Volcanic activity in the kitchen

"Don't step on the red.... it's lava!" is a typical statement heard around our house lately, especially with all of our water and land form discussion in geography.  I figure what perfect timing to make our own volcano.  It was really easy and the kids thought it was super fun. Travis even woke up in the middle of the night last night asking to make another volcano.

Recipe:
In one cup (the volcano cup), add 1/3 cup water; 2 tsp baking soda; 2 tsp liquid dish soap (add more for extra foam)
In another cup, add 5 T vinegar and a few drops of red food coloring (optional).
Pour vinegar into volcano cup quickly.

Great teamwork adding the ingredients.

Action is about to happen..... wait for it.....

Travis doesn't look too impressed, but don't let that fool you.  

"I'm gonna touch it...."

 

All in all, this was a quick and fun experiment.  This will probably be something we'll do randomly when the kids need a distraction.

Water forms and Cloud dough

Madeline's interest in geography has picked back up in the last few weeks.  She's recently been learning about landforms and bodies of water and flying through her workbook again.  She'll do extra pages for the fun of it during her rest time.  She also skipped ahead and correctly completed the Review pages, even though we are only halfway through this section.

Today we were hands on with making our own water forms.  We used a few large rocks in a small tub partly filled with blue water.  I originally intended to use a small bag of river rock, but we would have had to dump out too much of the water in order to cover all of the small rocks.  Travis ended up using them in his tub of cloud dough instead. We'll be doing this activity again after we collect a few larger rocks.   It was a bit more of a challenge for Madeline than I anticipated it would be and she did ask for help in configuring some of the water forms.  Overall, I think she appreciated the challenge.

I originally saw this idea on another blog, but seem to have deleted the bookmark somehow.  I apologize for not giving credit where credit is due.

 Lake

Isthmus

Strait

Archipelago
(She also made an island, but it looked very similar to this.)

Cape

Bay

Silly Girl

Gulf

Peninsula

 

Eventually, Travis came over to check out what his big sister was up to.  It was interesting to see the oil from the cloud dough on his hands mix with the water.  This lead to some discussion on oil spills.

Switching activities.

Travis loved dropping the rocks into the bin to watch the splash.

 Both kids had a good time with the rock and cloud dough mixture. If you've never tried cloud dough before and you have little kids around, I really recommend it!   It just takes 4 cups of flour mixed with 1/2 cup baby oil or canola oil.  I've made it both way and prefer the baby oil.  This is a really messy activity and it is best to take it outside, especially because kids like to throw it.  At least my kids do.  Also, you will need to spray off the mess with the hose when they (or you) are finished playing or it will harden in the sunshine, making it more difficult to clean later.  If you use it inside and there is a gigantic mess on the floor, take it from me and do NOT vacuum it up.  You will clog your machine.

Don't let the above precautions prevent you from making this for the kids.  This stuff is so much fun and can be played with in so many ways.

You're welcome.