Thursday, January 7, 2010

Volcano!

We are currently learning about Hawaii for our Fifty States Project. We made a volcano, of course. 

This is the second volcano we have made.  We used play doh for this volcano, and we used air dry clay for the first volcano. The air dry clay volcano was a long process because we molded the clay around a plastic bottle and let it dry overnight.  Then we painted it brown.  The play doh volcano was created and erupted all within the course of an hour.  Instant gratification goes a long way with a three year old and five year old.  We molded aluminum foil around a plastic cup to make it look like a volcano and then covered it with play doh.




I think it looked pretty cool covered with the mixed colors that are typically ignored because they just do not look that great for normal play doh play time.

We put 3 tsp baking soda and some food coloring in the cup and then added about 1 cup of vinegar.



The volcano eruption was a success.  We made it erupt at least five times, and C and R would have been happy to do this all night, but we ran out of vinegar.

12 comments:

Sherry said...

Looks like they were having fun!

danita said...

that's cool! i never thought to use playdough to make a volcano! i think i'll try it when the pea's class is doing dinosaurs! or maybe sooner!

Angela said...

That looks like so much fun. We haven't done many unit studies but i think we are going to start.

Gidget Girl Reading said...

So Cool! you are a awesome mommie! I need to make a volcano again we've done the long process too and they loose some interest this would be perfect!!! thanks!!! my girls thank you too

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

Every time I see a volcano on the blog, I am thinking "some day". Yours look very pretty and I like the dinosaur who is obviously a native Hawaiian resident :) When we do geography this year, I am thinking of doing it more along the lines of BBC series "Earth" - talking about mountains, oceans, deserts, etc. We will definitely do a volcano as part of "mountains" unit.

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Susana said...

When we do make a volcano, we will be doing it just like y'all did! This is such a good use for that sort of play doh and it sounds very "do-able" for a young child like Joe and Hanna would enjoy it too.

I've never made a volcano, not as a child and not even with Hanna as of yet.

I love this, thanks for sharing it.

Nicole {tired, need sleep} said...

This is so much fun and your volcano looks awesome!! I did this with M a year or so ago - he was very little and we did not go to the extent you did (cup, baking soda, vinegar was it for us, lol). Thanks for reminding me of this great experiment - we'll definitely put it on our to-do list!!

Ticia said...

we're going to do volcanoes soon when we study rocks. I'm so looking forward to it, my kids are going to love it.

Mama to 5 said...

Very nice! My preschooler would love that! Great job!
Nicole
http://mamato3blessings.blogspot.com

Nadia said...

We made a volcano a few monthsago but we used sand. I love that you used playdo and it looks so realistic

Crystal said...

Can you give step by step instruction for this playdough volcano? I've never made one. I'm doing the letter V next week and I would LOVE to make this.
curlyboom at yahoo dot com