A Twist on an Old Favorite – Screaming Ghost Balloons

We love to see a twist or a new idea for one of our experiments and activities. One of our favorite bloggers Janelle at Brimful Curiousities, shared this idea on her blog. We loved it so much, we want to share it with our readers…

Janelle took our Screaming Balloon activity one step further and made ghosts with the balloons. First, she added the hex nut to the balloon and blew it up, just as the experiment explains. Then, she took white kitchen garbage bags and placed the balloons inside. She taped up the bag at the bottom of the balloon to keep the balloon from falling out of the bottom. Finally, she and her kids used black permanent pens to draw faces on the ghosts.

The ghosts can also glow by turning off the lights and placing a flashlight behind them.

The ghosts were named and played with for an entire evening. I’m sure her house was filled with whirring sounds and laughter. A science lesson about centripetal force also sneaked in.

An added bonus for using the garbage bags is if and when the balloon pops, the hex nut is safely contained inside the outer bag. A good thing for households with little ones.

Thank you to Janelle for sharing her idea with us and if you have an idea or activity you would like to share with us, please email, call (1-800-223-9080) or leave us a comment below.