How To Make Fake Snow Using Diapers: Summer of Science Series

The Summer of Science Series is all about the fun science experiments I’ve been doing with the kids this summer.

It’s summertime and around here, that usually results in a lot of whining and complaining about being bored. And living in Arizona, I can’t exactly send them outside to play in 120 degree temps. So this year, I came up with a plan to distract these kids with some learning under the guise of “fun.” We started doing a few science experiments to pass the time and now it has evolved into the summer of science!

One of our first experiments involved making fake snow. We don’t get to see snow around here, but that doesn’t mean we can’t pretend and make some instant snow of our own!

Materials needed for fake snow:

A few diapers (clean of course)

Scissors

Water

Bowl

Cut through the first layer of the diaper. The polymer (sodium polyacrylate) inside of the diaper is what we need to make our instant snow.

Take out the cotton and place it in the bowl. Buried in this cotton will be tiny salt-like crystals (the super-absorbing polymer). Shake out the crystals into the bowl and remove the cotton.

Add water and watch the water get absorbed as it turns into what looks like instant snow!

There you have it. My kids loved the texture, dropping it on the ground (probably better done outside) and just had lots of fun playing with it for the afternoon. A win for mom indeed! Watch the video tutorial on youtube: