Baking soda and vinegar… It just never ever gets old. This very simple fizzy eruptions activity has been a hit with so many of our little friends and guests over the years. And it doesn’t matter if they’ve just turned two or they’re nearly eleven years old – everyone who has come over when I’ve had this set out for a co-op meet-up, play date, or birthday party has pretty much loved it. I mean what’s not to love about colourful fizzy eruptions that leave your play surface looking just like that of the moon, right?
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Here’s the simple-as-can-be set-up… A plate of baking soda (or soda bicarbonate for our UK friends), several little jars of white vinegar coloured with liquid food colouring, gel food colouring, or liquid watercolours {my personal favourite because of the fact that they’re fully washable}, some pipettes, and a play tray to contain the mess {this one from Ikea is our fave}.
At nearly 3 years old, Sam has just really nailed down how to successfully use pipettes, but Miss G was using them when she was freshly 2, so it just depends on the kiddo!
That being said, kids who haven’t mastered pipette use can totally still create fizzy eruptions on their own! Instead of giving them the usual jar / pipette combo, just put the coloured vinegar in old glue bottles, any other squirt bottle with a small opening, or old liquid soap bottles with a pump and let them squeeze or pump the vinegar onto their plate of baking soda.
If they’re able to use a pipette, it’s as easy as squeeze to collect coloured vinegar…
Then squeeze to release the coloured vinegar onto the baking soda base and watch the fizzy eruption magic happen!
When the fizzy foam settles down, you’ll be left with the coolest coloured spots that look just like the moon’s surface {hence why we sometimes call this ‘moon painting’}.
Now if you really want to take things to the next level {like Sam does ALWAYS}, you may want to try the triple pipette method {patent pending – HAHA!}
Simply shove all three of your pipettes into a single jar, squeeze up as much vinegar as humanly possible…
And enthusiastically squeeze them out onto your baking soda in order to create the biggest fizzy eruption possible. The more force the better, really.
I mean, just look at how fun it looks!!
And when you’re nearly done, may as well just dump the rest of the vinegar out, right?? ‘Papa says sam can do it’, I’m told. Hah!
But in all seriousness, when the entire plate is flooded in vinegar like this, most often you can dump off the liquid and use the remaining {wet} baking soda below for round 2. I mean you may as well get as much bang for your buck as possible, right? {This is especially important when you live in Kuwait and you’re buying 45 of these tiny 100 gram containers of baking soda at a time.}
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This afternoon the sun was out and I decided to set up something really fun for Grae to explore and experiment with in the backyard.
The set up was pretty simple… Several differently shaped jars and medicine bottles filled with coloured vinegar (we used gel food colouring), a couple of small jars of baking soda, a couple of spoons, and a few empty mixing containers all on a tray. Oh, and some safety goggles. Because in Gracen’s world, science equals goggles. ☺
After helping her with her goggles, Grae set off to work.
As I usually do with this kind of activity, I didn’t give her any instructions. I simply said, “Do you want to play?”
The answer was an excited ‘yes’, and after a few questions about whether or not she could dump/mix/pour things (of course the answer to all was yes), she got started.
While she’s seen the reaction baking soda and vinegar have while 
And she loved it. Mixing a little bit of this with a little bit of that in order to cause colour changes and fizzy foam eruptions was right up her alley.
My little scientist made reaction after reaction, delighting each time she caused foam to spew out of the top of her jar.
One thing that was interesting is how the colour of the vinegar seemed to change with the addition of baking soda. In the case of the orange and the pink, the colours seemed to explode with brightness as the reactions occurred.
With almost all of her baking soda resources used up and her largest jar of vinegar left, we fetched just a little more baking soda from in the house.
It started off slowly, but the reaction did not disappoint. After scrounging leftover baking soda from wherever she could, she managed to create enough fizzing foam to have it flow generously out of the top of the jar. Success!