Mad Scientist Halloween Party

Are you looking for a unique and fun Halloween party for the 9 to 11 year old set? Forget about the monsters, witches, and ghosts. Have a Mad Scientist Halloween Party! I spent two years as a children's party planner and this was one of the favorite parties for both boys and girls.

Kids will love whipping up experiments and finding body parts to make their own Frankenstein monster. Don't worry about favors; these budding scientists will be making their own lab coats, goggles, and gloves to take home along with a few of their finished experiments.

You will find ideas for the entire party laid out below. Read all the experiments through so you will know how to do them and what supplies you will need. Use all, one, or two of the experiments or find your own in books or on the internet. Remember that experiments can get messy. Have your young mad scientist help get things ready for the party.

The Mad Scientist Party will be a hit with all your little scientist's guests and will be talked about for a long time.

Everyone loves a Halloween party and there are plenty to attend during the season. Consider holding the party two to three weeks before Halloween so everyone can attend. Choose a Saturday or Sunday afternoon from 2pm to 5pm or an early Saturday evening from 4pm to 7pm. Two to three hours is a good time frame for all party activities to be completed and for guests to enjoy refreshments.

Generally, invitations should be sent out no less than two to three weeks before the party. Remember to include directions to your house. Let guests know which door they should use to enter the party.

Use the template to trace and cut out beaker invitations. You may need to enlarge the image. Write out the invitation on your computer. Keep your writing centered so it fits on the beaker. Print out as many invitations as you need, then cut and glue them onto the beaker.

Another alternative is to scan the beaker template into your computer, write the invitation directly on it, and print out as many as you need. Below is an example of a mad scientist party invitation.

Please join the convention of mad scientists

Saturday, October 6, 2012

From 4pm to 7pm

At 1313 Mockingbird Lane, Munsterville, NY.

R.S.V.P. by September 28, 2012 at 000-0000.

Please wear old clothes. We're going to get messy.

The best place in the house to hold a mad scientist party is in an unfinished basement, although a finished basement will work well too. If you don't have a basement, use the family room or a heated garage. Think Young Frankenstein or Frankenweenie movies for inspiration.

Create a mad scientist lab by using different shaped jars and bottles and filling them with colored water. Add small plastic or rubber eyeballs, teeth, fingers, lizards, etc. you can find at the dollar store or Halloween specialty store. Fill a few jars halfway with white vinegar and just as guests are arriving, add a teaspoon of baking soda to make them fizz. Make sure all the jars and bottles have lids or corks.

Place the jars in groups on shelves, on the floor against the wall and on tables. Ladders and stepstools make excellent shelves for your jars. Place them near the walls so the jars aren't accidentally knocked over.

Hobby shops often have plastic beakers, measuring units, funnels and stirring rods for chemical sets. Pick up a few to add to the theme. Replace some light bulbs with black bulbs found in Halloween stores. They will make everything that is white glow and give the room a dingy laboratory feeling.

Find old dolls of different sizes and lay them down on shelves and tables. Drape pieces of white fabric over them to make them look like dead bodies. Put toy robots around the room. Use a chalkboard or dry erase board to write equations you've made up. Disect gummy worms and frogs and pin them to cardboard.

Stretch store-bought spider webs around everything because mad scientists are not good housekeepers.

You will need tables for food and drinks and conducting experiments. The experiment worktable should be separate from the food and drink tables. Cover all tables with white plastic tablecloths. Use odd shaped gourds as a centerpiece for the food table. Pile them on a platter and label them as "parts."

Create signs leading your guests to the restroom. Call it the "Mad Scientist Relief Room" or another clever name.

Photo by Jawzip

These quick and easy refreshment ideas will give you more time to conduct the party. Some of these ideas can be prepared the evening before or morning of the party. Plan to serve refreshments about one hour into the party. Some finger foods can be left out for guests to snack on throughout the remainder of the party. Make sure scientists are washing their hands after experiments before eating.

Have plenty of paper plates, napkins, and plastic cups in black and purple colors available to your guests. Beverages should be available throughout the party. Have trashcans near the tables so guests can easily find them.

A separate table for beverages is a good idea. Fill a large soup pot or roasting pan with ice and put cans of soda pop or bottles of iced tea in them. Use a soup pot for cider or punch. Surround it with small beakers and rubber gloves for a centerpiece. You can also use a glass percolator to hold punch or cider. Make an easy Mad Scientist Punch by mixing a liter each of ginger ale and lemon-lime soda pop with lemon or orange sherbet.

Harvest Moon Popcorn

All your guests will enjoy this easy, yet different popcorn recipe.

2 cups of popped corn

2 tablespoons of melted butter

1 tablespoon of Worcestershire Sauce (2 tablespoons if you like it spicy)

1 tablespoon dried chopped onion

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 cup of potato sticks or crushed potato chips

Mix the Worcestershire Sauce, onion and garlic powder into melted butter. Mix potato sticks into popcorn and drizzle the butter mixture on top. Toss to coat and serve.

Fill pita halves with a mixture of spaghetti or pizza sauce, pepperoni, and shredded mozzarella cheese. Add Pepperoni eyes on top of the pita and call them Monster Mouths. Pop them in a 300-degree oven for 5 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly.

Wrap hotdogs in crescent rolls, bake per crescent roll directions, and serve. Drizzle ketchup over them to make them look bloody.

Have a fruit platter with plain or honey yogurt dip.

Create an atom using a Stryofoam half circle for a base. Place the flat side on the table. Stick large marshmellows on wooden skewers and dip them in different colors of melted chocolate. Stick the screwers into the foam base. Have the skewers different lengths to create the atom.

