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February 4, 2014

Conversation Heart Candy Science Experiments

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It is so much fun to do science experiments with candy!

With Valentine’s Day coming up and conversation hearts everywhere we decided to experiment with them, but you substitute any type of candy if you can’t find conversation hearts.

Science Experiments Kids Can Do With Conversation Hearts!

Candy Science Experiment Supplies:

  • conversation hearts or other candy
  • water
  • vinegar
  • honey (or other sugary substance)
  • salt/salt water
  • microwave or freezer
  • bleach

The supplies can be easily switched for any item your kids want to test, these are just the ones my kids picked!

Heart Candy Science for Kids

Basically we wanted to see what would happen to the conversation hearts as we added each item to them.  The kids wrote or drew each item on their papers and predicting what they thought would happen.

We then added 1 item at a time (salt, honey, water, vinegar, salt water, etc) or put them in the freezer or microwave and recorded our observations.

The water dissolved the candy after awhile. The vinegar bubbled on some of the candies at first, but not others, until eventually it all bubbled up and dissolved. Honey didn’t react and neither did microwaving or freezing–I was surprised about the microwave results!

The salt alone had no effect, but salt water did. A reader reported that adding bleach was very cool and pulled the sugars from the candies upward–we can’t wait to try it!

Candy Science Experiments for Kids!

After we were done we talked about why we thought our predictions were correct or incorrect and looked for patterns in the results.

Candy science experiments are a great way to get kids to think like a scientist and practice their problem solving skills!

More Science Experiments for Kids:

  • M&M Science Experiment
  • 10 Science Experiments for Kids
  • Does it Dissolve Science Experiment?
  • Apple Science Experiment
  • How to Make a Cloud in a Bottle

About Megan Sheakoski

Megan is the creator of Coffee Cups and Crayons, a blog full of simple fun and learning. She believes that kids’ activities don’t have to be complicated to be fun and that learning is better with play.

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Comments

  1. Trisha Stanley says

    February 4, 2014 at 1:13 pm

    Love this activity! Plus does anyone really like to eat those candy hearts?

    Reply
    • CD Monster says

      February 6, 2014 at 10:30 pm

      I do!

      Reply
      • Megan Sheakoski says

        February 7, 2014 at 6:59 pm

        Ha!

        Reply
    • Tammala says

      February 7, 2014 at 6:34 am

      Exactly, I think they taste gross. Great project to make them useful. 🙂

      Reply
      • Megan Sheakoski says

        February 7, 2014 at 6:57 pm

        Ha! Me too!!! Thank you!

        Reply
    • Sarah says

      February 8, 2014 at 2:08 pm

      I DO! They are the biggest reason I look forward to Valentines Day lol

      Reply
      • Megan Sheakoski says

        February 9, 2014 at 3:04 pm

        LOL! 🙂

        Reply
    • diane says

      January 22, 2015 at 1:43 pm

      Nope and not anyone that I know does.

      Reply
  2. Coffee Cups and Crayons says

    February 4, 2014 at 1:55 pm

    Lol! I don’t Trisha Stanley!

    Reply
  3. Crystal & Co. says

    February 5, 2014 at 12:59 am

    Oh, my boys would love this. Great homeschool project.

    Reply
    • Coffee Cups and Crayons says

      February 5, 2014 at 8:25 am

      Thanks so much Crystal & Co.!!!!

      Reply
  4. Crystal & Co says

    February 5, 2014 at 1:06 am

    What a fun experiment. My boys would love this!

    Reply
    • Candice says

      February 6, 2014 at 10:36 pm

      When I taught school, I would give each child a box of candy hearts . They had to use the hearts to write a story. They would glue the hearts on their paper in place of writing the real words. For example, I found my “true love” today while walking in the “beautiful” park. The brighter kids would write some amazing stories!! The funniest one I ever had was from a gifted boy who wrote negatively. “I will never have a “cute” and “sweet” girlfriend. It went on and on and was hilarious!

      Reply
      • Megan Sheakoski says

        February 7, 2014 at 6:58 pm

        That is awesome Candice!!! I adore that idea!

        Reply
  5. Laurie says

    February 6, 2014 at 4:53 pm

    This is awesome! I am going to have the kids do this for their Valentine’s party at school. Thanks for the great idea.

    Reply
    • Megan Sheakoski says

      February 7, 2014 at 7:33 pm

      Yay!!! Thanks Laurie!

      Reply
  6. Kim says

    February 6, 2014 at 5:47 pm

    Just did this experiment with my two middle school girls. We added baking soda which was neat cause one of the hearts floated up. We also poured bleach into a clear jar and added 2 hearts. This was really neat to see the results.the bleach was pulling the sugars from the candy upwards. Thanks for sharing this on Pinterest.

    Reply
    • Megan Sheakoski says

      February 7, 2014 at 7:32 pm

      Wow! I am totally trying that Kim!!! How cool!

      Reply
  7. quirkymomma.com says

    February 7, 2014 at 8:42 am

    We just shared these because they are purely AWESOME!!!

    Reply
  8. Coffee Cups and Crayons says

    February 7, 2014 at 9:05 am

    You rock quirkymomma.com!!!! 🙂

    Reply
  9. Bee says

    February 7, 2014 at 7:50 pm

    How fun and Interesting! Any pictures of the results?

