Easy Birthday Party Ideas - Birthday Party Themes - Boardman's Birthday Party Ideas
Boardman's Birthday Party Ideas
Free party ideas with many party themes for your child's next party!
Creative ways for you to give your child the best birthday party ever.

BBPI Main Page - Party Theme Page

 

Science Lab Magic
Give them a science lesson they'll think is cool!

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Invitation Ideas:

Ooze on over to "Child's Name" Wild Lab
Use graphics of test tubes or lab equipment

Purchase some largish test tubes with rubber stoppers and roll up the invitation inside the test tube.  Put a label on the test tube that says:  
EUREKA!  WE HAVE DISCOVERED THE SECRET FORMULA FOR
BIRTHDAY PARTY  FUN!  Needless to say, these must be hand-delivered!

birthday party in a box

Decorations:
Black and Silver for a high tech lab or green for ooze and slime.
Or blue, white and silver for an institutional look.

Cake:
Any cake covered with green frosting to look like slime
.  OR
A Cake made from two pound cakes, sliced horizontally, and positioned end to end.  Rounded one end, and use the scraps at the top to look like a test tube.   Frosted part white, for the empty part, and the lower 2/3 blue.  Use blue M&Ms for bubbles coming up from the bottom and overflowing the top.

Use sparkler candles.  Have the birthday child blow through a funnel to put them out, while you talk about air pressure.

Goodie Bag:
Add goodies like face mask, lab Dr. stuff, magnifying glass and they will have the things they make.  'Exploding' capsules that expand into sponge animals or things, tablets for bath that turn colors or fizz. 

Activities:

As the kids arrive, assign them name tags that identify which "lab team" they are on.  Ask some teens or pre-teens to be the lab team leaders and take a group.

Have each team paint a volcano landscape previously made out of papier-mâché formed around a 2 liter soda bottle.  They can also set up a town scene around the volcano using mini people, legos, etc.

Next, watch  "Ms (or Mr.) Wizard:

(1)  Red cabbage extract will turn some amazing colors depending on what you mix it with -- acid or base.  Colors range from blue to yellow to pink to orange.  You boil about a cup of shredded red cabbage until the water is dark, strain it, and then dilute with water until it's medium purple rather than black.  Keep a beaker of the stuff around to compare the original color, then add small amounts to whatever clear liquids you have around the house:  Sprite or 7-up, baking soda dissolved in water, white vinegar, ammonia, chlorine bleach, pickle juice -- use your imagination -- and common sense!  You don't want to mix ammonia with bleach, for instance.

(2)  Make a "ball of oil" by filling a glass jar half full of water, slowly
adding a layer of rubbing alcohol (floats on top of the water) and then
dropping in a tablespoon of oil.  It's heavier than the alcohol but lighter
than the water, and if it gets equal pressure from all sides, it makes a
cool sphere.

Have the teams rotate to stations:

Chemical Lab:
Ooze
Need 3/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup water
Mix together.  Add green food coloring to look like ooze.

Is it a solid or a liquid?
Both water and cornstarch (one liquid one solid) have long and floppy molecules allowing them to take on different shapes.  Gravity or you can pull on the molecules.

SLIME   (need: cups, Popsicle sticks, glue, water and borax)
Need the following per child.
1sturdy disposable cup
Popsicle stick
2 oz white glue
2 oz water
Put both the glue and water in cup and mix up.
Mix together 1 1/2 teaspoons borax per each 1/2 cup water.
Add 2 oz of this mix to each child's cup.  Have them stir, it will instantly began to cling together.

What happens?
Glue molecules are long and stringy.  Borax hooks them together.

Oil and water prints
take a pie pan, fill half full of water, mix some powdered tempera paint with oil and spoon onto the water.  The drops of oily paint float on the water and if you push a piece of paper onto it, the resulting print looks a bit like marbled paper. 

Light prints on blueprint paper -- from a kit; 

Electric Lab
Static Electricity (need:  balloons, aluminum soda can)
1.  Have them blow up their balloons and rub them in their hair to make their hair rise with the electricity.
2.  Set soda can on a hard surface so it can roll.  Use one of the rubbed balloons and move it closer to the can.  Does it move the can?
3.  Will the rubbed balloon stick to a wall?

Why?
Molecules are charged (+ and -).  Normally, the amounts equal each other, they are neutral or have no charge.  When one type moves, it makes electricity.  Objects with the opposite charge will be attracted to each other.  Objects with the same charge will move apart.

A Shocking Experience
Need one per child,
1 penny
1 lemon
1 paper clip
Cut slit 1/4 inch in to the lemon to fit the penny, then another for the paperclip, close to but not touching the penny.
Let the kids touch their tongues to each of the metals.  Can they feel the electricity?

What the heck happened?
The child's tongue serves as a bridge to allow electricity to flow in a complete circuit or cycle.

Motion
Falling Coin (or why we need to wear our seat belts)
Need:
1 glass
1 index card
1 coin
Place card over glass evenly.  Place coin in center.
Flick the card end with your finger to send it flying.  What happens to the coin?   It should fall into the glass.

What's going on?
The Law of Inertia:  An object in motion will tend to stay in motion, while the object at rest will tend to stay at rest.
This is why we wear seatbelts...if a car we rode in were to stop suddenly, we would go flying.

It's a Gas
Suck an Egg into a Jar
Need:
1 hard boiled egg, peeled and at room temperature
1 narrow top jar (most baby food jars work well)
HOT water
Show the children how the egg will not fit into the jar on it's own.
Now, fill the jar with the hot water for 2-3 minutes.  Pour this out and set the egg on the opening.  The egg will end up inside the jar.

What's happening:
Hot air expands and takes up space.   When the jar begins to cool, the air inside cools.   This cooler air contracts, pulling down, while the outside air pushes down.   The egg is sucked into the jar.

Volcano:  Make a volcano from a soda can, set on a tin pan and form papier-mâché around it.  Leave the hole in the top open. Dry and paint browns and greens.
To make the volcano 'perform' put baking soda in the can then pour in vinegar, tinted with food coloring.  (best outside)

 
 

  

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