Day 6 of Fizzy Fun - The Root Beer Float

I thought ending our fizzy fun with root beer floats would be perfect, and it was.  My favorite activities are those that attract all three of my children, and T (a big fan of root beer and ice cream) was happy to join us for this science lesson!

The science behind the root beer float is the same as the Mentos/Soda Fountain, but not as messy and definitely tastier!  You can click here to read more about the science.

Before making the floats, I asked all three children whether they thought adding ice cream to already poured root beer would create more fizz than pouring root beer over ice cream in a glass.  C and R both thought more fizz would be created by adding the ice cream to the soda, but T thought the opposite.

Root Beer poured over ice cream

Ice cream added to a glass of Root Beer

T was right!

Fizzy, frothy, fantastic fun!

Day 5 of Fizzy Fun - Fizzing Sidewalk Paint

We went out early this morning to paint the driveway before the sun could get too hot.  Fizzing Sidewalk Paint is one of the activities from our Summer Bucket List, and it was the inspiration behind our week of fizzy fun.  The idea came from Quirky Momma.

This is how you make it:

Ingredients:
1 entire 1 lb. box of baking soda
1/2 cup corn starch
approximately 1 cup hot water (maybe more, maybe a little less)
food coloring
vinegar in a spray bottle

Directions:
1.  First, I mixed the baking soda and corn starch together in a bowl.
2.  Next, I added the hot water a little at a time until I got a paint like consistency.  Mix really well so that you don't get clumps, but if you do get clumpy paint at any time, just add a little more water and mix.  Even after we started painting with it, if the paint clumped up, I just added a few drops of hot water and mixed it.  This worked very well.
3.  I spooned the mixture into a silicone muffin pan and added food coloring to each cup so that we could have six different colors of sidewalk paint.

Then, we all went outside (in our pajamas - my neighbors must think we are crazy!) and got to work painting the driveway. 

We were very happy with the paint as just paint, but when we started to spray it with vinegar and the fizzing began, it was VERY COOL!!!!!!

 

 

I almost cut the recipe in half because it seemed like a lot, but we used almost every drop of paint this morning, so I recommend making the whole amount.  The ingredients are all very inexpensive (certainly cheaper than buying sidewalk paint that doesn't even fizz), so go for it and have fun!

To read about all of our fizzy fun science experiments (so far), click here.  Stay tuned for our fizzy fun grand finale coming soon!

Check out Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom; you can find me (and a lot of other bloggers with science posts) there!

Day 4 of Fizzy Fun - Foaming Monsters

One of the great things about blogging, is that when you post something, other bloggers often tell you about something they have done that is somehow related.  This is how we discovered the foaming monsters idea.  Jen from Creative and Curious Kids left a comment on my first Fizzy Fun post about the monsters she made with her girls.  She got the idea from an Usborne Science book.  Monsters foaming at the mouth?  I knew C and R would love the idea!  This is what we did:

Materials:
plastic bottle
craft materials from around the house to decorate: craft foam, googly eyes, etc.
vinegar
dish washing liquid
baking soda
tissue
food coloring

Directions:
C and R began by decorating plastic water bottles with Elmer's 3D paint pens.  Once the paint dried, we used a hot glue gun to attach buttons, googly eyes, and feathers.

C's monster is on the left and R's monster is on the right.

Then we got ready to make the monsters foam at the mouth. 

First, we filled the monster bottles halfway with vinegar.

Next, we added a squirt of dish washing liquid to each bottle.

Then, we added a little food coloring to each bottle and gave it a little swish to mix everything together.

Next, we put 1 tsp of baking soda in the middle of a square piece of tissue and folded it up to keep the baking soda inside. (one for each monster)

Finally, we dropped the tissue full of baking soda inside the monster bottle and waited for it to foam!

Day 3 of Fizzy Fun - the Volcano

We have made the baking soda/vinegar volcano several times before, but it is always a big hit with C and R.  The last two times we made volcanoes, we tried to make them look realistic, but this time we just covered a plastic bottle with play dough and used our imagination to pretend it was a volcano.

We added 3 tsp baking soda and a few drops of red food coloring to the play dough covered bottle and poured in 1 cup of vinegar.  The result, of course, was an erupting volcano! 

After the traditional red lava fizziness, C and R asked for blue lava and loved that too!

C and R both said this is their favorite fizzy fun activity so far.  We still have a few more things to do, so we'll see if it remains in first place.

Day 2 of Fizzy Fun - Fizzy Foaming Sugar Sticks

There is no way we could do a week of fizzy fun without trying the Fizzy Foaming Sugar Sticks recipe from Almost Unschoolers.  The fizzy foaming sugar sticks are like pixy sticks meet pop rocks.

Almost Unschoolers made really fancy sealed straws that look just like the store bought variety, but I didn't have that much energy (they really aren't that difficult to make, but my energy level is pretty low these days!).  I did put the mixture in straws, but instead of sealing them, I just wrapped them with packaging tape.

I taped the bottom of the bendy straws so that the sugar mixture would not fall out!

Then I made a paper funnel to help me transfer the mixture to the straws.

I cut the Almost Unschoolers recipe in half, and mixed 1/2 cup sugar with one packet of Cherry Kool Aid to make a sugar Kool Aid mix.

Then, I took 1 TBSP of the sugar Kool Aid mix and combined it with 1/8 tsp of baking soda.  I was able to fill three straws each time I did this.  I could have made a lot of fizzy foaming sugar sticks, but we only made a few and put the rest of the Kool Aid/sugar combination in a ziploc bag for another day.

This combination, when poured into your mouth where it mixes with saliva (obviously) creates a fizzy, foaming concoction.  This occurs because there is citric acid in the cherry Kool Aid, and when combined with the baking soda, it has a reaction similar to the reaction of vinegar and baking soda (but a lot tastier).

Simple science and fizzy fun for your mouth!

Day 1 of Fizzy Fun - A Fizzy Explosion

We are celebrating the power of fizz over the next few days.  Isn't it wild how excited kids get about the baking soda and vinegar reaction?  I have to admit that I like it almost as much as my kids.  

Our first fizzy fun experiment is the Bubble Bomb from Science Explorer.  The goal is to make a sandwich bag pop with the power of baking soda and vinegar.

We used:

• water
• measuring cup
• zipper-lock plastic sandwich bags
• paper towel
• tablespoon
  baking soda
• vinegar

This is how we did it:

1.  Tear a paper towel into a square that measures about 5 inches by 5 inches. Put 1 1/2 tablespoons of baking soda in the center of the square, then fold the square as shown in the picture, with the baking soda inside. This is your "time-release packet."

2.  Pour into your plastic bag:
1/2 cup of vinegar
1/4 cup of warm water

3.  Now here's the tricky part. You need to drop the time-release packet into the vinegar and zip the bag closed before the fizzing gets out of control.  You can zip the bag halfway closed, then stuff the packet in and zip the bag closed the rest of the way in a hurry, or you can put the time-release packet into the mouth of the bag and hold it up out of the vinegar by pinching the sides of the bag. Zip the bag closed and then let the packet drop into the vinegar.  One way or another, get the packet in the vinegar and zip the bag closed.

4.  Shake the bag a little, put it in the sink or on the ground, and stand back! The bag will puff up dramatically and pop with a bang (a little bang, but still a bang, or maybe more like a "pop").

Woo hoo!  We did this three times.