Science Birthday Party- Part 1

Jedi had a birthday last fall but life was crazy and we postponed his party. He FINALLY had his party last weekend.

He's really into science right now, so we decided to go with that theme. I have TONS of pictures so I'm doing this in parts. First up:

INVITATIONS

I used a flask from Silhouette and added extra bubbles. Each invitation had a test tube of "catch a bubbles" included with it.

 The inside

Hind sight- I would have asked for RSVP's sooner, as I needed more time to get things personalized. I needed photos of each child as well as their measurements. I ended up emailing parents and asking for these.

THE LAB

This is the 'Cafeteria and Molecular Gastronomy' area.
Dessert was on this table

and lunch on this one.

I printed signs and put them around the house. It was a really inexpensive way to add a bit of fun.

We had a clean room curtain which was a lightwweight clear plastic table cloth from the Walmart fabric section. It was cut to length -84 inches. I sewed a sleeve across the top to put a tension rod through and cut the plastic in long strips.

 

Lab equipment was set out and ready to use

We had an employee locker room where the scientists could pick up their lab coats, name badges, and mustaches. They left their coats, shoes and gifts in there.



The scientists had to do a thumb print scan to verify their identity. We used a free app for iphone. They loved it! Some of them were even denied entry, and had to rescan.

Everyone who was helping wore scrubs or a lab coat to carry out our theme.

The kitchen was the main lab area, and we had tables set up for the kids to do their experiments on.

THE FOOD

I saw this super cute cake and wanted to do something similar

 The green flask has slime in it and fondant bubbles coming out, the blue flask has blue water and dry ice.

I was suprised at how much I struggled with what food to serve. Part of it was because the kids don't actually know anything about the kind of science we were doing, since they were only 6-7 years old.
I like my party food to go with the theme- and they wouldn't "get it" at all.

I decided to do stuff they would love to eat and then put a science spin on it.

We had Pizza Pi- just pizza with a fun name
 Micro Burgers-
which are made using Rhodes rolls. Defrost dough and divide each piece in two. Roll balls out of dough and place them in a mini muffin tin, pressing them a bit to flatten the bottom. Let them rise and then bake them 350 degrees for 10 minutes, or until lightly browned on top. The "burgers" are premade italian meatballs sliced. I didn't use the ends, only the slices that looked like a burger. Cut sliced cheese down to size, add a slice of cherry tomato and a sliced pickle. YUM. You can add Ketchup or mustard if you'd like to but they were plenty juicy with the pickle and tomato.

Quantum corn dogs

 Molecular melon balls

 Protons and electrons

 Cheesium particles (cheetos)

and Jello Specemins. We made jello and put them in petri dishes. Put them in the fridge for a bit and then add a little bit of food coloring with water to squirt "bateria" into the jello.

 For dessert, we did an ice cream sundae bar. The scientists experimented to create the perfect sundae.

The test tubes had small candy and sprinkles in them

 Syringes filled with Jelly Belly ice cream toppings, caramel, chocolate, and butterscotch.

I made lab coats for each child and embroidered their name on it ("Dr Sarah"). I used mens white dress shirts to make them. I started by asking around to see if anyone had some they were willing to part with. I got 9 that way and then bought the remaining 5 shirts from Goodwill.

To make the lab coats, you cut the sleeves just above the arm button area so they are plain sleeves. Then cut the bottom of the shirt so its straight across. Hem the bottom and the sleeves. I saved the sleeve material to use to make extra pockets on the coats, but never got to them. My sewing machine does embroidary, so that was a snap.

Check out part 2 to see what fun we had at the party!



Science Birthday Party Part 2

THE EXPERIMENTS

For decorations and food from this party, go to THIS post.

I borrowed ideas from every science party blog/website I could find! Pinterest helped a lot with this. I searched for "science birthday party" and "mad scientist" for the most part. My husband is a science buff and he planned out all the the experiments.

We started by having the kids pick a lab partner. We had enough adults helping to assign one to each lab partnership. That worked out really well. We even hired a few high school kids to help us- and paid them in party food. :)

Each scientist had a tray to do experiments in that were messy. We bought a 30 pack from Sam's club of the trays. They also each had a baby soda bottle, goggles, film canister, and petri dish.

As the kids arrived we had them make marshmallow molecules.

They would watch a demonstration of each experiment, and then go do it.

Shaving cream and food coloring to dye paper. This was a MESS. They loved it. All of their lab coats were covered in food coloring. (comes out with bleach :). I wouldn't recommend it, at least not as the first experiment.

Blowing up balloons with baking soda and vinegar

The favorite experiment was shooting film canisters up in the air with water and alka-seltzers. This went on for a good 20 minutes.

We did ph indicators with red cabbage juice

 Blew bubble with dry ice smoke 

Learned why you never seal up dry ice in a container 

 Used an air cannon to learn about air drafts

 We even filled it with fog machine smoke and blew smoke rings. The kids preferred being hit with a blast of air.

And we did the mentos and diet coke experiment- of course!

We sent the kids home with a lab coat and googles, name badge, baby soda bottle, mini air cannon, mentos experiment mento holding tube (pvc pipe with a pin in it), syringe, pipettes, film canister, measuring spoon, and petri dish.

It was a lot of fun, and oh so messy!!