Home Chemistry Kit - Projects & Experiments

Chemistry is science that usually involves laboratory experiments and projects. You may want to set up a home chemistry lab to aid in your investigations. How do you do it? Here's some advice for setting up your own home chemistry lab.

This is a list of common chemicals and where you can find them.

This is a list of chemicals you can obtain easily and safely store at home for projects and experiments.

Put together a home chemistry kit with common household chemicals and a few simple materials.

Is it safe to use your kitchen glassware and utensils for chemistry experiments? Here's a look at some of the risks involved in using your dishes for chemistry.

Sugar and water. Adult supervision required. Rock candy is candy made by crystallizing sugar. You can grow sugar crystals yourself, plus add color and flavor to make rock candy that you can eat.

Fruit, lemon juice, baking soda, vinegar, milk of magnesia, water. Grade school+. Perform an experiment to observe the effects of acids, bases, and water on the rate of browning of cut apples or other produce.

Alum and water. All ages. Do you want to grow a big single crystal instead of a mass of crystals? Then try out these instructions for growing a big alum crystal. You can apply the techniques used here to grow big single crystals of other substances, too.

Baggies, bromothymol blue, calcium chloride, baking soda, water. Grade school+ with supervision. Learn about chemical reactions and experimentation.

Baking soda, vinegar, water, detergent. Bottle could burst if sealed, so all ages with supervision. This is a twist on the classic baking soda volcano, where you use the ingredients to make squirt-able fountains of foam.

Baking soda, vinegar, water. Can add food coloring, detergent, flour/salt/oil for the 'cone'. All ages. It's the kitchen equivalent of a volcano, not a real one. The 'eruption' is cool all the same! It's also more or less non-toxic, which adds to its appeal.

Epsom salts, rock or sea salt, glycerin, optional colors/fragrances. Grade school+. Use chemistry to make gifts or to pamper yourself. These are instructions for scented and colored bath salts.

Water and a comb or balloon. All ages. Use static electricity to bend a stream of flowing water. This is an easy science activity that illustrates how opposite electrical charges attract each other.

Baking soda, sugar, alcohol, sand. Adult supervision required. You can make black snake or glow worm fireworks yourself, safely and easily.

Borax, cornstarch, glue, water. Grade school+ with supervision. Use chemistry to make a bouncing polymer ball, then alter the procedure to see the effect the changes have on the charactertistics of the bouncing ball.

Borax, water, optional coloring. Grade school+ with supervision. Do real snowflakes melt too quickly? Grow a borax snowflake, color it blue if you like, and enjoy the sparkle all year long!

Dishwashing detergent, water, glycerin. All ages, with supervision. Save some pennies and make this bubble mix yourself! Most drugstores and pharmacies carry glycerine.

Chalk, alcohol, ink. Ages 8+. You can use chalk and alcohol to perfom chromatography to separate the pigments in food colorings or inks. After you've finished making your chromatogram, you'll have colored chalk.

Charcoal briquettes (or other porous materials), ammonia, salt, bluing, food coloring. All ages, with adult supervision. Make delicate, colorful crystals! This is a great classic crystal-growing project.

Candy, salt, water, coffee filters. All ages. Analyze the dyes used in your favorite candies with paper chromatography using a coffee filter, colored candies, and a salt solution.

Bottle, water, match. All ages. Here's a quick and easy science project you can do: make a cloud inside a bottle. This simple project uses water vapor and smoke from a match to help form a cloud.

Alcohol and certain household chemicals. Adult supervision required. You can spritz a flame with chemicals to change the color of the fire. Colored fire spray bottles are easy to prepare and use common chemicals.

Flowers, food coloring, water. All ages. It's easy to make your own colored flowers, especially carnations and daisies, but there are a couple of tricks that help ensure great results. Here's how you do it.

Construction paper, epsom salts, water. All ages. Most crystals take days or weeks to form. Use this technique if you have a sunny day and want crystals FAST!

Epsom salts, water. All ages with supervision. Grow a cupful of epsom salt crystal needles in your refrigerator. It's quick, easy, and safe.

