Saturday, July 20, 2013

Volcanoes


hmm, ok let back it up.

I think this all started with a trip to the National Museum of Natural History to learn about Egypt, and see the mummies.  Here's the mummy:


Freaky, right?

There's also a little kid mummy.  But I didn't take a picture of him.  I think the mummies scared the kids.  They had wanted to see them since my mom took a trip to Egypt earlier this year and so Egypt has been on the mind.

After the mummies, we wondered over into the geology exhibit looking for gems.  The section included the asteroids to touch, videos about the solar system and plate tectonics.  Then we saw this interactive exhibit on volcanoes:


Eventually walking along, you'll be rewarded with a huge room full of gemstones and minerals:



So that was a great little field trip.  Then later in the week, the kids started talking about volcanoes again at lunch.  That same day, we ran into a volcano making kit that turned out to be a huge hit!


The kids took on the job of making the volcano completely independently.  And lucky for all of us, the mold only takes a half hour to set.  I don' think they could have waited much longer than that.


When painting, they coordinated on different jobs.  Nala took to painting the grey rock, and Kaio took charge of the lava.  I was happy to see that they didn't look at the example on the cover of the box, and instead drew their own vision.


So nice to see them working together on something, because that doesn't happen all the time.


They created a little village for the volcano to destroy, with dinosaurs and people...


Mix baking soda, vinegar, red paint, and a little drop of liquid soap, and voila


Even our neighbor wanted to come check it out.  The kids went through a whole bottle of vinegar that day.

Here's the kit we got, in case you want one too:


2 comments:

  1. I worked with a woman that did a whole set of lessons on the different types of volcanoes. She had kids make the type you wrote about, and then also the "mentos in diet coke" type, and then they talked about the different impacts of the two and the science behind them. Perhaps a bit advanced for your kiddos, but perhaps not. Either way, watching diet coke explode up into the sky is fun.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. really? does it have to be diet? that sounds like a blast :) we're gonna try it. thanks for the tip!

      Delete

Share

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...