My kids love messy sensory projects and this volcano science experiment for kids was right up their alley. All you need is some baking soda, vinegar, soap and food dye.

Science experiments have always been my favorite activity to do with the boys. Not only do I enjoy discussing why certain ingredients make a bigger explosion, but I also love watching their little minds race with excitement. And of course, I adore hearing the giggles as our area gets more and more messy.

This year, we decided to welcome spring by making an exploding rainbow! Most of these ingredients can be found around the house, but I did order beakers online so the boys felt more like scientists (which worked because my 4-year-old insisted on wearing goggles throughout the experiment!).

My 4-year-old had so many wonderful questions about this project! I loved hearing him repeat certain words like “carbon dioxide” and “expansion” as I explained how each ingredient is pertinent to the experiment. In case you’re wondering how it works, here’s what happens:

Carbon dioxide is released whenever baking soda and vinegar are mixed together. Once the soap is added, the carbon dioxide blows more bubbles into the soap creating an expansion and eruption effect!

VOLCANO SCIENCE EXPERIMENT FOR KIDS

Materials:

5-6 glass jars, beakers, or anything you have in the house
Food coloring
Baking Soda
Vinegar
Dish soap
An area you don’t mind getting messy!

Directions:

Step 1: Combine vinegar and food coloring into your beakers. I only had certain colors in our cabinet so another fantastic teaching moment was showing the kids what colors create different colors when combined! This resulted in a lot of, “ohh’s” and “ahh’s”.

Step 2: Add 1-2 drops of dish soap to each beaker.

Step 3: Add the baking soda and watch the eruption ensue! Start small with the baking soda. We used about a 1 tsp. If you want a larger explosion, add more dish soap and baking soda! The emission will continue as long as ingredients keep being added! The boys loved adding more and more soap and baking soda and playing in the foamy concoction.

Step 4: Enjoy the rainbow chaos!