Milk, lemon juice. All ages with supervision. Plastics are generally produced from petroleum, but they can come from other sources as well! All that is really required is the ability to join molecules containing carbon and hydrogen together, which you do whenever you curdle milk.

Sodium hydroxide, phenolphthalein, vodka, water. More advanced. Middle school+ with supervision. Learn how to make blue or red ink that will disappear after exposure to air. Tips for restoring the color and an explanation of the acid-base chemistry of the reaction are also included.

Plastic bottle, ketchup packet, water. All ages. Place a ketchup packet in a bottle of water and make it rise and fall at your command, as if by magic. Of course, the magic involves some basic science. Here's how to do the diving ketchup trick and how it works.

Dry ice, bubble solution, water. Adult supervision required. The giant bubble you can make using dry ice and bubble solution sort of resembles a crystal ball. This is an easy and spectacular science project.

Hard boiled egg, bottle. All ages. You don't see air and might not think much of it is contained in a bottle, but air and the pressure it exerts can be very powerful. The egg in a bottle demonstration illustrates the concept of air pressure.

Citric acid, baking soda, water. All ages, with supervision. Most endothermic reactions contain toxic chemicals, but this citric acid and sodium bicarbonate reaction is safe and easy.

Cornstarch, vegetable oil. All ages. This recipe makes cool, non-toxic slime that appears to have a life of its own!

Epsom salts, water. All ages. Epsom salt crystals are easy to grow and form quickly. Here's what you need to know to make your own magnesium sulfate crystals.

Steel wool, vinegar. Grade school+ with supervision. Exothermic chemical reactions produce heat. In this reaction vinegar is used to remove the protective coating from steel wool, allowing it to rust. When the iron combines with oxygen, heat is released.

All you need is sugar, but adult supervision is required because of the cooking. These instructions will result in either clear or amber glass, depending on the cooking time used.

Borax, water, glue, food coloring. All ages with supervision. This is a gooey, gross variation of the traditional slime recipe, great for Halloween and other occasions requiring snot.

Sodium polyacrylate and water. All ages. You can make fake snow using a common polymer. The fake snow is non-toxic, feels cool and wet to the touch, and looks similar to the real thing.

Lighter fluid, cotton cloth, cotton string. Adults or adult supervision only! This is not a project for kids. If you can find a tee shirt and some lighter fluid, you can make small fireballs. These fireballs are re-useable. Theoretically, you can hold them in your hand.

Water, oil, food coloring. All ages. Fireworks are a beautiful and fun part of many celebrations, but not something you want kids to make themselves. However, even very young explorers can experiment with these safe underwater fireworks.

Citric acid, corn starch, baking soda, oil, optional color/fragrance. Grade school+ with supervision. Use your chemistry to make a fizzy, scented bath bomb. Make them for yourself or give them as gifts!

Baking soda, vinegar, food coloring, fruit juice (optional). All ages. Make a non-toxic fizzy Mad Scientist potion using ingredients from your kitchen. The potion looks evil, but it is safe enough to drink.

Borax, water, glue, styrofoam beads, optional color. All ages with supervision. Make your own version of Floam, a type of slime that contains polystyrene beads so that you can mold it into shapes.

Red cabbage, egg. Adult supervision. Red cabbage juice contains a natural pH indicator that changes color from purple to green under basic (alkaline) conditions. You can use this reaction to make a fried green egg.

Fruit, copper nail, zinc nail, holiday light. All ages. Generate electricity to turn on a light bulb. Learn how to make a fruit battery. It's fun, safe, and easy.

Fruit, iodine stain, baggies. Grade school+. Measure the ripening of fruit from exposure to the plant hormone ethylene by testing starch levels with an iodine solution. This easy experiment can be performed on several types of fruit, such as apples, pears, and bananas.

Sugar-free gelatin, salt, cream of tartar, flour, water, and oil. All ages, with supervision. These are step-by-step instructions on how to make fruity putty.

