Several years ago, my daughter was fascinated with volcanoes. This is a simple backyard “volcano” you can make with everyday household ingredients. Does it mimic a real volcano with molten reactions? No. But it’s a lot of fun to make something safely erupt. :) Here’s what we did, in case you’d like to do the same:
1. Get a plastic bottle, and build your volcano around it.
(You could use dirt, sand, clay, plaster, paper mache, whatever you want.
I’m a simple girl, so we dug a little hole and just piled rocks around the bottle.)
2. Pour about 1 cup of warm water into the bottle.
3. Add about a tablespoon of dish soap.
4. Add a few drops of red food coloring.
5. Add about 1/4 cup of baking soda.
6. Begin adding vinegar until you see it starting to foam up quickly.
7. Watch the fun!
Things I would do differently next time:
1. Mix the ingredients around a bit before the vinegar gets poured in. I didn’t think of that when burying it in rocks.
2. Use white vinegar instead of apple cider. In past vinegar/baking soda projects I’ve done, it seems I get better reactions. But that’s just me.
Have fun! :)