The other day, my daughter picked up a CD and was fascinated by the rainbows that formed on it when she moved it around. We held it under the light and moved it all around and admired the bursts of color. The colors were so beautiful. We wanted more and had an idea to try to paint our rainbows.
Baking soda and vinegar eruptions are a favorite in our house. The ingredients are usually always readily available, they are easy to set up and fascinating to watch. My daughter wanted to make them this week and so we did. With Valentine’s Day nearing, we thought a fizzing heart project would be perfect.
She has recently perfected making hearts. She draws them and cuts them out all the time, so with her love of hearts and Valentine’s approaching quickly, hearts were the perfect choice for our fizzy paintings.
I have said this several times over the last few months, but I will say it again. It was a rough winter for us. Our whole house was sick more than we were healthy this past winter & unfortunately the spring has not been much kinder to us. There has been plenty of nose blowing & snotty noses in this house, so when I saw this experiment it seemed to be right up our alley. This experiment show how mucus is formed, which is with sugar & proteins. There were many variations on this, but I found this on Yeah I Made It.
The Fake Snot Experiment
What you will need:
1/2 cup of boiling water
3 packets of unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup of Caro (corn syrup)
Food coloring
Directions:
Add the boiling water to a bowl & add a drop of food coloring. Mix in the packets of gelatin and let it soften & stir.
Add the corn syrup to the mixture. Pull the fork up & watch as the mixture forms stringy snot-like strands.
“Ugh gross, mama! It looks like boogers.”
It will thicken up as it cools. Add water if needed to keep it from getting to thick.
Thank you as always for stopping by. Please follow us on Facebook as well.
Science for kids does not need to be complicated. The simplest of things can be fun & educational. I like doing experiments that require very little set up, clean up & are done with items that are easily accessible. This is about as simple as it gets.
It has been a month now since Mai started daycare. As you all know, I was not exactly over the moon with the decision to put her in daycare, but now I couldn’t be happier. It is a pain waking up early to drop her off before work & I do still get that feeling of guilt at leaving her there, but I have seen such a wonderful change in her over these past few weeks. She comes home with great stories about her new friends & the fun things that they do together. It warms my heart to hear her talk about her day with such excitement.
The other day when my husband arrived to pick her up, they were outside making baking soda volcanoes. Hubby had a difficult time getting her to leave her fun activity. When they came home, they both wanted to share with me how much fun Mai & friends had playing with the volcanoes. My husband told me that it was just a simple activity using baking soda & vinegar. He said that he used to do this a lot as a child. Perhaps I lived a very sheltered childhood, but I had never heard of such a thing. I have seen many things on Pinterest for different science experiments that caused eruptions, but never actually looked at how they were made. Had I realized it was so simple I would have tried these ages ago. Thank you Miss Laura, you gave us a wonderful activity to try at home.
Baking Soda Volcanoes
What you will need:
Baking soda
Vinegar
Food coloring
Squeeze bottles
Small receptacle or cup- we used a mini flower pot & a Dixie cup
Plastic dish bin
Play Sand (optional)
Place your small receptacle in the center of the plastic dish bin. We used a mini flower pot & also a Dixie cup. Surround it with sand to give it a more volcanic look. Add baking soda to your center container. In a squeeze bottle or bottles, mix vinegar & food coloring. Squeeze the colored vinegar mixture over the baking soda & watch it erupt.
If you can’t tell, our daughter loved this. We went through a whole bottle of vinegar & box of baking soda. When we were done, she said, “Mama, Dada go to store to buy more food coloring?”. I guess we have to hit the supermarket for more supplies.
