Volcano in the sandpit

After lunch today, Donnagh, Jorja, Hannah and Libby were all playing in the sandpit. To do something fun and exciting, I suggested that we make a volcano! The children love doing this, because its something different to just digging. We started by building our mountain of sand. We all found a spade and built the sand higher and higher. I went and found the ingredients we needed.. baking soda, vinegar and purple dye. Donnagh found a cup and we placed that in the top. I tipped some baking soda in, Jorja added the dye, and then for the first one, Donnagh added the vinegar, which was the last ingredient to mix in, to make it go all foamy! When it came out of the top, the children went 'wow', and instantly began touching it. The children look turns at adding the vinegar because that was the fun part. We kept experimenting by adding more soda or vinegar etc, to see how they would react together. Donnagh and I began talking about real volcano's and what happens when they erupt. Donnagh knew about rocks flying out, and I added that hot lava comes streaming out sometimes too.

"Children experience an envrionment where they develop working theories for making sense of the natural, social, physical and material worlds" (Exploration, Te Whariki).

AInslee