V is for Volcano

 Kate has done many baking soda and vinegar experiments, but they have all been "flat".  This is the first time she experienced one that bubbled up and over out of something.  It shocked her so much that she actually fell off her chair.  She kept coming back for more though.  We filled the volcano at least ten times, and she jumped each time!  Here is a video:

We also made ice volcanoes by filling bowls with water, baking soda, and a golf ball (to form an opening).  I froze them and then popped them out of the bowls.  We poured vinegar in the volcano openings to make them fizz.  It's always fun to play with baking soda and vinegar, but this was a BORING follow up to the play dough volcano.  Kate kept waiting for them to "erupt", but all they did was fizz.

 To finish our volcano fun, I made a volcano lunch for the girls - cheese quesadillas with salsa lava!

Week In Review

Tyler had football camp in Portsmouth this week from 8 until 12 and then went to tennis camp three of those days from 1 to 3.  I think it was more tiring for me than it was for him!

Tom left for London on Thursday afternoon.  He is visiting a friend from college for a few days.

Since Dad left, Collin and Reagan have made Klutz Window Art (I LOVE LOVE LOVE Klutz products),

had some volcano fun,

made 3-2-1 microwave cakes that became 

volcanoes,

made sculptures with marshmallows and toothpicks (this was mostly because Collin is working on his summer math packet and this was one of the possible activities - I can't believe he has homework over the summer!),

used scratch and sniff stickers to make menus they used for playing restaurant,

Kelly likes the scratch and sniff stickers!!!!!

made mini s'mores,

watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and looked for flags (the kids were very excited about this, but the novelty quickly wore off and I ended up trying to complete the sheets - we missed six),

and camped out in the living room (they love to do this, me - I prefer a bed!, but I stayed downstairs and slept on the couch to be with them).

It's a good thing Dad doesn't go away very often, because I don't think I could keep up this pace!!!

Volcanoes

We used up all of our play dough to turn an empty plastic drink bottle into a volcano.  Once the bottle was covered, we put 3TBSP of baking soda in the bottle, added a lot of red food coloring, and then slowly poured in 1 cup of vinegar to create an eruption.  We have done this so many times and for some reason, it never gets old.

To extend the volcano fun, I made volcano cakes for Collin and Reagan.  The inspiration for the volcano mug cakes came from Almost Unschoolers.  I followed the Duncan Hines 3-2-1 cake recipe, let the cakes cool, froze them for a few minutes to make them easier to frost, and then frosted them with chocolate frosting.  I used red frosting to make the lava and topped the volcanoes with cinnamon decorating candies.

Collin and Reagan can make this cake by themselves!

Surprisingly, Reagan ate it.  Maybe she found her sweet tooth.

This has been the week of the tee-shirt.  Earlier this week, Reagan unintentionally wore the same shirt to go blueberry picking that she had worn last time we went.  Today, Collin wore an Audubon Society tee shirt for the volcano experiment and when I looked back at pictures from our last volcano, he was wearing the same shirt!

Here is the old picture:
                                               
How funny!

When Collin and Reagan were making the volcano, I was thinking about people that get crazy about keeping the colors separate.  In my opinion, let the kids play and if they want to mix colors, who cares?  You take all the fun out of play dough if you attach all kinds of rules to it.  Kids want to mix colors!

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.

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.