BUFFALO, N.Y. — It's never too cold for ice cream, especially when you can make it at home with no equipment, simple ingredients, and let the kids do most of the work! It's called Ice Cream in a Bag!
All week while the kids were off from school for February break, Daybreak's Melissa Holmes has showcased a different science experiment each day that is easy to complete and using things commonly found around the house.
Monday: The Bouncy Egg. Watch it here!
Tuesday: Chemical Reactions with a Balloon. Watch it here!
Wednesday: Marshmallow Catapult. Watch it here!
Thursday: Homemade Lava Lamp. Watch it here!
Friday: Ice Cream in a Bag
You need a quart size zip top bag, a gallon size zip top bag, heavy cream, milk, powered sugar, vanilla extract, salt and ice.
Give the child the quart size bag and fill it with 1 cup heavy cream, 1/2 cup milk, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract for flavor and 2 tablespoons powered sugar. (Add chocolate syrup, chocolate chips, sprinkles, mint extract- anything you'd like for flavored ice cream!)
Press out the air and seal up the bag.
Fill the larger bag with ice and salt. Then put the smaller bag inside the larger one, and press out the air and seal up the larger one.
Shake hard for 7-10 minutes. Let the kids have fun!
It will come to a semi soft consistency like soft serve ice cream. Squeeze it out of the bag and enjoy!
Bonus: If you just shake heavy cream in a bag, it will turn into butter- no ice needed.
BONUS SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS!
Puffy Soap:
It's so easy to wow the kids with Puffy Soap! Just get a bar of Ivory Soap and a plate.
Put the bar of soap unwrapped on the plate. Put in the microwave and set it for no longer than 2 minutes. Anything longer than that will create a mess in the microwave!
Watch as it starts to grow.
This is because Ivory soap has millions of tiny air bubbles trapped inside it unlike other soap. So when you put it in the microwave, the air inside it is heated up creating a foam.
Carefully take the plate out- it's hot! Let it rest for a minute.
The foam is light as air and smells great. The kids can play with it, and even form it back into a bar of soap.
3 Easy Ways To Trick Your Kids:
Money bridge-
You need two glasses the same height, a small object (clementine), and a dollar.
Challenge your kids to use the money to create a bridge for the object. Use the bill flat and it doesn't work.
If you fold it in half lengthwise it's a little more effective.
But if you fold it like an accordion 5 or 6 times, then open it up slightly, and lay it flat between the glasses and place the object on top, you'll see it works!
Tie a Knot without letting go-
You need a piece of string about 2 feet long.
Challenge the kids to tie a knot in the middle of the string without letting go. They'll tell you it's impossible!
Lay the string out on the table. Fold your arms. Then take one end of the string in each hand. Slowly unfold your arms, and if you do it right, you've tied a knot without letting go!
Get a straw through a potato-
All you need is a potato and a few straws. Challenge the kids to push the straws into the raw potato. You might get the straw through the skin but you can't get any further.
Here's the trick. Put your thumb over the other end before you push it through.
By putting your thumb over the end you're sealing air inside, creating more pressure and making it stronger.