Water, unflavored gelatin, fragrance/color. All ages, with supervision. If you can make Jell-o, then you can make your own gel air fresheners. It's easy and fun. You can choose your own scents and colors. For holiday fun, consider layering different colored gels or using seasonal fragrances (e.g., pine or cinnamon for Christmas).

Gelatin, water, food coloring. All ages, with supervision. Colorful gelatin shapes can be used to make jewelry, mobiles, decorations, and more.

Eggs, borax, water, glowing paint. Ages 6+ with supervision. It's very easy to make a glow in the dark crystal geode using common household chemicals.

Glowing paint, pipecleaners, water, borax or other salt. Ages 6+. Learn how to make a glow-in-the-dark crystal snowflake or other glowing holiday ornament.

Mentos, tonic water, black light. All ages. It's easy to make a mentos and soda eruption glow. All you need to do is use tonic water or diet tonic water instead of the usual diet soda and shine a black light on the fountain.

Mountain Dew, glowstick, peroxide, baking soda, dishwashing liquid. Adults or adult supervision. All it takes is a few easily-obtained materials to turn a bottle of Mountain Dew into a glow in the dark bottle of Mountain Dew.

Glue gel, borax, glow paint, water. Ages 6+. What is better than regular slime? Slime that glows in the dark, of course! This is an easy and fun project that is suitable for kids.

Gelatin, tonic water, black light. All ages with supervision. It's incredibly easy to make Jell-O or other gelatin glow under a black light. Here's what you do.

Boric acid and Heet fuel conditioner. Adult supervision required. It's easy to make brilliant green fire. This cool chemistry project only takes two household chemicals.

Cornstarch, water, food coloring. All ages. This is sort of like slime, but drier and very non-toxic.

Cornstarch, water. All ages. Make squishy non-toxic goo that hardens in your hands when you squeeze it, but flows like a liquid when you pour it.

Pennies, muriatic acid, baking soda, water. Adult supervision required. This is an easy chemistry project that uses common materials. You take a post-1982 penny, score the copper surface to expose the zinc interior, react the zinc with acid, and are left with a hollow copper penny.

Sugar, honey, water, baking soda. Adult supervision required. Honeycomb candy is an easy-to-make candy that has an interesting texture caused by carbon dioxide bubbles getting trapped within the candy.

Sodium acetate or hot ice is an amazing chemical you can prepare yourself. You can cool a solution of sodium acetate below its melting point and then cause the liquid to crystallize. The crystallization is an exothermic process, so the resulting ice is hot. All ages. Requires vinegar and baking soda.

Milk, cream, sugar, vanilla, salt, ice. All ages. Make a tasty treat and learn about freezing point depression, too! All you need are some basic ingredients and two ziploc baggies. It's easy, fun, and educational.

Baking soda, water, and purple grape juice. All ages. These are quick and easy instructions for making non-toxic invisible ink.

Cornstarch, water, iodine. All ages. The writing for this invisible ink technique is done using a corn starch solution. An iodine solution is used to reveal the message.

Lemon juice and paper. All ages. Lemon juice is acidic and weakens paper. When paper is heated, the remaining acid turns the writing brown before discoloring the paper.

Several material options. All ages. Make your own invisible ink so you can write and reveal secret messages. Get information about inks that are activated by heat, chemical reactions, and ultraviolet light.

Iron filings, sulfur, magnet. Middle school+ with adult supervision. Do you know the difference between a mixture and a compound? Combine iron and sulfur to make a mixture and then react them to form a chemical compound.

Cereal, water, magnet. All ages. Cold breakfast cereals are usually fortified with iron. What does the iron look like? Find out here!

Ivory soap and a microwave. All ages, with supervision. Microwave a bar of Ivory soap and watch it expand to over six times its original size. The foam trick is good clean fun, plus it can be used to demonstrate Charles' Law, physical change, and foam formation.

Hydrogen peroxide, yeast, dishwashing detergent, water. All ages. The elephant toothpaste demo produces a growing column of foam that looks like what you would get if an elephant squashed a giant tube of toothpaste.

