Making Our Own Glow Stick

Nicholas LOVES glow sticks. We must keep the glow stick companies in business because I always have to have a stock of glow sticks on hand. He loves to crack them and take them to bed with him but he also loves to crack them in the middle of the day. He especially loves to get his hands on an unopened box of 15 glow sticks and crack them all at once. He loves glow sticks.



So we couldn't pass up this experiment to let him make his own glow stick. The ingredients were simple: zinc sulfide powder, vegetable oil, and water.



Nicholas loves doing science experiments because he gets to wear his safety gloves. However, these are obviously adult size gloves and they can't be very safe if they inhibit him from grasping items well. Anyone know where I can find child-size disposable latex gloves?

Daddy held the test tube while Nicholas measured the zinc sulfide and transferred it to the test tube.



Adding the other ingredients...



Voila! We made GLOW!!



6 comments:

  1. Cool! Totally have to do this with the Science club kids at school :)

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  2. Mary K, I found several recipes online for making glowing stuff like glow sticks, glow slime, etc. You can buy zinc sulfide on its own but we were just doing this one project so I bought a little kit that had everything I needed in it. Have fun with it. I don't know any kid that doesn't like things that glow!

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  3. I know I tell you this all the time, but YOU HAVE THE MIND OF A HOMESCHOOL MAMA!!!!!

    What a cool experiement!!!

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  4. The mind and heart of a homeschool mama - but lacking the patience and organization :)

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  5. This is awesome! Incidentally, my little brother just got a make your own glow stick pack, but without the instruction book! So I was wondering if you could remember the proportions of the ingredients (I realized that this was over a year ago...)? That would be great.

    Thanks!
    Chloe

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  6. Chloe, I can't put my hands on the instructions right now but we might actually have them. I'll take a look and post them if I find them. You might find some more info online. I seem to recall that there are lots of glow stick recipes online.

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