Hands on Activities to do with Kids & Dawn Ultra Soap

Although we spend most of our time outdoors when the weather is nice there are plenty of times when we need to stay indoors. Between tornado and thunderstorms to snowy winters, it is always the perfect time to enjoy some time indoors and bake cupcakes together! We have done TONS of science experiments using Dawn soap (check the list of things to do at the bottom of this post with Dawn soap and your kids!) for some good hands on messy sensory fun!

Science experiments don’t have to be complicated to learn something! Chances are you’ll find plenty of experiments and activities to create with whatever you already have in your kitchen without needing to buy more supplies!

I LOVE getting my kids involved in the kitchen. We start by getting out ALL of our ingredients so it is all in one spot. Then the kids can easily see everything that it takes to make a simple batch of cupcakes. My oldest son can read so I have him help me read the direction while he and my youngest son take turns measuring out the ingredients and mixing everything.

We thought about dying some green frosting to make an “earth” cupcake but the boys wanted chocolate frosting instead!

Hands-on Activities to do with your Kids & Dawn Ultra Soap

1. Baking Fun – Buy several different colors of Dawn dish soap (you’re going to use it anyway!) then base baking activities  (such as cupcakes, frosting, etc.) around the color of each soap! Let the kids try their hand at matching the colors to the coordinating soap bottle! Make sure to try your hand at mixing colors too!

2. Dry Ice Bubble Fun – With gloves on (dry ice will burn your skin) AND close adult supervision add some dry ice into a container of warm water, then add a few drops of Dawn soap and watch the bubbles begin! You can even color the water based on the color of Dawn soap that you have added for some colorful fun! Kids CAN touch the bubbles that are formed! Just make sure that no one touches the dry ice with their bare skin!

3. Marbled Milk Experiment– Add several drops of food coloring into a bowl of room temperature milk making sure to place each drop in a different location. Add a drop or two of Dawn soap into a Q-tip and place it in the middle of the milk bowl – watch the colors explode as they shift away from the soap!

4. Density experiment – Slowly add the following ingredients into the middle of a tall clear cup or test tube: Dawn Ultra dish soap, rubbing alcohol, vegetable oil, honey, and water (feel free to add any other liquid that you want into the mix) and wait patiently to see which liquid rises to the top and which stays at the bottom. It’s more fun when each layer has a different color! You can take this even further by dropping in small bits of food (raisins, celery, etc.) to see which layer the food floats in!

5. Sensory Foam Play – Add some Dawn soap (a good squirt) into your blender or food processor and a small amount of water and let it run! Watch the foam build up and then pour it into a dish or pan and let the kids play! Add a drop or two of food coloring for extra color! You can even send the kids outside to “wash” down your deck, windows, or patio table and hose it off when they are done!

6. Oils and Feathers Experiment – Grab some craft feathers (or bird feathers if you can find a collection outdoors) and soak them really good in vegetable oil (or another oil of your choosing). You can talk to your kids about environmental oil spills if they are old enough and explain how oil can hurt birds and coat their feathers so that they cannot fly. Have your kids wash some of the oily feathers with the Dawn dish soap, and some with just plain water – then observe the difference between the two feathers after they have had a time to dry. Is one of the feathers more oily than the other?

7. Sniffer Test – This is incredibly simple to tack on to any of the other experiments if you’ve bought different scents of Dawn soap. Have your kids close their eyes (or be blindfolded) and let them sniff each different scent of Dawn soap as well as other household foods in your kitchen to see if your children can pin down just what it is they are smelling!

Each of these activities can be further expanded into full unit studies and lessons depending on your needs and your child’s age!

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