Journey to the center of a Volcano

Still working our way through the wonderful world of volcanoes and it is amazing how many experiments and projects that are out there on the subject.

Here are a few that we found the most entertaining:

Cake Batter Lava
You need: volcano, army men, cake batter, ruler,

The original instructions on this said to use regular cake batter and add only water, well I didn't want to waste the chance to make cake so I went ahead and mixed the batter like I normally would and used the left over batter for cake pops.

Next placed our toy volcano on baking pan, and measured increments in 1 inch sections where we carefully arranged army men.

Finally we poured the "lava" into the volcano and watched the fun.



This experiment was great fun, but it also helped introduced the concept of Viscosity and really helped them understand how lava moves and how land is changed.

After the army men were all dead we too the pan outside and left it in a sunny space. The cake batter hardened. Just like lava would!

Another fun experiment we did was using Jello.
Just make a jello mold. Place the jiggly thing on a flat surface(we used a pan) then the kiddos stacked two large blocks and we placed the pan on top. They took turns moving the large blocks back and forth to demonstrate the movements of the plates. The jello shook and moved and we discussed what would happen if the "mountain" was made of something else and what they thought would happen.

Then we had a snack.

I love projects that can double as food preparation!

To tie this unit up Little Man created a book on Volcanoes using a three pronged folder and manilla paper.

He created a brochure on volcanoes drawing different examples including geysers that went into the folder. Then drew and labeled diagrams of Volcanoes and the Earth. After the fun stuff he made a list of fast facts.

Volcanus Eruptius!

What little boy doesn't love volcanoes? I know all the ones in this house do.

This week has been Volcano crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!Downright Volcano obsessed and the more they learn the more they love them...

It started off simple. A commercial with a kid building a volcano for a science fair. "Mom, Let's do that!"

So we did. Or at least a version I thought would suit my little man's attention span best.

We covered a two liter bottle with playdoh and using a volcano book made it looks like the real thing (or at least we did from the interpretations from an 8 and 5 year old)

We read the book after we did the volcano. My guys are much more visual and they needed to see and touch while we read.

To make our volcanoes erupt I filled the bottle half with water, added some dish soap, 6 or 7 spoonfuls of baking soda, several drops of food coloring, and then two cups of vinegar... and BOOM VOLCANUS ERUPTIUS! (Can you tell we have watched/read Harry Potter too often?)



Over the following days we have read about the Changing Earth in our science text, Harcourt Science pages C12-C19) Learned all about the movements of the plates under the earth's surface and my Little Man has started a project on Hawaii. We made a playdo model of the Earth to better understand the different layers (Crust, Mantle, Core).

We melted crayons- and studied about Solids, Liquids, and Gasses. What better way to understand the concept of Molten Iron or Magma?

We have watched the Magic School Bus Blows Its Top and read as many books on the topic as we could find, (Their favorites are Eruption! by Anita Ganeri and Volcanoes Nature's Incredible Fireworks by David L. Harrison). Today He is making a volcano in his world on Minecraft. He says he's making Pompeii...I wonder if the villagers he's making knows their doomed?

I have this feeling that we are going to be Volcanologists ( VUL-can-AHL-uh-gists and yes! that is a word. I didn't know it either until this week.) For a little while. At least until something else catches his attention.