One day my son, Cory, watched the Youtube personality, Ryan. He saw Ryan and his mom do the elephant toothpaste experiment. After watching, he said, “Mom, I want to do that!” So I watched the video with Cory and immediately started to write down the materials and directions.
We had everything needed for the experiment except dry active yeast. I purchased the yeast from Amazon because I figured Cory would want to do this repeatedly. The next day, the yeast came and we immediately started to make the elephant toothpaste.
The first time we did the experiment, we saw an explosion but the cup we used was too big. We decided to use a smaller cup because we wanted the chemical action to overflow out of the cup. The second time was “epic” according to my son.
I will show you how we did the experiment below. Your child will want to do this repeatedly so get ready.
Let’s Get Started!

Materials Needed:
- Two cups
- ½ cup of Hydrogen Peroxide
- 1 squirt of Dawn dish soap
- 5 drops of food coloring
- 15 ml of warm water
- .25 oz Fleischmann’s Active Dry Yeast (1 packet)
- Goggles to protect eyes
- Gloves to protect hands
Directions:
- Tell your child that they will create a fun foam explosion called Elephant Toothpaste.
- Put on goggles and gloves
- Put hydrogen peroxide in one of the cups
- Add five drops of food coloring in the cup
- Put a squirt of dish soap in the cup
- In a different cup pour 15 ml of water.
- Add the active dry yeast packet to the water and mix.
- Pour the water and yeast mixture in the cup with the hydrogen peroxide mixture
- Watch the awesome foam explosion!


Watch the video below of our experiment!
Have fun with this experiment!
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This looks like so much fun. My kids love hands on experiments even though they are young. This is something I can do with them.
Oh good. I hope you all have fun with this experiment.
This is such a great STEM experiment for kids! I’m going to try it.
Oh wonderful! Your kids will love it!
I have always wanted to try this with my kids. It looks like so much fun! Thanks for the post!
No problem. I am glad you found it helpful.
This looks like so much fun! What a cool experiment!
Never heard of this, thank you for sharing 🙂
No problem. It is a fun experiment.
My daughter loves slime and I am sure would love this experiment!
Oh good! I think your daughter will really like it.
this looks fun, my kids love science experiments so we will be giiving this a try, thank you!
No problem. I am glad you found this helpful!
That is so fun! Why is it called Elephant Toothpaste? LOL
LOL! You are supposed to do the experiment in a flask. Once the chemical reaction comes out of the flask, it looks like toothpaste an elephant would use, I guess. LOL
That was so satisfying to watch. I think we will need to try that out x
Thank you! Have fun with this experiment!