Magic Milk Paint*

How To Make It:

1. Place the dish soap-dipped toothpick into their hands and watch eyes widen as they make magic.
2. Pour milk into small dish or container lid.
3. After milk is poured, add a few drops of various food colors.
4. Dip toothpick in dish soap.
5. Place toothpick into milk.
6. After experimenting with swirling and mixing colors, colored milk can be used for painting on light-colored paper.

NOTE: To build up the suspense, tell kids that they’ll be using the world’s smallest magic wand.

The Wacky Science Behind It: All liquids have a surface tension that allows less dense objects to float on their surface (think of a leaf floating on top of a puddle). Inserting the soap-tainted toothpick into the mixture majorly messes with the milk’s surface tension, causing the food coloring to flee from the soap.