Lava Lamps

One of the Valentine's for our 14 Days of Love was "I lava you a lot" with directions for making lava lamps.  I thought this was a lot of fun, and all four kids enjoyed it.  

We followed the directions from Steve Spangler's website:

- fill a bottle 3/4 with vegetable oil

- top of the bottle with water

(I did the above two steps and wrote directions for the kids to complete the lava lamps)

- add ten drops of food coloring

- break the tablet (alka seltzer) into eight pieces and add them to the bottle one at a time

 That's the best bedhead, is it not?

Here is a short video of Kate's reaction (priceless):

The lava lamp effect only lasts until the alka seltzer stops fizzing.  We did try adding more alka seltzer later on, but the effect was not the same.  The lava lamps are still cool though because you can see how the oil and water remain separate in the bottle and observe what happens when you try to mix them together.