Sometimes I feel like Halloween gets a little bit dark and scary for my young kiddos. Even an innocent trip to the grocery store puts them face-to-face with creepy statues, scary sound recordings, and decorations dripping with fake blood. Do you ever have the experience of shielding your kids’ eyes as you sprint between the bread and the milk aisle?
Well, you don’t need to worry about anything too scary here 🙂 We enjoy the lighter side this time of year of droll decorations and silly celebrations. We especially love doing spooky Halloween science experiments like making slime, playing “Mad Scientist” with dry ice, and testing various “witches” to see which, if any, are true witches. We even fashioned a miniature haunted house and made spooky levitating puppets to add to our repertoire of Halloween science activities for kids.
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The secret to making the puppets float on their own is magnets! We did a science activity with magnets awhile ago where we made magnet powered cars. My kids played with those for hours over the course of a few days. This is why I love our magnet set and recommend that every family have one. Magnets invite open-ended play and experimentation! There are endless activities you can do with them that will keep the kids entertained, engaged, and experimenting literally for hours.
Make Spooky Levitating Puppets With Halloween Science
Materials You Need:
Marker
Tissue Paper
String/Yarn
Tape
Paper Clips
Cardboard Box
- Use markers to draw whatever Halloween figures you like on your tissue paper. We drew a bat and a ghost!
- Measure a length of string that is slightly less than the length of the box.
- Attach one of the string to the bottom of the box and the other end to your tissue paper puppets.
- Slip one paper clip onto the top of each tissue paper puppet. Secure it with tape if necessary.
- Place a magnet on top of the box. Watch as the magnet attracts the paper clip, making your puppet dance, float, and twirl! Move the magnet around to see what happens. Adjust the paper clip as necessary.
- Experiment with different magnets to see what happens. Does a bar magnet work better/worse than a horseshoe magnet? What about a marble or a ring magnet?
I left the “haunted house” out on the table one morning with the magnets as an invitation for my kids to come play. They LOVED it 🙂 My favorite part is that this simple little Halloween science activity opened the door for them to play with all of the magnets in the set, which they happily did all morning!
More Halloween STEM for Kids
If you are looking for even MORE fun and educational Halloween activities, be sure to check out STEAM Kids Halloween! It contains 50+ pages of spooky fun STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Math) activities that will wow the boredom right out of kids!
Number Building With Loose Parts | Math Activity from Little Bins for Little Hands
Building With Straws | Simple Engineering Challenge for Kids from Lemon Lime Adventures
We have everything for this. We have magnets just like that. They never get used. My oldest would enjoy trying this. Thanks for sharing at Made for Kids!