How many activities and crafts can you do using rainbows? I’d say the ideas are endless. This rainbow cloud science experiment will keep the kids entertained and mesmerized. If you are doing this activity with very young children you can substitute the shaving foam with squirty whipped cream.
For this activity all you need is;
- Shaving cream
- A see through container/jar
- Some food colours
- Medicine syringes
- Water
If you don’t happen to have any medicine syringes, then you can always just use the food colour straight from the bottles. However I find this gets quite messy and the colours work just as well when diluted with water.
Fill some cups or beakers with water and drop some food colour into them. We used gel food colours but liquid colours will work just as well.
Next fill your see through container or jar almost to the top.
Spray an even layer of shaving foam on the top of your water. Not too much as it will start to sink into the water before you’ve started adding your colours.
Watching The Magic
So now your kids get to add the colours to their ‘cloud’ and watch the magic happen. The idea is to work their way down in a line gradually adding the colours of the rainbow. But they can drop the colours wherever and still get the rainbow effect. Hence why this experiment is called the rainbow cloud.
Colour Mixing
When making your rainbow cloud you will notice all the colours mix into each other. It is cool to watch with light behind. Holding it up at a window is great for this. As a result the water will go quite murky once the colours are mixed in. However you can always toss your water and shaving foam and start again.
When you mix food colours with shaving foam, it is really cool to see the colours settle. Even just seeing the colours on top of the foam was rather cool to watch!
And if your kids LOVE shaving foam like mine do, check out this other rainbow shaving foam activity.
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