Volcanoes, Geysers and Ice tunnels!

The boys wanted to start with science today.  My boys just love science and I am always on the lookout for fun hands- on experiments we can do together.  Today we made our own volcano, erupted Mentos geysers, and made our own ice tunnels! 

Ian choose to learn about volcanoes first.  I handed him a book I had that had a page all about volcanoes.  I told him to read it, then read the "how to make a volcano" page, gather his materials and try his own science experiment.  

I have been trying to assume less of a role as teacher and more of a mentor, here to help and guide but not take over and teach.  There is something to be learned in every failed science experiment attempt and I figure if he's motivated enough he'll keep trying until it works the right way (though luckily this experiment was a huge success!).   

I want my kids to be independent learners and enjoy learning just for the sake of learning.    

I let him conduct this experiment and his brothers watched eagerly.  

As the volcano died down the boys immediately began questioning what would happen if they added more baking soda so I told them to try it and the volcano erupted again!  They were thrilled.  

Then Ian wondered what would happen if we added even more baking soda to the volcano as it was erupting and it continued to erupt.  

They were all smiling, laughing and squealing.  

We talked about lava volcanoes and ash volcanoes.  They already knew volcanoes can form new land masses like Hawaii.  I explained that this was a branch of science called Earth science.  

They remembered a volcano movie we saw at the Dinosaur State park with Bill Nye the science guy and we talked about that some too.  

It was a great scientific discussion.

We bought supplies to make a Mentos and diet soda geyser  at the grocery store.  For directions click here.  

We decided to try our geyser at the end of the dock and wow, you really do have to move fast!  Alec wanted to be in charge of the geyser since Ian did the volcano this morning but he kept dropping the mentos into the lake so I tried to help him and by the time the 5th mento hit the bottle it was bursting; unfortunately we hadn't yet moved out of the way and my camera was nearby so I could take pictures.... there just wasn't enough time and now my camera, while still working, is a bit sticky!

But they loved it and it was pretty neat to see.

This led to a discussion about the difference between volcanoes and geysers.   I was surprised to find out that they already knew volcanoes shot out lava and ash while geysers shoot out hot water.  Ian also remembered seeing a geyser outside our hotel at Disney (4 years ago!).  

I love when they can tie what we're learning and discussing to something tangible in real life that we've seen or done. 
      
We had one last science/ art project on hand we wanted to try today.

We made Ice Tunnels!

We had frozen some water balloons a week ago so we pulled them out of the freezer and pulled off the balloons.

They boys noticed that the balloons had cracked and when I asked if they knew why they were able to tell me because it gets bigger when it freezes and there wasn't enough room for the ice inside the balloon.  So I repeated back to them "you're right liquid expands when it freezes into a solid!"

They had a blast using droppers to drop colored salt water onto the frozen balloons and within minutes they had colorful ice tunnels forming.

They worked on this project for almost an hour.

using our droppers to make tunnels 

 By that time the ice had pretty much melted completely even though we worked in the shade the whole time.

We talked about how salt lowers the freezing point of water like when we made sandwich bag ice cream and the outer baggie was just to cold to hold.

It was a wonderful day of science!