Getting Ready for the 4th of July

Who else is prepping to celebrate Independence Day? We sure are! We have a bunch of Red, White and Blue themed activities and craft projects planned for this week, many that we will be sharing on here!

I know it's not July yet, but it is the start of the week. So I have decided to kick-start our week-long Red, White and Blue theme by doing a simple science experiment. Which, of course, like most things here, started out as something specific that turned into something else. That being said, if this had gone the way I had planned, we would have been using eyedroppers for the vinegar instead of "the squirters". But the kids insisted, after having so much fun with them for our liquid sidewalk chalk the other day.

I poured a cup of baking soda into a Ziplock container and added enough water to moisten it. Then I froze it for about an hour. Freezing the baking soda makes it last longer, or at least it would have. :)

I filled the icing bottles mostly with vinegar and topped it off with a small amount of water. I added blue and red food colouring and shook them up. The kids were so excited when I brought them out and immediately popped off the tops.

Bean recognized the frozen baking soda from our arctic small world and was excited to play with it again.

Now that Munchkin is a pro squirter, he was ready to go! But, he thought this was going to be like the liquid chalk... he was in for a surprise. :)

Bean just LOVES the eruptions! We love making volcanoes and sometimes we just play with baking soda and vinegar at the table waiting for dinner to finish cooking.

But this is the first time we have used multiple colours!

A simple experiment like this is perfect for introducing them to the science of colours. As they squirted out the vinegar, they were able to watch the colours mix together and produce a dark purple.

They needed to make sure all the vinegar was used and then they used their hands to start mixing the colours together.

Munchkin especially likes this part because he loves when the eruptions fizz against his hands.

Good to the last drop. :)

It looks almost black now, and they loved playing in it until all the baking soda was used up too, since it was sitting at the bottom and whenever they found a clump it would fizzle in their palms.

Starting tomorrow we will have 5 days of Red, White and Blue themed crafts, activities and sensory bins.

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