Here’s a fun little science experiment for your kids.  And of course, it’s simple as can be.

What happens when you put a bar of Ivory soap in the microwave?  It expands and grows and turns this:

into this:

Here’s what to do:

• Get a bar of Ivory soap, yes it has to be Ivory (other brands will just melt as they don’t have as much air in them to be able to expand).
• Put it on a microwave safe plate or napkin
• Microwave it for 1-2 minutes.

My kids thought it was great fun to watch it grow.  And then?  What do you do with it after that?  Well, you have a couple of options.  After it’s been microwaved it is still completely usable.

You can let them play with it and form it into a new shaped bar of soap.  My daughter formed some of ours into a ball like this:

That’s not exactly beautiful, but after it was all nice and dry (and too late), we thought we should have used cookie cutters to shape some.  But, we didn’t.  That will be next time!  🙂

If you don’t want to use it to reshape into new bars of soap.  You could try making it into liquid hand soap.  You would need to cook it in water and add some glycerin.  I may share a recipe that we try soon, but for now, you should check out how Amy at Raising Arrows turned her hotel bar soap into liquid hand soap.