Make cupcakes and top them with Lab Safety signs on a toothpick.

Fill petri dishes with Jell-O and add a gummy worm or gummy brain on top when Jell-O is partly set.

Get a brain shaped mold and make a Jell-O brain.

Photo from Stylish Children's Parties.

As soon as the guests start arriving, have them make their mad scientist gear.

Shop at the local thrift store for inexpensive men’s white, button down shirts, with a breast pocket. These will be used as lab coats. Purchase a variety of sizes to fit all the scientists. Help kids roll up the sleeves if too long. Pass around laundry markers and let guests write a scientist name they make up on the pocket.

Or, purchase men’s extra, extra large tee shirts and cut them down the middle of the front of the shirt. You can also suggest guests come wearing their own lab coats on the invitation, and write their names on it when they arrive.

Purchase rubber gloves and safety goggles for each guest at a dollar store. Try to find goggles with ventilated sides and adjustable straps. Have kids create wacky goggles using pipe cleaners, small colored Styrofoam balls, stickers, and glitter glue. Bend and twist the pipe cleaners into strange shapes and push one end into a Styrofoam ball. Attach the pipe cleaner to the goggles with duct tape. Glitter glue can be used to outline the goggles.

Hand out a pair of rubber gloves to each guest and let them write their “scientist” name on them in black magic marker and decorate with alchemist signs if they wish. The gloves and goggles will be needed later when making experiments.

Photo by Indymogel

Steampunk is the latest craze. Think H.G. Wells novels. Kids will love adding gears and clocks to their goggles.

Build a Monster

Have all mad scientists gather around the experiments table. In the center of the table, place a large platter or cookie sheet with sides. Place a sheet of paper with an outline of a body drawn it on the platter. The scientists will have to assemble a body from different parts.

Have them pass around a deep pot or a box full of “body parts.” Each scientist extracts a part from the pot and then puts it in the right place. Continue passing around the box until the body has been assembled.

Use wood skewers to attach face parts to the head. Place small parts, such as eyes, in a labeled plastic bag. Tape labels onto the parts, or let the scientists guess what they are.

Body Parts are:

Small pumpkin, hallowed out, for the head

2 Stuffed olives or peeled grapes in a plastic bag for the eyes

4 zucchini or cucumbers for the arms and legs

1 large watermelon for the body

1 dried up carrot for the nose

1 strip of red pepper in a plastic bag for the mouth

1 small section of raw cauliflower for the brain, it should fit inside the hallowed out pumpkin

2 small round green gourds or small round squash for the hands and feet

10 raw string beans in a plastic bag for the fingers

10 baby carrots in a plastic bag for the toes

This experiment requires a Scientist Superintendent. Scientists will create a strange glop that will revolutionize the world!

Instead of recycling those small plastic containers from margarine and sour cream, clean them out and save them for the mad scientists to use to take home their glop. Wrap colored construction paper around the containers and label them Gloopy Glop. Let scientists know they can keep their glop in the refrigerator so it will stay soft and spongy. Gloopy Glop washes off with soap and water, but this is a good experiment to use rubber gloves.

You will need for each scientist:

½ cup liquid laundry starch

½ cup white liquid school glue

a few drops of green food coloring

1 plastic container with lid

Procedure

1.Pour starch, food coloring, and glue into the take home container.

2.Mix together with hands until there is one big gooey piece, (about 5 seconds).

Gloopy Glop can be squeezed, squished, rolled, stretched, and molded. Tear it into pieces then stick them back together again. Slowly Gloopy Glop will melt back into one big rubbery glop.

This experiment requires a Scientist Superintendent.

You will need newspaper to cover the work surface.

You will need per scientist:

1 Mixing bowl

1 cup water

2 cups dry cornstarch

small jar with lid

yellow and blue food coloring

spoon

small plastic or waxed paper cup

Procedure

1.Spread the newspaper over the work surface. Set a bowl in front of each scientist. Put 2 cups of cornstarch in each bowl.

2.Use the spoon to mix the yellow and blue food coloring in the paper cup until you have an acid-looking chartreuse color. (3 parts yellow to 1 part blue)

3.Mix the color into the cornstarch.

4.Slowly add water to the colored cornstarch. Have scientists put on their rubber gloves and then mix it thoroughly with their hands.

5.When the mix feels liquid while mixing, but feels solid when it is tapped or pressed you have quicksand. Spoon it into the jar and close the lid to keep it from drying out.

Inflate a balloon without blowing into it.

You will need for each scientist:

1 regular rubber balloon

4 Tablespoons of white vinegar

2 Tablespoons of baking soda

1 clean bottle

1 funnel

1. Pour the vinegar into a clean bottle.

2. Using a funnel, fill a balloon with baking soda.

3. Carefully place the open end of the balloon over the open end of the bottle, making sure the balloon ends are down around the mouth of the bottle.

Surprise! The balloon will inflate by itself! The gas from the combination of the baking soda and vinegar inflates the balloon.

Have scientists form teams. This experiment requires a Scientist Superintendent.

You will need for each team:

Oven mat or other fireproof surface

Taper candle

Candleholder with sturdy base

Matches

Orange peels in a bowl

1.Cover the tabletop with the oven mat. Fix the candle in the candleholder and sit it on the mat. Set the basket of orange peels nearby.

2.Dim the lights and light the candle. With an adult scientist supervising, each guest should take turns picking up a piece of orange peel and squeezing it over the bowl, then quickly flicking the oils from the peel through the candle flame. Fireworks!

You will need for each scientist:

2 to 6 toothpicks

6 to 8 gumdrops

This one is easy. Connect gumdrops with toothpicks to form molecules. Scientists can take them home and eat the gumdrops later.