Drop a Warhead in baking soda water, and bubbles erupt. Leave a Skittle in water, and the S floats to the surface. Melt a Starburst, and shiny oil spots form. You're doing candy experiments--science experiments with candy.

Melt Halloween candy. Dissolve Valentine hearts. Float Easter Peeps. Or let your kids explore their own ideas.

Candy experiments. All candy. All science. All fun.

As seen in Family Fun, Parents, Mothering Magazine, Highlights, the Chicago Tribune, ParentMap, Miami Family, and The Red Tricycle

Melted Mentos

Heating Mentos in the oven turned them into hollow soup-bowl shells.

My kids were melting several kinds of candy at the same time, so the red color is probably from Jolly Ranchers or something. Remember to line your pan with tinfoil when you're melting candy into puddles!

New Blog Post on 247moms.com

Check out my new blog post "Candy Experiments for the New Year" at 247moms.com to see how doing candy experiments can help you accomplish your New Year's goals!

Kids and Candy Temptation

This article in a Harvard Business School newsletter briefly describes a study done on kids and candy. Children were asked to complete certain paper-folding tasks, with some children being promised candy and soda afterwards and some not promised anything. Surprisingly, the children who were promised the candy reward performed worse than the other children, even though there was a bribe at the end, supposedly because the thought of the candy was so distracting they couldn't focus as well on their tasks. The article expands the idea to adults tempted to spend time online during work hours, which can also be distracting. The takeaway? For kids, promising candy can be a distraction instead of a motivating bribe. And for me? Maybe I need to limit my email time.

Sugar Crystal Snow

While I was hanging ornaments in water for sugar coating, the bottom of the bottle soon became covered by a layer of loose sugar crystals. After I removed the ornaments, the crystals were stirred up, swirling gently around the bowl before they sank like snowflakes. It was a sugar crystal snowstorm!

Sugar Crystal Christmas Ornaments

After seeing Timothy Horn's carriage coated with sparkling sugar crystals, I was inspired to create my own. I hung these pipe cleaners in sugar water (2 parts sugar, 1 part water, boiled until sugar is dissolved, then placed in a jar) and left them there a week.

The results? Sparkly ornaments pretty enough to hang on our tree.

For instructions on making sugar crystals, see the Exploratorium's rock candy recipe.

Impressing kids with Candy Canes

OK, it was just one kid. But boy, did his eyes go wide after I melted a candy cane just enough to make it swoop side to side. As I blogged last year, I made a zig zag form out of a strip of folded tinfoil, placed the candy cane on top, and put it in a 250 F oven for 5 minutes. (My young friend had a hard time waiting that long, and I was worried it wouldn't be ready before he ran out of patience. The two-hour floating conversation hearts are probably not the right experiment for him!) The candy cane ended up as kind of an M shape--I wish I'd taken a picture!