Fizzing Colour Boxes

Posted 2013-05-20 by Jane Street ⇒ follow

This is a very fun messy play activity which will amaze children of all ages. It's a great way to explore colour mixing and simple science as well as being a really fun sensory experience.

Time: 30 minutes
Age: Any age
Level: Easy

Materials

Box of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

Vinegar

Plastic cups

Food colouring

Two shallow boxes (e.g plastic box or cut down some old cardboard boxes like we did)

Empty spray bottle

Method

Pour a layer of baking soda in to the bottom of each box. It doesn't matter too much how much you put in as long as you have a decent layer covering the bottom.

Layer of baking soda in the bottom of a shallow tray

Pour some vinegar into some plastic cups and add a few drops of food colouring to each to give a range of different colours

The kids can now pour the vinegar cups slowly into one of the boxes adding a little at the time to different parts of the box.

The bicarbonate of soda will bubble and fizz. Kids will enjoy watching the colours move, bubble and merge.

The fun begins

Watch the colours fizzing, flowing and mixing

Pretty bubbling colour swirls

My daughter then wanted to get her hands into it at the end and squeeze the mixture through her fingers. It was an interesting sensory experience as it felt wet and gritty

Get stuck in with hands at the end for fun sensory play

In your second box, try using a spray bottle instead. Pour some vinegar into the bottom of the spray bottle and add a few drops of food colouring.

Spray the coloured vinegar onto the bicarbonate of soda in the tray and watch the fizzing and bubbling

Watch the colours bubble and fizz

Add a few drops of a different colour of food colouring to the spray bottle to get a different colour.

We started with yellow then added a few drops of red to get orange, then added blue to end up with a green coloured mix in our box. With older children, try to predict what colour you will get before you spray.

The spray bottle trigger is also good for practising fine motor skills

Add different colours to the bottle to explore colour mixing

Get stuck in with hands at the end, squeezing the paste

We had added less vinegar with the spray bottle and the paste at the end was drier and grittier than with the first box

How does it work? The acetic acid in the vinegar reacts with the alkaline sodium bicarbonate in the baking soda to form sodium acetate, water and carbon dioxide. The bubbles you see are from the carbon dioxide gas escaping the solution.

Check out some other fun ideas with baking soda here

Categories
#easy
#under_5s
#5_to_10s
#over_10s
#messy_play
#science_experiments
#colour_mixing
#fine_motor_skills
#bicarb_soda

%mykidcraft

237918 - 2023-07-18 02:11:25

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