It seems a while ago since we had fun with the Skittles experiment, creating a colourful rainbow by adding water to a plate of Skittles. It’s so easy to do science experiments at home and that was one of my daughters’ favourites. It’s so simple to set up that it makes a quick and easy science experiment for kids. With Halloween coming up we thought we would recreate it as a Halloween pumpkin Skittles experiment.

Halloween Pumpkin skittles experiment for kids

You don’t need much equipment. Just a big bag of Skittles, a white plate, and a jug of cold water. You could also grab a timer if you want to time how quickly the colour changes.

The first thing to do is separate the orange skittles from the bag. We added a few green skittles too, to make a stalk.

Then my daughter created a pumpkin shape from the orange skittles on the plate.

The next step was to pour a little water onto the plate, slowly enough that the skittles didn’t move out of place, but enough to cover the sweets.

Gradually the colours leeched from the skittles. The food colouring in the Skittles was very strong and created a really pretty pattern.

The Skittles are covered in sugar and food colouring which dissolve as the water touched them. The coloured water slowly moves towards the centre of the plate.

We had plenty of Skittles left over so tried the experiment again, but this time replaced the water with milk.

The milk solution was slightly more subtle but both created wonderful patterns.

The above process took about 20 minutes but we actually left out the experiment all day. The end results weren’t so pretty but all the colour came away from the sweets and there was very little left of anything!

You may be interested in our other science experiments for kids:

How to make a water compass

Grow your own salt water crystals

Dissolving candy cane experiment

Egg in vinegar experiment for kids