Eruption of Color

Two weeks ago we went camping at the beach with family and friends. One of the kids had a volcano that the dad did with all of the kids and K loved it. We were at Lakeshore Learning picking up a few things and K sees the volcanothat they used at the beach. Of course she begged and pleated for me to buy it for her. I did not want to spend the money when I knew there were cheaper ways to do it. So yesterday I went out and purchesed all of the materials we would need for our experiment.

                                                                                                                    

Vinegar, baking soda, and food coloring. That's all you need, three things!! I used four clear plastic cups and put them in a clear baking dish. Since I was doing this on the light table, I wanted to  make sure it was protected from the liquid. I had K pick out the colors she wanted and add them to the vinegar.

Next I added baking soda to a cup, this allowed her to easily have access to it instead of pouring it from the box. Before I let her add the baking soda I asked her a few questions about prediction.

1. What do you think is going to happen?

2.How much baking soda do you think we need to add?

3.Will it makes any sounds?

4. If we put in a little bit what will happen? How about a big spoon full?

Then I explained that by combining the vinegar and baking soda it creates what is called a chemical reaction. In 5 year old terms-when you mix these two things together something cool happens!! I handed her the spoon and let her go to town.

She loved it! With each cup she added more and more baking soda because she figured out that you will get a bigger reaction the more you add. She wanted to see what it would look like with the light table on. So we finished these colors, and did four more different colors.

This was so much fun for K and myself. I loved seeing her reaction when the baking soda foamed up. It was also fun to see her mind working and seeing her try different things to get different reactions. Such a little scientists! Of course we ran out of vinegar much to K's disappointment. So my advice if you are going to try this-buy LOTS of vinegar. The kids are going to want to try it over and over again. She has already asked three different time to try this again. This is on our list of experiments to do again soon!