Sick Day Science - Volcanoes!

My son wasn't feeling well so he stayed home from school. An outing was out of the question but we made the most of our day and studied volcanoes. He was given a Smithsonian Giant Volcano Kit for his birthday a few days ago, so we decided to build it and add other informative activities to round out the learning experience.

I kicked things off by letting the kids watch the Magic School Bus Blows Its Top on Netflix. We've also read the book, but didn't have it on hand today. When the show was over, we learned some volcano vocabulary from a worksheet I printed off of education.com. I love this site for educational materials and the coloring worksheet allowed me to describe the parts of the volcano and some of the things associated with it while providing a visual reference for the kids.

 

Finally we rolled up our sleeves and built the volcano. The entire process is easy, but you will have to take two breaks - one while the plaster strips dry and one while the paint dries.Wrapping the string around the base and cone was definitely an adult job (or more coordinated older child), but most of the other steps were kid-friendly. We dipped the strips and plastered the volcano and waited patiently for it to dry.

 

 While we were waiting, I remembered the new book we have, Where On Earth? It has amazing maps and two of the pages talked about volcanoes - one talking about the relationship between mountains and volcanoes, and the other showing all the active and inactive volcanoes on the planet. We read about some of the major eruptions and learned about the Ring Of Fire.

 

Next, the kids painted the volcano. Green and brown paint and a small sponge is provided with the kit, but younger kids like mine haven't mastered the art of applying sparingly. The paint pots emptied quickly so I gave them some of our own green and brown paint and provided paint brushes and extra sponges.

 

 

When the paint was dry, we were ready to watch the eruption. My husband suggested the bathtub and that worked out nicely. The instructions give you the measurements of baking powder and vinegar, but our eruption was over pretty quickly. I think it would have put on a better show had I poured the vinegar in more slowly. We added some baking soda and vinegar to see if there was a different or better reaction but it was pretty similar to the first eruption.

Even though the eruption was small, it was a great day learning about volcanoes, how they are formed, and what happens when they erupt. Also, the volcano dried nicely so we'll be able to experiment again and see if we can create a larger eruption.You can find similar kits at NSI International. For more information about volcanoes visit http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/.