5 Science Experiments with Paper Towels

Thanks to Viva® Vantage Paper Towels and Walmart for sponsoring today’s post. Not only can you buy Viva® Vantage Paper Towels for cleaning up tough messes, but you can also use them for science experiments. Try these 5 experiments with paper towels!

1) Stretch Test – Viva® Vantage Paper Towels pride themselves on having a great stretch that’s responsible for the strength. Practice measuring with your kids and test out the stretch for yourself.

You’ll need a ruler and one paper towel. Place the paper towel on a flat surface. Measure the width of the paper towel.

Stretch the paper towel out.

Measure the width of the paper towel again. How far did the towel stretch?

2) Parachutes – We’ve made parachutes before comparing cloth, plastic, tissue paper, and coffee filters. We used the same method for building a parachute out of a Viva® Vantage Paper Towel. Instead of using a square, Aiden wanted to used one piece of the Choose-A-Sheet towels. He also chose to decorate his parachute with glittery shapes.

Aiden dropped the parachute off of our front steps.

Get the instructions for making a parachute here.

3) Walking Water – This is a classic experiment using paper towels. Learn about capillary action as you watch the water move from one glass to the other. It’s even more fun when you add colors to the mix.

Get the instructions for the walking water experiment from Coffee Cups and Crayons.

4) Paper Chromatography – Another classic science experiment. You can use filter paper, coffee filters, or paper towels!

In addition to paper towels, you’ll need a drinking glass, an eye dropper, and water.

Cut your paper towel into a square {or any shape really}.

Use washable marker to draw dots or a circle in the middle of the square. {Black and brown tend to work the best because they are made with the most colors, but it’s always fun to try it with other colors, too.}

Place your paper towel on top of the drinking glass. Using the eye dropper, drop one drop of water at a time onto the middle of the paper towel. The water will spread out over the washable marker and separate the colors. The results will vary based on the brand and colors of markers you used.

Let the paper towel dry. Then, you can turn it into a parachute or keep it as a piece of art.

5) Paper Towel Absorption – Here’s an easy science experiment that even toddlers can do.

You’ll need:

bowls
Viva® Vantage Paper Towels
measuring cup
water

Fold a paper towel into a square and place it in a bowl. Ask you child how much water they think the paper towel can hold. Let her measure the water and pour it onto the paper towel. Did it hold as much as she thought? You can set up the experiment with 1 paper towel in one bowl, 2 paper towels in a second bowl, and 3 paper towels in a third bowl. Which paper towels will hold the most water? How much water did they hold.

Viva® Vantage Paper Towels

I don’t usually buy paper towels. We try to use cloth as much as possible in our house. However, there are some jobs that just require a paper towel. Cleaning the grill and cleaning our cast iron skillets are two of these examples. I hate how my cleaning cloths are greasy and black after cleaning the grill. Using cloth to wipe oil on a cast iron skillet leaves little pieces of cloth behind. I also don’t like cleaning the oil off of the cloth. Paper towels are so much easier for these jobs. Viva® Vantage Paper Towels are made with a revolutionary V-Flex Weave, which provides stretch that helps deliver great scrubbing power.

I really wish I would have had Viva® Vantage Paper Towels last week. One of chickens laid an egg on the ramp to the coup. Before we could get the egg, the chickens knocked it off of the ramp. It fell onto the wood on the side of their run and broke. I only had birthday party napkins to use to clean up the egg mess. You know the kind of napkins that fall apart if you do anything besides wipe your face with them. It took several napkins to clean the egg off of the wood and then we still had to spray the area with water.

Have you tried the new Viva® Vantage Paper Towels? You can find them at Walmart. What tough messes do you clean up?