    Reply
    • Megan Sheakoski says

      February 9, 2014 at 3:07 pm

      I didn’t really share any so anyone who wanted to try it would be surprised (or not!) too. 🙂

      Reply
  10. Nicole says

    February 7, 2014 at 10:13 pm

    Where is the data?

    Reply
    • Megan Sheakoski says

      February 9, 2014 at 3:06 pm

      Hi Nicole! I didn’t want to ruin it for anyone else by giving away what happened–let’s just say we were definitely surprised a couple times!

      Reply
  11. lisa says

    February 8, 2014 at 12:20 am

    Did you ad each item separately? Or sep container for each….ive never done these and thought this could make a good 5th grade science experiment, thanks

    Reply
    • Megan Sheakoski says

      February 9, 2014 at 3:05 pm

      We did them all in separate jars, but combining some at the end would be interesting too!

      Reply
  12. Diane says

    February 13, 2014 at 3:43 pm

    I don’t have any little ones. I think you should have shared our original opinion and then the outcome. As it isn’t little kids reading this how to do, it is us adults.

    Reply
    • Megan Sheakoski says

      February 13, 2014 at 11:11 pm

      Hi Diane! The post was meant to be more about using something fun like candy to get kids using science than about replicating our exact experiment, but I’ll recap some of it for you. I don’t want to leave you hanging! Basically we set up different jars and added each item. The water dissolved the candy after awhile and the vinegar bubbled with some at first, but not others, eventually it all bubbled up though. Honey didn’t react and neither did microwaving or freezing. The salt alone had no effect, but salt water did. If you have some lying around you should try it! A reader reported that adding bleach was very cool.

      Reply
      • kathy says

        February 17, 2014 at 10:44 pm

        I’m so glad you shared this info!!! I don’t have easy access to a microwave, so if I had crammed 22 2nd graders around a microwave and nothing happened, I probably would have been annoyed! Thanks for this.

        Reply
        • Megan Sheakoski says

          February 18, 2014 at 8:48 pm

          Yes! That would be crazy. 🙂 It sounds like they would really like the bleach though.

          Reply
  13. Emily says

    February 13, 2014 at 7:18 pm

    Doing this with my kids tomorrow! Thanks for the idea. 🙂

    Reply
    • Megan Sheakoski says

      February 13, 2014 at 11:05 pm

      Great! Have fun!

      Reply
  14. Holly Homer says

    February 15, 2014 at 8:52 pm

    Adore this!!!!

    Reply
  15. Angie says

    January 27, 2015 at 9:14 pm

    I teach 3 and 4 year olds and one year I brought in a bag of those hearts and challenged them to see how many they could stack on top of each other before the tower toppled over. They then recorded their “findings” on a sheet I had designed. Some of them wrote the number, some of them drew their tower, others scribbled. 🙂 All had a good time!

    Reply
  16. Victoria McCauley says

    January 30, 2015 at 8:43 pm

    i don’t like this idea at all because what if u have a 2 year old and a 3 and 10 and 7 and 5 and 9 and 3 and a newborn and they want to drink something they will get sick and go to the hospital

    Reply
    • ang says

      February 7, 2016 at 11:53 am

      Really – if you don’t like the experiment because you are unable to watch all of the children and are worried about them drinking the specimen jars then don’t do the experiment. It’s as easy as that. To say you don’t like the experiment because a kid can end up in the hospital is absurd. Common sense is needed to do any activity with kids and obviously you need to supervise them. This is a great experiment and I am extremely happy it was posted. We had lots of fun trying different ingredients on the candy hearts and recording our results.

      Reply
  17. Alicia says

    February 3, 2015 at 10:46 am

    How fun! Thanks for updating it with your results. It’s good to know what direction to go. I would personally skip the bleach even though it sounds fun, except for as an activity with pretty old kids. Bleach is just so dangerous. Here are some fun ways we’ve used candy hearts in our homeschool — graphing, estimating, subtracting, writing, crafting, etc. 🙂 http://www.examiner.com/article/candy-heart-homeschool

    Reply
  18. carolyn says

    February 9, 2015 at 7:32 pm

    Saw Steve Spangle put several hearts in an almost full glass of clear soda. hearts rise to top.. fall to bottom & rise to top from CO2. Dancing hearts!

    Reply
    • Megan Sheakoski says

      February 9, 2015 at 7:44 pm

      FUN!!!!

      Reply
  19. Tanja Schubert says

    February 10, 2015 at 8:47 am

    Would be good to include an explanation of why the different things happen. I’m assuming it’s because the sugar in the hearts reacts with the bleach, salt water, etc, right?

    Reply
  20. Andrea says

    February 22, 2015 at 4:23 pm

    We used Hydrogen peroxide. It dissolved the edges of the candies and the sugar floated up to made colorful heart rings on the surface.

    Reply
    • Megan Sheakoski says

      February 24, 2015 at 9:52 am

      Totally trying that!!!!!! Thanks for sharing!

      Reply
  21. Cheryl Conley says

    February 14, 2025 at 8:52 am

    Love this idea; love all your ideas, thank you so much for sharing them with us!! My kiddos will love this for sure!

    Reply

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