Halloween Chemistry: Wizard’s Brew or Witch’s Potion!

Mix up a bubbly brew in a potion lab fit for any little wizard or witch with an incredible Halloween chemistry experiment. Simple household ingredients create a fantastic Halloween science experiment that is just as much fun to play with as it is to learn from!

Halloween Chemistry Experiment

This classic chemistry experiment is often called elephant’s toothpaste because of the voluminous amount of foam it usually produces. However, you need a much higher percentage of hydrogen peroxide to produce that reaction.

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Supplies:

• Hydrogen Peroxide
• Warm Water
• Yeast Packets (we used two packets for the three beakers)
• Flasks or Plastic Bottles
• Teaspoon and Tablespoon
• Food Coloring
• Dish Soap
• Tray or Container {to place bottles or beakers on to catch foam}
• Small Cup {mixing yeast and water}

Instructions:

STEP 1. Pour the same amount of hydrogen peroxide into each container unless you are using just one container. We used 1/2 cup.

STEP 2. Squirt dish soap into a flask or bottle.

STEP 3. Add food coloring {as much as you like; my son is very generous}.

STEP 4. Mix one teaspoon of yeast with two tablespoons of warm water. The yeast was clumpy and didn’t mix perfectly, but that’s fine!

STEP 5. Pour the yeast mixture into the container and observe what happens.

Notice how quickly the reaction begins. The foam had started before he finished pouring in the rest of the mixture.

For the larger flask, the reaction continued for quite a while inside the beaker before it came out of the top. Would a different amount of hydrogen and yeast change that?

This isn’t like a baking soda and vinegar chemical reaction where the reaction is more instantaneous. This takes a little longer, but you get plenty of time to observe the changes.

Above and below, you can see we are using our smallest flask for some of our Halloween chemistry experiment. Because it’s the smallest, it happens to be the most dramatic.

However, make sure to notice what happens with the large flask. Although not super dramatic, it looks pretty cool.

Hydrogen Peroxide and Yeast Reaction

The reaction between the hydrogen peroxide and the yeast is called an exothermic reaction. Because energy is being released, you will feel warmth on the outside of the container.

The yeast helps to remove the oxygen from the hydrogen peroxide, creating tons of tiny bubbles that make all that cool foam. The foam is just the oxygen, water, and dish soap you added.

If you pay close attention, the reaction continues for a while and looks quite different depending on your container size! Experiment with different sizes! We chose three flasks of different sizes for our wizard’s brew.

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More Spooky Halloween Experiments

Check out our complete list of spooky Halloween science experiments for kids!

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