New Year’s Eve Science Activities for Kids

Do you ring in the new year with your kids? I love making New Year’s Eve fun for my little ones, and they love the anticipation of a new year dawning. If your kiddos are inquisitive and science-y like mine, maybe you’ll want to try some of these super fizzy and explosive science activities with them to ring in the new year with a bang!

New Year’s Eve Science Activities for Kids

You can start the festivities in the afternoon with one of our favorite activities – film canister rockets. Don’t worry if you can’t find film canisters around, you can buy them online or pick up some yummy M&M Minis and use those containers instead.

Do your little ones like building snowmen? Try making this baking soda snow dough, and letting them play with it, roll some fun snowmen, and then melt them with the power of acid-base reactions.

Maybe your kids are like mine and LOVE balloons… Grab some the next time you’re at the dollar store or do what I do, and order them in bulk on amazon to have on hand for games and play. Now, use science to blow a few up with this activity from Jumpstart. When you’re done, try use this trick from Incredible Science to try popping a needle-proof balloon.

Vinegar and baking soda eruptions are classics for a reason. They’re fun, safe, and always cool for kids of all ages. Try these New Year’s Eve themed eruption activities this year with your kids.

From Little Bins for Little Hands comes another fizzy New Year’s Eve themed eruption. This time with confetti instead of glitter. I love the bright colors of the foil confetti used in this activity.

Does your city blast off fireworks to ring in the new year? You might want to try this simple science activity to create a much quieter blast of color with these fireworks in a jar from I Can Teach My Child.

For the toddler and preschoolers in your household, slime is a simple polymer to make that is always a huge hit. I cannot get over how gorgeous (yes… I did call slime gorgeous) this silver and gold New Year’s Eve slime is from Fun-A-Day.

For your bigger STEM-ists, see if they are up for some programming challenges… We all love the New York City “Ball Drop,” but what about programming your own family’s ball drop? This is definitely not a project for beginners, but your gifted science-minded kiddos may love this one…