Eruptions

When visiting a friend yesterday her son requested a volcano.

She pulled out a cookie sheet for each child, loaded them up with goodies and placed them in front of them.

Rose was delighted. She was taught to ‘suck up’ the vinegar and ‘push it’ out of the dropper.

The two wee cups contained vinegar with a few drops of blue food colouring and yellow food colouring. This was Rose’s first time playing with these ingredients. She loved the chemical reaction but was quite contained with the dropper. No crazy mess, as I had anticipated.

Jasper is an expert eruption maker and loved telling me about making hot lava and warning me to be careful not to get burnt.

Rose lasted about 5 minutes then was done playing. Jasper continued and has been known to enjoy this activity for over 30 minutes.

The two colour choices allowed the children to make green, teaching colour mixing through exploration.

Thank you for a great activity Erinne (after Rose was finished… I played!)

Learning Opportunities:

• describe the chemical reaction (carbonic acid is produced which immediately falls apart into water and carbon dioxide- hence the bubbles) Simply using the word ‘reaction’ at age 2 is exciting!
• colour mixing (you can use various colours)
• fine motor skills, using a dropper
• experiment with patterns and design