focused on STEAM activities for kids! I am honored to be joining some of my favorite blogs that encourage critical thinking and problem solving in young children. This week all of our projects have the theme of “React”.

Clever Lever Chain Reactions  //  Babble Dabble Do

Smoosh Painting //  Meri Cherry

Glowing Hands  //  All For the Boys

Color Changing Chemical Clock // Left Brain Craft Brain

Colorful Chemical Reactions for Kids  //  Frugal Fun for Boys

Rube Goldberg Machine  // TinkerLab

Inertia Zoom Ball // What Do We Do All Day?

Did you miss all of our Flying Adventures last week? And be sure to follow along for the next three weeks while we Harness, Compute and Grow, all with the power of STEAM.

More Adventures in Chemistry for Kids

 Fizzy Dough Experiment 15 Science Experiments that Pop Fizz and Crackle  15-Science-Experiments-for-Older-Kids

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11 thoughts on “Rainbow Reactions”

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  3. Love the charting component of this experiment. It takes the learning into a whole new direction, especially when the kids come up with it themselves. Looks fun!

  4. Sue

    I can’t wait to try these explorations with my grandchildren. Thanks for the great ideas.

  5. Glad you had fun with all the fun reactions and so sorry about your computer!!

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  7. I love that you color coded the experiments and encouraged your kids to test out different ideas!

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