Every year around this time I make a snowstorm in a jar with my kids because we know we probably won’t get real snow. This science experiment is fun, educational and inexpensive to make. I had most of the necessary items at home already and what I didn’t have I purchased at the dollar store.
What You’ll Need:
Mason Jar (16 oz. size)
Baby Oil
Iridescent Glitter
White Paint
Alka Seltzer
*Supplies picture courtesy of onelittleproject.com
How to Make Your Snowstorm:
Add a small squirt of white paint to about 1/4 cup of water, then stir it until combined. Once combined pour the water mixture into the mason jar.
* I recommend not filling your jar all the way to the top because the mixture will fizz up towards the top when you begin your experiment.
Next add a small amount of baby oil and some iridescent glitter to the jar. You could also add colored glitter if you would like, just don’t add too much because it will be hard to see the snowstorm through the solid colored glitter.
Break up the Alka Seltzer tablet into small pieces. Then drop two or three into the jar and let the magic happen! The white water bubbles up through the baby oil making a little snowstorm in a jar! I noticed that each time you add the Alkaline seltzer pieces the snowstorm lasts about 35-40 seconds. You can keep adding more Alkaline seltzer to your jar and redo this experiment, but after about 10 tries you will need to add more water.When you are through with your jar, just put the lid back on and store it away for another day.
My kids really enjoy the fact that the water and oil are immiscible (not forming a homogeneous mixture when added together), so they always separate back into separate layers. It blows their minds that the water is denser than the oil and just sinks through the oil and sits at the bottom.
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Gabriela is wife to husband, Aaron, and mom to four boys! She is a full-time mom, works as a substitute teacher, and owns her own cleaning business. She runs the Facebook group, I Only Make Boys, where she enjoys chronicling her boys' crazy adventures and sharing wisdom with other boymoms.
