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Dig in to some fun Christmas Science Experiments this holiday season! Read on for fifteen holiday-themed experiments.
The majority of activities I see around the holidays are cookies and crafts. Now, I love eating cookies, but I am notorious for baking bad ones every year. I mean awful.
Crafts, on the other hand, I can do. But my oldest doesn’t love them. He would rather get elbows-deep in a Christmas science experiment. That’s okay with me – less glitter to vacuum up. (JK you can’t vacuum glitter, it’s here to stay forever.)
Check out these hands-on Christmas science experiments and STEM activities to help keep learning going over the holidays!
Looking for even more wintery fun? Check out our 20 Winter STEM Activities post!
5 Christmas & Chemistry Science Experiments with Slime
Some of you probably already have buckets of slime around, but we save the messy stuff for special occasions. These fun and slimy recipes will get your kids experimenting with chemistry for some holiday science:
Peppermint Slime
If you don’t love slime, one way to make it a little more… palatable… is to start with a slime that has a fantastic smell. The kids can get their hands dirty, and the peppermint extract in this recipe from Preschool Inspirations will make your kitchen smell great!
Gingerbread Slime Recipe
If you’re not a big peppermint fan, check out this slimy gingerbread recipe from Natural Beach Living using real cinnamon and ginger. Glitter is optional!
Melting Snowman Winter Slime
I’m not sure if Frosty would love this concept, but your kids sure will! This recipe for melting, white, slimy snowman from Little Bins for Little Hands is a brilliant way to keep those little hands busy. Small snowman pieces are great for a little sneaky, fine-motor, pincer grip practice, too!
Snow Slime Recipe
If you don’t have a bone-deep fear of glitter, check out this beautiful recipe for glittery, sparkly snow from Growing a Jeweled Rose. This post also shows you how to make adorable little snowman containers in case you want to torment your enemies with the gift of glitter and slime.
Christmas Tree Fluffy Slime Recipe
This is a fun recipe and activity from 123 Homeschool4Me. First, mix up the fluffy green slime. Then, decorate your Christmas tree. This fluffy green slime is a shaving cream-based recipe – a smell I love.
5 Christmas Kitchen Science Experiments
Kitchen STEM activities are a fun and engaging way to get kids into science – especially early on. These experiments can be done with some simple ingredients from the kitchen.
Holiday Milk Magic
An easy set-up, easy clean-up experiment from Science Kiddo. Learn about surface tension with a few, simple kitchen items. This one is a great middle ground between painting and science. Your crafty ones will enjoy this experiment.
Homemade Edible Glass
If it’s cold where you are, you might already be dealing with sheets of ice stuck to the windshield of your car. With this cool experiment, you will create an edible sugar glass that looks exactly like that. Unique ideas and step-by-step directions from Go Science Girls.
Freezing and Melting
Winter is the perfect time to experiment with freezing and melting. Creekside Learning brings us a simple kitchen science experiment that will encourage your kids to explore. Change up these ingredients to whatever you have in the fridge!
Dissolving Candy Canes
Lemon Lime Adventures has the instructions for this simple, but powerful exercise in observation that will encourage your kids to use the scientific method to predict, record, and compare what happens to the dissolving candy canes.
Marshmallow Catapult
It’s Always Autumn has this listed under summer fun, but just picture launching your marshmallows into cups of warm cocoa instead! Build these cool little structures with just a few kitchen items and let the fun ensue!
5 Christmas Science Experiments Around the Tree
Experiment with different aspects of science with these fun ornament and tree themed STEM projects for the holidays!
Icicle Ornaments
Happy Hooligans teaches us to take a classic science experiment into an ornament for your tree. Making borax crystals is always a huge hit!
Magnetic Ornaments Christmas Science Activity
Little Bins for Little Hands brings us another fun, hands-on activity for exploring science. Make predictions and figure out what materials are magnetic. Plus, you’ll end up with a few new ornaments for your tree!
Binary Name Ornaments
If you have a kid that’s into coding, this is the project for them! Schooling a Monkey brings us a brilliant idea for a personalized ornament.
Grow Your Own Christmas Tree
Start early with this one! Gift of Curiosity teaches us to grow our own Christmas tree right out of a sponge. She uses grass seed, but chia might sprout even faster.
Gumdrop Christmas Trees
When you’re ready to take a break from chemistry, try some engineering with this fun building challenge from Left Brain Craft Brain. The less messy side of STEM!
Bonus Christmas STEM Project!
I love this STEM activity with circuits from The Learning Hypothesis! Turn any coloring page or drawing into a light up decoration. What a great project that will include kids of all ages from your family.
Encourage your kids to draw, color, and decorate paper trees, ornaments, or color their favorite holiday characters. Then turn these works of art into light up decorations!
More holiday resources:
Ashley helps parents who want to homeschool find the resources they need to successfully teach their children. Ashley is a former teacher, current homeschooler, published author, and designer behind Circle Time with Miss Fox printables as well as the creator of this website, The Homeschool Resource Room.
some of these look fun to do.
Love the gumdrop Christmas tree.