Lately Livia has been regressing. It is a pattern that I have gotten all too familiar with — 2 weeks forward, 1 week back. So this afternoon when a quick activity was needed I could not think of anything more fun and engaging to do than a simple sensory science activity. As an added bonus it is blue which got Meatball super excited! We had a blast with this volcano pumpkin experiment!
We found these white pumpkins at our local grocer for insanely cheap. I picked up a couple of them to do our Teal Pumpkins for FARE, but by the time we were done decorating those we still had a couple left. I had seen different versions of this science experiment on a couple different sites such as Little Bins for Little Hands and Growing a Jeweled Rose and figured this would be a fantastic way to have some fun before decorating another pumpkin!
Items Needed for a VolcanoPumpkin
- Pumpkin
- Baking Soda (buy here)
- Vinegar (buy here)
- Glitter (buy here)
- Gel Food Dye –we used blue (buy here)
Directions
- Wash your pumpkin off and cut off the top.
- Clean out the guts –This in itself is a super fun sensory experience!
- In your cleaned out pumpkin add in baking soda.
- Dump the glitter on top.
- In a kid safe bottle mix vinegar and the gel food dye (it doesn’t take much to get a beautiful color). Shake it up and you are ready to go!
- Take the volcano pumpkin kit someplace that is safe to make a mess — we took ours outside.
- Unscrew the lid on your bottle…
- Pour the vinegar into your pumpkin.
- And watch it EXPLODE!
So much fun! You can do this over and over again. You can also stir what is in your pumpkin and it will start bubbling again!
The Science Behind It
A chemical reaction has occurred! Combining the vinegar (an acid) with the baking soda (a base) results in an entirely new substance, carbon dioxide.
If your family plays with this Exploding Pumpkin we would love to see the fun! Tag us on Facebook with @Parenting Chaos or on Instagram with #ParentingChaos!