Have you heard of the egg drop challenge? My daughter has been begging to do it for months. I don’t know why we didn’t do it sooner. Well, I do. I thought it was going to make a giant mess that I would end up cleaning up but I was totally wrong. It was basically no mess at all. I will even say this Egg Drop Challenge was so much fun! Try this egg drop project with preschool, pre k, kindergarten, first grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, and 4th grade students for a fun, hands-on science project for kids.
Egg Drop Challenge
So what is the Egg Drop Challenge? Basically, you create a contraption with the intention of keeping the egg safe. You put an egg inside your contraption and drop from a high distance, we did a 6 foot ladder. There are so many options for what your contraption can be made of, the options are endless, and this is what makes it fun. There are so many possible ways to tweak this egg drop project for kindergartners, grade 1, grade 2, grade 3, grade 4, grade 5, and grade 6 students!
Whether you are a parent, teacher, or homeschooler – this classic experiment is a must try science project for kids of all ages!
Egg Drop Project
The idea with this egg drop science project is to have children try to think critically about why an egg might break when dropped and what you could do to protect the egg from breaking despite the impact of the landing. Some years we have made vehicles for the egg drop lined with kleenex, other times we have made simple parachutes to slow the fall, but this time we tried something completely different. You may have these things on hand; the beauty of this science project for kids is that you can use whatever household supplies you have on hand! Here are the few simple supplies we used in our egg drop experiment:
- Paper Ice Cream Bowls
- Rubber Bands
- Sandwich Bags
- Eggs
Egg Drop Ideas
Then I asked my daughter to find things in our house that may help keep the eggs safe inside the bowl. She was so much more creative than I had expected! Here are the different ideas she had that we tried:
- Empty Bowl
- Marshmallows – She filled the bowl half way with mini marshmallows, placed the egg on top, then filled the rest of the bowl with mini marshmallows.
- Playdough – She covered the egg in playdough and placed it in the bowl.
- Ooblek & Marshmallows – Ooblek is made with equal parts cornstarch and water. It is the substance that can be pounded with a hammer when hard but will also ooze through your fingers when you pick it up. After she poured some ooblek into the bowl, she placed the egg in. Then she topped with some more marshmallows.
Egg Drop Project Ideas
When the bowls were full and ready, I placed a sandwich bag over the top and secured it with a rubber band. We did this for all of the bowls. Next we voiced our hypothesis and then tried our experiment.
I thought for sure the playdough would work and thought that possibly the marshmallow & ooblek would work but I knew the empty bowl would not work. My daughter also knew that the empty bowl would not work. She thought that the marshmallow and playdough would work and really thought for sure that the ooblek and marshmallows would work.
She stood on a 6 foot ladder and I handed her one bowl at a time. She dropped them and we checked them all at the end.
The results are in…
- Empty Bowl – We were right, the empty bowl did not work. The egg splattered all over the inside of the bowl and the bag top.
- The playdough did not work.
- The marshmallow idea did not work either. I was disappointed at this point. I wanted one of my daughters’ creations to work!
- Then we opened the ooblek and marshmallow bowl. I think I literally screamed “WHAAT?”, in surprise. I was so excited for her. It worked. The egg sank down into the ooblek and the marshmallows helped soften the blow too. It was the perfect egg drop contraption!
Besides practicing creating a hypothesis and the scientific method, we also talked about how gravity made the bowls fall. The weight of the bowls and force of motion made the bowls smack to the ground, regardless of what was in them.
Spring Crafts for Kids
- Super cute Printable Name Flower Craft
- Simple Windsock Craft for kids
- Bleeding Tissue Paper Rainy Day Crafts for Kids
- EASY ink pad spring crafts for toddlers
- EDIBLE, Peeps Playdough Recipe
- Fun-to-Make and lovely painted flower craft preschool
- Make your own yummy milk Rainbow Toast
- This spin art Flower Craft for kids is almost as beautiful as they are fun to make
- Simple Sunflower Crafts that are bright, cheery, and simple to make
- This flower activity for preschoolers changes things up to use flowers to create art
- Plant a Number Line to 10 Math activity for pre-k and kindergarten
- Show off these pretty flower suncatcher craft
- 100 Flower Crafts from A to Z
- Silly Grass Head Craft
- Handprint Spring flower art projects
- Rainbow Hand Art Projects for St Patricks Day
- Looking for more fun color activities for kids don’t miss these 37 Colorful Activities for Kids
- Super clever, bubble wrap rain craft
- Wow! Over 100 Spring Crafts for Kids
- Dandelion flower craft project
- Stunning, Easy Stained Glass Art for Kids
- Kids will go nuts over this painting with cars rainbow project
- Amazing Bubble Painting process art project for kids
Spring Science
Check out these outrageously FUN spring science experiments for kids:
- Beautiful Chromatography Flowers made with science!
- Amazing Food Coloring Flower Experiment Worksheet where you can turn a flower into two seperate colors!
- Have you tried making butter experiment
- Colorful Jelly Bean Experiment exploring difusion and color matching with a simple activity for kids
- You’ve got to try this simple Color Changing Slime
- Simply Rainbow Density Experiment for springtime
- How Big is a Raindrop – try this raindrop experiment to find out!
- Egg Drop Challenge with marshmallows!
- You’ve got to try this Lego Balloon Car
- Make a popsicle stick catapult
- Colorful Polymer Chemistry Experiment
- MUST try capillary action experiment
- Lego DIY Zipline for your backyard
- How to Make a Weather Vane the EASY way
- Pop Rocks Experiment kids will LOVE!
Flower Printables
Looking for some fun, educational spring theme ideas to make learning fun this April and May? Check out these fun resources:
- Cute, free printable Flower Shape Craft for kids
- Flower Rhyming Words Worksheet
- Sunflower Alphabet Matching
- Flower Mazes – Free Printable Sight Word Worksheets
- Pretty Flower Name of Number Puzzles
- F is for Flower Handprint Craft
- Count to 20 Spring Playdough Mats
- Rainbow Shape Playdough Mats
- Spring Do a Dot Printables
- Flower Letter Matching Printable
- Grow a Plant Sequencing Worksheets
- Fun Spring Flower SIght Word Game
Spring Printables
- Spring Jelly Bean Egg One to One Correspondence Activities
- Super cute Carrot Shape Playdough Mats for Spring
- Count the Bunny Number Flashcards
- Rainbow Color Matching Game
- Practice adding numbers with this free printable Spring Addition Matching Game
- Planting Carrots CVC Words Activity
- Fruit Loop Rainbow Printables Ten Frame Math Activity
- Practice making shapes with these flower playdough mats
- Spring Flower Counting Games for Preschoolers
- Grab these cute Spring Printables Sudoku Puzzles for kids
- Seed Find the Letter Worksheets
- Frog Alphabet Game Matching Printable
- Kite Beginning Sound Activities printable craft for spring
- Print and GO Spring Scavenger Hunt
- Spring Step by Step Drawings
- Practice reading with this Spring sight word cut and paste reader
- Worm Worksheets Pack
- Spring Telling Time Worksheets
- Digraphy Activity to improve reading and spelling skills with these spring puzzles
- Cute Blubird Soring Blends Activity for first and second graders.
- LOTS of fun PLANTS arts and crafts for preschool and kindergartners