Making a Volcano

Christmas break was two weeks for my preschooler.  They were suppose to go back to school today, January 6th.  Mother Nature wanted to be funny and gave us a snow storm yesterday, and negative temperatures today.  Schools all across Indiana were closed.  Heck, Indiana itself was closed!  With wind chills making it -30 degrees today, there was no chance we were going to make it out.  I pulled out one of Ashley's christmas gifts from Santa and we decided to do one of the science projects.

This is what Santa brought her for Christmas.

We decided we would do the Volcano!

These are the few instructions that I was provided.   I was praying that it would ooze out instead of an explosion of "lava" that would lead to additional clean-up.

We assembled everything that was needed. 

Ashley was very adamant that she wanted to do this on her own.  So, with little help from me, she measured the baking soda.  Apparently the tongue helps her concentration!  (She get's that from Daddy. LOL)

Pouring in the baking soda.  There's that tongue again!

Now for the red food coloring to give the lava some color.  Ashley then added some dish soap to make the lava a little bubbly. 

Pouring on the vinegar.  Here it goes!

Look at that orange lava! (Wait? I though she put in red coloring.  Oh well!)

While I was cleaning up, Ashley was having fun shaking around the pan and finding different shapes in it, much like the cloud spotting game.  

This whole process only took about 10 minutes but Ashley enjoyed it.  The lava didn't flow red, and it was very watery looking but since the volcano was just a plastic piece, we will be able to try it again at some point.

I was also able to ask some questions to get her mind thinking.  "Tell me,what do you know about Lava" I asked her.  Her responses were, "It's REALLY hot", and "It killed all the dinosaurs!"

We just got another call from school.  They have closed for tomorrow as well.  Another adventure awaits!