Saturday, February 28, 2009

Home Made Volcanoes

We thought we would end the last day of Summer with a bang - well, a fizzle.

My 4 year old (5 very soon) is a very self directed learner. He can't seem to put his shoes and socks on but he can tell me most of the flags of the world (lol). He has a passion for a subject and almost gets obsessive about it. He has taught me about so many flags, hence the flag counter on my blog. He gets so excited when we have a visitor that adds a new flag.
This passion has branched out to maps of the world and now it moving on to volcanoes. He builds them at pre-kindy in the sand pit and pours water in them. We went to a friend's place this week and her and her son built their own volcano. My son was so excited. So, I decided to build one of our own.

How to build your own volcano! This is messy so it is best done outside.
Step 1:
Get air drying clay (we got ours at the discount shop in Springwood. 2.5 kg for $7.95), a plastic container (I used a shampoo bottle), a board to put it on and some little helpers (Little Loopity Lou was sleeping).

Step 2:
Add the clay to the plastic container. This is the fun bit.

Step 3:
We added some little rocks we found around the garden.



Step 4:
Get some white vinegar and mix a little bit of paint to make the colour of lava.



Step 5:
Get Bi-carbonate of Soda. Pour some in the middle of the volcano then pour in the vinegar mix.
Watch it fizzle.....


... and have fun.

12 comments:

Lynne said...

Fun? They certainly look like they had that! Good on ya mum!

Cloudia said...

What FUN!!!! aloha-

Leigh said...

SO. FREAKIN'. AWESOME!!! Looks like great fun :)

karisma said...

oh! Major cool! We did such an experiment A while back will have to find the link for you! The kids had so much fun! Life learning at its best, way to go mama!

denise said...

oh, we love making volcano's. That turned out great!!!

Castlequeen said...

This also works well in the sandpit and you can use yoghurt pottles or old camera film canisters. Give the children different coloured vinegar in plastic squirt/dropper bottles and make rainbow volcanoes or use tones of red/yellow/orange. This leads to another fun acitivity with film cannisters, half fill with vinegar, place in 1tsp b.soda and very quickly put on lid and turn upside dow,n then countdown for your own rocket launch... you do need to experiment with the ratios and you want a tight fitting lid. Have fun! - Ali, New Zealand.

Lynne said...

Just visited this site and thought of you - enjoy; her dolls are gorgeous!

http://www.feltmaking.com/

Julie said...

This is so great! A friend told me about this experiment a while back and I forgot how to do it. So glad I now know how. Thankyou for the award x.

RunninL8 said...

Hey! PERFECT! Just in time since Lo is quite interested with volcanoes now that we have a "local" one ready to erupt!!!
And THANK YOU so much for the award! It Made my weekend!!! I'll post about it as soon as I can!

Lisa said...

These are the best looking volcanoes I have ever seen....seriously works of art! I haven't done these with my girls yet, I need to!

pink and green mama MaryLea said...

WE love to make these with play-doh on a baking sheet and add some toy dinosaurs! Great blog.

india flint said...

you can make edible volcanoes by boiling up honey and brown sugar and then [at the toffee stage] adding a little bicarb soda...the mixture goes mad and then sets firm... we call it "violent grumbles" [a play on the AUstralian favourite Violet Crumble]. fun to make and fun to eat [when cool]