Create Your Own Mini Volcano Eruptions!

Create your own Mini Volcano Eruptions! This is such a fun activity to do with your curious children! Late year toddlers and pre-schoolers will love watching what happens when the ingredients cause the volcanoes to “erupt”. School-aged children can even make hypotheses on what they think will happen to the lava once the ingredients combine. They will also love adding food coloring to change the colors of their lava! This is an easy activity to get together for your children with a few simple household ingredients. Mini Volcano Eruptions are great for when you’re looking for a rainy- day activity, or even just some excitement!

What You Will Need:

♦ Vinegar

♦ Baking Soda

♦ Dish Soap

♦ 2 Plastic cups (or any kind of container, see through is best so you can see the ingredients react!)

♦ A place mat or something to put underneath the volcanoes- It might get a little a messy!

♦ A spoon

♦ Food Colouring (Optional but recommended if you have access!)

Step 1:

Pour some vinegar into both cups. In one of the cups, add about 2-3 drops of dish soap! Then stir the soap in lightly.

Step2:

This is the part where if you have food colouring available you can add 2-3 drops of food colouring of your choice in both cups! Red would be great for lava, but your lava can be any colour you want – use your imagination!

Step 3:

Put about half a spoon full of baking soda into the cup with just the vinegar in it! Watch the magic happen!

Step 4:

Same as Step 3, put about half a spoon full of baking soda into the cup with the dish soap, and watch your lava rise!

You can do Steps 3 and 4 at the same time, this is just to break it down so you can see what happens when you do each of them.

Notice the difference between the just vinegar and the vinegar and dish soap mixture! The vinegar bubbles fast, where the vinegar/dish soap puffs up slowly and pours over the sides!