Combine Science and Art with Paintball Bombs

This homemade paintball bomb experiment would be cool any time of year, but it might be really fun to do this experiment and use the bombs to paint a pumpkin.

Teach Beside Me has all the details of how to turn regular tempura paint into gelatinous blobs that do kind of explode in a bomblike way when they hit a surface with force.

This is a great combination of science, math (getting the proportions right to make the science work) and art. Another fun option for using the paint bombs might be putting paper on a fence and throwing paint at it. You could even draw a bullseye and do target practice.

Would you try something like this with your kids? It requires planning to get the ingredients but I think it would be well worth it for a fun art exploration. If you try it I’d love to hear what you think.

[Photo via Teach Beside Me.]

Check out this article on the best STEM gifts for kids.

Check out our Online store for special buys on Educational gifts We find bulk items and end-of-stock supplies to bring you heavily discounted items. (make sure you check our store often so you don’t miss out on new stock). We also have some free printable files, including a Science PDF for learning about Microscopes.

Next Plan Idea:

Teach the Teacher Activities and Lesson Plans That…

Shark Week generally happens in July, but any time is a good time to learn more about sharks.

First, start with some fun whale facts like these from Kids Craft Room. Here I learned about the dwarf lantern shark, which is the smallest shark and only grows to about 6-8 inches (about 15-20 cm) long. It also emits light. How cool is that?

Natural Beach Living has some great printable shark information guides, where kids can learn about different kinds of sharks, match the facts to the pictures, or print out doubles and do a shark memory game.

Living Life an Learning has some great shark activity pages including the parts of a shark, types of sharks, a crossword puzzle and more. Also check out their parts of a shark and word scramble download, and a life cycle worksheet.

Learn about how sharks float with this great activity from JDaniel4’s Mom.

Need more facts about sharks? This fact pact from The WOLFe PACK on Teacher Pay Teachers includes fact sheets, a printable flip book, informational text, vocabulary, comprehension questions and more.

Living Montessori Now has a great collection of shark themed activities with a Montessori inspired twist. You’ll find a shark roll and cover, shark phonics and lots more shark activities Deb has collected from all over the Internet.

Remember the “Sharknado” movie? A Few Shortcuts turned the combination of sharks and tornadoes into a fun science activity. You’ll need a bottle connector for this project but otherwise should have everything you need on hand. Use their template to make your sharks out of aluminum foil. So fun!

You can also do some shark themed coloring with these coloring pages from Encouraging Moms at Home. Or make a cool 3D shark with this template from korkotak. And there are tons of different shark crafts collected in this post from Kids Activities Blog.

Next Plan Idea:

Have you read?

Leave a Reply