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Fun Science: Candy Experiments

Fun candy experiments kids love. A great way to use up leftover candy from Easter, parties, Halloween, and Christmas!

Fun candy experiments kids love. A great way to use up leftover candy from Easter, parties, Halloween, and Christmas! #sciencerocks #candyexperiments #kidsactivities #sciencesforkids #STEAMkids #stemed

Easter typically involves candy. Lots of candy. Too much candy for little stomachs! We got some science experiment mileage out of our Easter candy by seeing what we could do with our candy besides eating it!

melting candy in the name of science

First, we microwaved jelly beans and gummy bears. The jelly beans (above) developed an interesting stringy texture (photo above), while the gummy bears melted quickly into a shapeless, jello-type glob:

melting gummy bears in the name of science

Then the kids, of course, wanted to repeat our growing gummy candy experiment!

They decided to see if stirring the gummy bears would speed up the process:

growing gummy bears in water overnight

It didn’t seem to make any difference, apart from making the bears a little worse for the wear and tear. Lily’s wound up disintegrating, possibly due to fork-inflicted wounds.

But there was a beautifully dramatic difference the next morning:

gummy bear science for kids

Got peeps? Try making Peep play dough!

Want to combine candy and math? Here’s a simple statistics experiment that will stump most adults!

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A hands-on science and math resource for parents and educators

Snackable Science is another great edible science resource for kids:

What are your favorite candy experiments for kids?

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MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.

26 thoughts on “Fun Science: Candy Experiments”

  1. I was thinking this looked a little familiar. I still think candy experiments are fun. My kids have now figured out you can buy clearance candy afterward, and so now have loads of candy.

  2. Soaking the gummy bears in water has the sugar dissolving out leaving a bland tasteless gelatin behind. So don’t eat it…OR, let them eat it and they learn!! :)

  3. We love candy experiments, too. One of my favorites at Easter is just dropping candy into a bowl of water, because so much Easter candy floats (Peeps, marshmallow eggs, Whopper eggs, etc.) I’ll have to try microwaving gummy bears, that looks fun.

    1. Any gummy candy will work – they expand as they absorb the water slowly through osmosis. It’s probably my kids’ favorite science experiment!

  4. Elisa | blissfulE

    These look fun! The detail on the grown-up gummy bear is amazing… Who knew they had teeth?

  5. Kylie @ Octavia and Vicky

    Hello again :) Thanks for visiting my little blog, I’m so glad you did because I forgot to subscribe to yours yesterday and then I couldn’t remember where I found it! Crazy interweb.
    FYI I tried to follow your twitter but the little button on the top right doesn’t seem to have a link.

  6. Candy experiments are on my “to do” list. Growing gummy bears are fun, except I wouldn’t want to eat them afterwards!

  7. What a great way to use up the Easter candy without eating it! Thankfully Joshua moved up to the status of hiding eggs this year for the little ones so we didn’t have near as much candy as we’ve had in the past.

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