DIY science projects that elementary school boys will love: ideas you can make with everyday materials
For a summer vacation independent research craft project, you’ll want ideas that really grab boys’ interest.
In this article, we introduce craft ideas that boys can get absorbed in—like making a capsule toy (gachapon) machine out of cardboard, creating genuine fishing gear with a reel, and handcrafting air hockey or a basketball game.
They all look impressive yet can be made with everyday materials.
How about creating fun summer memories by playing with your favorite project together with friends?
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DIY science projects that elementary school boys will love! Ideas you can make with everyday materials (21–30)
Rubber Band Pull-Back Car
You often see pull-back cars among children’s toys—when you pull them backward, they drive forward.
In this science project, we’ll make a pull-back car using a rubber band mechanism.
Materials include cardboard, plastic bottle caps, bamboo skewers, rubber bands, and more.
The cardboard will be the car body, the caps will be the tires, and the bamboo skewers will serve as the axles.
One day is plenty of time for the work itself, but since you’ll need to understand the plans and cut the cardboard, it’s best for upper elementary students if working alone, or for middle elementary students if working with a parent.
You can make it feel even more like a science project by changing the type of rubber band and comparing results!
slime
Let’s experiment with and summarize the curious, gooey properties of slime—and then make your own! You’ll mix a borax solution in water with PVA glue and a water-based paint in your favorite color.
After that, compile your observations on the slime’s movement and properties into a report.
Since this involves handling chemicals, care is required; this is best suited for an upper elementary school science project.
Hands-on science and craft projects that elementary school boys will love! Ideas you can make with everyday materials (31–40)
smart ball
Smart ball: you score points when the ball you hit drops into a hole.
Believe it or not, you can make this entirely with materials from a 100-yen shop! Prepare a perforated board, square wooden rods, wooden dowels, rubber bands, nails, and marbles.
Attach a frame around the perforated board using the square rods, then create a channel for the striker to slide through.
Make the striker itself from the square rods as well.
Use nails and rubber bands to fix the striker to the board, then glue a plastic sheet—cut to a 2 cm width—along the inside of the upper part of the board.
Insert dowels into the holes, and hook rubber bands wherever you like, and it’s done.
Test it with a marble to make sure it shoots properly.
Let’s make a crane game
The crane game you can’t help playing at the arcade—now you can enjoy it at home! Let’s make your own DIY crane game as a science project.
Prepare a cardboard box, a tension rod longer than the box’s width, a large clear file folder, yarn, a magnet, paper clips, a safety pin, and some small prizes.
Use the cardboard to build the outer casing and the arm.
Then make the arm mechanism with the tension rod, magnet, and yarn.
Attach a safety pin to each prize, and use the magnet to latch onto the pin and lift it.
It’s a bit elaborate, but with an adult’s help, even lower elementary school students can do this project.
Let’s make a tornado bottle
Have you ever really watched how water swirls? You might have seen whirlpools in the ocean, but that’s probably only from above.
With this tornado bottle, you can see a vortex from the side.
Just put a few drops of dish soap into a plastic bottle of water and you’re ready.
Put the cap on and spin it quickly—the tiny bubbles created by the soap make the swirling motion of the water easy to see.
Try making a summary of patterns like: “This method makes it spin longer,” or “This kind of shaking also creates a vortex.”
Making bephosphamite
They’re like sparkling gemstones! Why not try creating them with your own hands? Here’s how to make crystals at home: biphosphammite.
Biphosphammite is crystallized monoammonium phosphate.
The materials are easy to obtain, and once you’re set up, you can make it in about a day.
You can either challenge yourself to grow a large crystal, or grow crystals as decorative accents on a base object.
As you work on it, you’ll grow more and more attached to it—and by the end of summer vacation, it might just become a treasure for life.
Paper chromatography
If you’re looking for a simple, fun, and easy-to-understand experimental project you can do in a day, try paper chromatography and “graph-phy.” All you need are several felt-tip pens, paper, a chopstick, and a cup.
By dipping the end of the paper marked with the pen into the cup, the pigments separate, letting you see which colors were used to make the pen’s ink.
This is a great free research project for upper elementary grades and up.
