Your Royal Blogstress: Wonderful (Alternative) Volcano Experiment

Wow! What a fun, easy, and different volcano activity. As Nick has gotten a little older (he's almost 4 now), his appreciation for this science-y type of activity has multiplied. Last spring, I did the traditional little piles of baking soda (volcanoes) and had him spray vinegar on them so they'd erupt, but he seemed to be only mildly interested (and perhaps the explosion wasn't big enough). Well, this activity got quite a reaction out of him. It also probably helped that I added dinosaurs to the mix, as he loves dinosaurs and knows that dinosaurs and volcanoes go hand in hand.

I found this activity on Pinterest (not surprising) and here is the link to the recipe I used. They called it Elephant Toothpaste, and I can see why, when it "erupted" (actually, it doesn't come out terribly fast) it kept a cylindrical shape like toothpaste out of the tube. I wanted to go with the volcano theme, so I didn't call it Elephant Toothpaste. (Another reason I didn't want to call it that, is for the plain and simple reason I didn't want my son putting it in his mouth. It would be confusing, am I right?) ANYWAY, I even had all of the materials already at home, so you probably do, too. This activity/experiment is awesome and I wholeheartedly recommend it to you. Nick played with this activity for far longer than I imagined. Actually, I had to wrap it up after 20-30 minutes to beat the boredom rule (end activity before boredom sets in, because that's when the stuff goes flying and huge messes are made).

So, if you have kiddos you want to try it out with, here is the recipe, and if not, just check out the scene below.

You'll need:

A cookie sheet (to catch and contain all the foam)
An empty, clean plastic bottle of some sort (I used a regular old water bottle)
A bowl of warm water
1tsp yeast
1/2 cup of hydrogen peroxide (the site recommended 6%, regular grocery store peroxide is 3%, I used 3%. It worked fine, I just added a little more to make sure it would create a reaction)
4-5 drops of dish soap
4-5 drops of food coloring, if desired

Take your bowl of warm water and add yeast to it. Stir it up and let it sit for a minute. Set aside.

Measure out 1/2 cup peroxide. Add the peroxide, dish soap and food coloring to your bottle. Then funnel or spoon in your yeast-y water and watch for the reaction.

(Again, via Pinterest, I found this cool experiment here.)