Ivory Soap Activity

This Ivory soap activity is cheap, simple, and fun. Three great aspects of a quick and easy science experiment.

With the focus heavy on homeschooling right now, I thought I would introduce one of our favorite go-to science experiments.

I first did this activity when my kids were 4 and 6. The marvel of the “science magic” outcome was the main focus then. This year, we did the activity again after studying the three states of matter: solid, liquid, gas.

The Preparation

When my kids were 4 and 6, the preparation study was simply “science is cool, let me show you”. I wanted them to fall in love with the observation of the world around them. The discovery of unfamiliar outcomes was something I wanted their curious little minds to feast on.

Now that they are 8 and 10 years old, we spent a couple of weeks studying the three states of matter mentioned above. Water is one of the easiest molecules to observe in all three phases: ice, liquid water, water vapor.

The physical preparation for the activity was simply to buy some Ivory soap. It is important to use Ivory soap. It has a higher air content (which is why it will float). You need all those lovely little air pockets for this activity to work.

The Activity

For the activity, you will need access to a microwave, a microwave safe plate, and a bar of Ivory soap. The process is simple:

Unwrap the bar of soap and place on microwave safe plate
Place the plate with bar of soap in the microwave and set microwave for 1 min.
Press start and watch the fun begin!
Carefully take out plate (I used a pot holder, plate was hot) and have fun exploring the outcome.

It is fun to buy a three pack of Ivory and compare. Our bars each produced a slightly different result. It was great for the kids to try to reason out why that happened.

The Outcome

The outcome is a fun fluffy mountain! As I just mentioned, our bars had differing results. One of the bars created a larger “mountain” than the other.

When my kids were 4 and 6 years old, I took the soap after the microwave and placed it into a sensory bin. They played with it for at least a week after (note: the soap smell is very strong after the soap is heated). It was evidently a great snow scene for their Hot Wheels!

This time, being 8 and 10 years old, they had more fun investigating, pulling apart, stabbing with a fork, and cutting with knives! They were fascinated by the texture.

And, as a bonus, they understood that the reason the “mountain” of soap formed is because the water molecules were excited by the heat, causing water vapor. The water vapor expands into the air pockets, causing the soap to grow.

All in all, this is still one of the kids favorite experiments (outside of baking soda and vinegar). I don’t mind since it is easy, fun, and inexpensive.

If you choose to do this experiment, I hope you will have as much fun watching it grow as we do.

Be Blessed and Much Peace to You