Weekly Summary: Volcanos – Quarks – STEM

Since the kids had gotten a primer from Mr. Chris on how Volcanoes begin, most of the heavy lifting was done for me. I was really impressed with the group’s knowledge and memory from his previous lesson. After our brief discussion, we got to work making snow mountains and hunting for stirring sticks. Next step was making sure the cup fit in their mountain and was covered up in the way they were hoping. I had prepped each plastic cup with 4 tablespoons of baking soda and 1 teaspoon of dawn dish soap. The kids were able to pick the they wanted their volcanic explosion to be (options were brown, yellow or red… or a combo). We mixed in a few squirts of paint and filled the cup about half way up with water. Then we added the about 1/2-1 cup of vinegar to the mixture. It was exciting to see how the lava ran down each mountain. We had some extra supplies, so we were able add more vinegar a second time to our original volcanoes. Some chose to make entirely new mountains and try again. It was fun experimenting and watching what happened each time we added the vinegar. The rest of the time we enjoyed the sun and played in our colorful snow.