Balloon Experiments with Candy

Balloon Experiments - Candy Activities for Kids

Today is the final day of our Candy Activities for Kids series.  We have had the best time working closely with other blogs to bring you fun and educational activities using all that Halloween candy you're bound to accumulate this time of year.  On Monday we shared a homemade finger paint recipe using Starburst, Tuesday we made chocolate playdough using Hershey Kisses, Wednesday we played math games with M&M's, Thursday we made erupting art, and the theme for today is science with candy.  A few months ago I came across this Pop Rocks expander experiment from Steve Spangler, and I've had it on my to do list ever since.  What better time to experiment with Pop Rocks than during a candy series?  Our balloon experiments ended up being even cooler than I expected.

This post contains affiliate links.  Here is my full disclosure policy.

Supplies:

• soda
• Pop Rocks
• Nerds
• balloons

How to Expand a Balloon Using Soda and Candy

Directions:  Attach a balloon to the mouth of a funnel and pour the candy into the balloon.  Next attach the balloon to a soda bottle.  We used 12 ounce bottles for our experiment.  Be careful to not let any of the candy spill into the soda while you are attaching it.  

Once the balloon is securely on the soda bottle shake the contents of the balloon into the soda.

JZ (6) thought the expanding balloon was the coolest thing ever!

We did the balloon experiment six times.  The amount of soda remained constant.

We used one package of Pop Rocks for the first balloon and two for the second, and the expanded balloons were nearly identical.

On our third bottle of soda we used Nerds.

The Nerds produced a much larger reaction in the soda.

In our fifth balloon we added a ton of Nerds, as many as the balloon could hold.  For a split second I thought the balloon was going to pop from the pressure, but it calmed down quickly.

Since the large quantity of Nerds reacted strongly with the soda we added six pouches of Pop Rocks to the final balloon.  The reaction was much stronger than the first two tries, but it still wasn't as strong as with the Nerds.

This was definitely one of the coolest experiments we've ever done and definitely the most exciting thing we have done with balloons.  

For more fun experiments follow my Science for Kids board on Pinterest.

Be sure and check out the other science with candy posts from the series:

Candy Corn Catapults from Frugal Fun for Boys

Sink or Float Candy Science from Reading Confetti

Balancing with M&M's from Inspiration Laboratories

Exploding Peep Geysers from Housing a Forest

Candy Chromatography from Mama Miss

Dissolving Gobstoppers from Mama.Papa.Bubba.

Here is a complete list of all of the candy activities we shared this week.