Spooky Science experiments

Hey kids, at the boys' school they do Spooky Science experiments for an activity at their Halloween parties.  I thought I would share them with you because they are easy and fun!!!  Plus they involve dry ice.  Always a good time.

You will need dry ice (of course) and liquid dish soap.  All can be obtained at the grocery store.  Also, from home, two bowls (about cereal or ice cream sized and with no lip), dish rag, a plastic solo cup and water.  Before beginning you will need to break up the dry ice.  A hammer works great.  Remember not to touch the dry ice because it will burn you. Tongs or gloves work nicely for handling the ice.  (I have to confess, at first I wrote "thongs."  Bwahaha!  Thongs would not do so well...)   Don't drink it either.  Blech!  You may want to lay down a plastic table cloth too...

Experiment 1: soap snake

Fill a plastic cup 1/2 full of warm water
Add a chunk or two of dry ice (ice cube size)

Aaaahh!  Watch it smoke!  That's always cool.  Now add a little bit of liquid soap.  There will be bubbles galore and they will snake out of the cup onto the table.  Weee!  Pop it.  It's ok to touch the bubbles!

Experiment 2: I don't know what it's called but I would call it the Crystal Ball

Fill one bowl 1/2 full of warm water. 
Fill the other bowl with warm water but add liquid soap.
In bowl with NO soap add some dry ice.
Dip your dish rag (we used strips of dish rag) into the soap water.  (We also got better effects when we added some soap to the rag strip.)  Wring it out and get it sudsy.
Stretch the rag strip taut and drag it very slowly across the top of the bowl with the dry ice in it.  Your goal is to create a lid of soap across it, sort of like when you dip the bubble wand into a bottle of bubbles.  It may take a few attempts to get that right.  Once you have watch the gas from the dry ice blow a HUGE bubble!  It looks like a crystal ball!  (I see Auntie Em.  She's...she's clutching her heart!)

See how big it gets and then POP it!

Those were very fun to do and we did them several times.  The kids had a blast and I loved playing in the dry ice.  Since I was room mom I got to take the extra ice home.  Weeeee!
Happy Halloween!