Space-themed gelatin window clings

Space has been a big theme in our house for nearly a year now. So when I saw instructions for making gelatin window clings in the book Learn with Play: 150+ Activities for Year-Round Fun & Learning (click the link for more details about this book that I co-authored), I thought it would be really fun to try our hand at making some space-themed gelatin window clings.

Note: Find more great space activities for kids on my Space Unit Study page.

Directions for making the gelatin are listed on page 44 of Learn with Play: 150+ Activities for Year-Round Fun & Learning, courtesy of Crystal from The Science Kiddo.

We used unflavored Knox Gelatine in our recipe. I followed Crystal’s directions, except I accidentally poured the gelatin too thick. Oops! But we managed to make it work anyway.

After the gelatin cooled a bit, but before it had fully hardened, we dripped various colors from our set of liquid watercolors into the gelatin.

We tried to make our designs look like planets and the sun. It was fun to discuss color choices for each object in our solar system that we created. Orange for the sun, red for Mars, orange for Venus, etc.

Once the gelatin had hardened in the fridge overnight, we brought it out to cut into shapes. As you can see, the colors did continue to diffuse through the gelatin a bit as it cooled, but the four designs we created were all still quite separate from one another.