Oil, water, food coloring, alka seltzer. All ages. Lava lamps are interesting and cool. Have you ever wanted to make your own lava lamp? Lava lamps that you buy use high heat and toxic chemicals, but you can make a lava lamp at home using safe kitchen ingredients.

Nail, sheet of acrylic, copier toner. All ages, with adult supervision. Lichtenberg figures essentially capture the image of lightning. Here's how you can make your own Lichtenberg figure from common materials.

Mentos candy, diet soda. All ages. Candies and diet soda together can make a chemical 'volcano' with an eruption several feet high. If the normal baking soda volcano is too tame for you, give this project a try.

Metamucil, water. All ages, with supervision. This recipe makes a non-sticky sort of 'rubber' or gelatinous slime.

Cornstarch and water. All ages. Learn how to make Oobleck, a type of slime that has properties of both liquids and solids.

Leaves, alcohol, coffee filter. Grade school+ with supervision. Most plants contain several pigment molecules, so experiment with different leaves to see the wide range of pigments.

Salt, vinegar, water. All ages. Turn the surface of your glass patio table into a safe place for kids to explore crystals. Here's an easy crystal project you can do on any warm, sunny day using ingredients from your kitchen.

Pennies, vinegar, salt, steel nails, water. All ages with supervision. Explore some of the interesting properties of metals. Clean the pennies chemically, make verdigris, and plate the nails with copper.

Unknown sample, household objects. All ages. The Mohs test is one way to determine the hardness of a rock or mineral. You can use the Mohs hardness to help identify an unknown specimen. Here's how you can do the test yourself.

Ethanol, carrier oil, esential oils, water. All ages with adult supervision. Perfume is a classic gift, but it's even better if it is a scent that you made yourself, especially if you package it in a beautiful bottle.

Alum or epsom salt with water. All ages, with supervision. If you don't have the time or patience to grow crystals over hours, days, or longer, try growing these sheet crystals. You'll get results in seconds!

Sugar, water, food coloring. All ages. Make a rainbow in a glass using colored sugar solutions with different densities. This project is very easy and safe enough to drink.

Paper, water. All ages. Make beautiful paper from recycled scraps of just about any paper project you can find. Learn how to add decorative items to your paper and prepare it for writing or stamping. This is a fun craft that teaches about recycling while making a useful handmade product.

Red cabbage and a coffee filter. Grade school+ with supervision. Learn how to make your own pH indicator test strips using red cabbage. This is a fun, safe, and easy chemistry project that you can do at home.

Egg, vinegar, chicken bones. All ages. You can make a hard boiled egg bounce like a rubber ball and cause chicken bones to become soft and rubbery. All you need is a common kitchen ingredient.

Salt and water. All ages. It's easy to grow your own table salt or sodium chloride crystals. All it takes is salt and boiling water. One method even yields crystals within a few hours. Here's what you need to know.

Sharpie pens, rubbing alcohol, t-shirt. All ages with supervision. You can create a pattern resembling tie-dye using colored Sharpie pens and rubbing alcohol. It's a fun and educational project that is great for kids.

Water, glue, borax, food coloring. All ages, with supervision. There are lots of recipes for slime. Since most recipes are easy, look for one using ingredients you have on hand.

Snow, kitchen ingredients, baggies. All ages. Here is a collection of several quick and easy recipes for ice cream you can make using snow.

Sugar, water, food coloring. All ages. Sugar crystals are also known as rock candy since the crystallized sucrose resembles rock crystals and because you can eat your finished product. It's simple, safe, and fun.

UV lamp and household materials. All ages, with supervision. Black lights emit ultraviolet radiation, giving certain materials an eerie glow. Which materials? You can do a little experimental research or you can check out this list.

Sugar, saltpeter, baking soda, powdered dye. Adult supervision required. Make a smoke bomb that billows clouds of brightly colored smoke. This project is easy and safe enough to at home.

Mineral oil, water. All ages. Wave tanks use liquids with two different densities that won't mix together. Here's an easy, non-toxic method.

Yeast and hydrogen peroxide. All ages. Here's how to make a safe and easy chemical volcano using two common inexpensive household ingredients.