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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When we went to pick up a pool noodle for Gracen’s 
It was my first time seeing this sort of pool noodle, and all I knew was that I wanted to slice it up to create tons of little individual flower shapes. 
So that’s just what I did. Just like when 
As I chopped, Miss G ran the ready flowers over to her blow up pool and tossed them in! 
It’s such a simple thing, but they looked so pretty and inviting dancing around on the water’s surface. (I’m already picturing them in bath tubs and sensory bins too!)
I think Miss G agreed, because she immediately jumped in {despite the freezing cold water} and started splashing around like mad!
When the splashing had subsided a little bit, Grandma Charlotte showed Grae how the flowers could be used as building blocks. 
It’s definitely easier in still-ish water, but it’s equally fun when in or out of the pool. Towers can be built…
Pyramids can be built…
And ‘trains’ can be built too! Of course, the possibilities are really endless when it comes to building structures – even when they’re floating ones. 
Now the only question is how I’m going to convince Brad that heaps of pool noodle flowers are a Kuwait necessity… I mean with the heat and the amount of time we spend in and around water there, they are, aren’t they? ☺ 
While we’ve done plenty of 
Every few days, a newspaper bound in a long rubber band makes its way onto our porch. If it’s not already soaked through with early morning rain, I half-heartedly flip through the stories and flyers {that make up the majority of the paper} so I feel a tiny bit less guilty about recycling it almost immediately. This morning, however, when we found a bone dry paper on our porch, we decided to put it to use.
Gracen’s been helping me wash our produce and sort it into the different refrigerator sections for a long while now and often asks if things are fruits or vegetables, so I decided we’d use our grocery store flyers to play a little fruit and veggie sorting game. 
Next we had a little chat about how we know if something is a fruit or vegetable… While it’s kind of a complex subject filled with talk of flowers, ovaries, and plant accessory parts, I subscribe to the fruits have seeds theory when teaching kids (true story – avocados, peppers, and cucumbers are all fruits!) It’s not a perfect rule because wee ones often don’t realize that things like bananas and blueberries have seeds, but it works for most things.
After adding a few little seeds next to our fruit heading, I began cutting pictures out of the flyers. I’d pass one to Grae, ask her what it was, whether or not it had seeds, and if she thought it was a fruit or veggie, and she’d paste it in the correct box.
After a couple of times, she took things into her own hands… I’d pass her a picture and she’d say, “Dis is lettuce. It no have seeds, so it’s a vegetable!”
When we’d used up all of the flyer photos, she took a minute to admire her project. She was a very proud girl and immediately went to hang her poster on the fridge.
Later on in the day, after a big produce shop, Grae was helping me lay all of the freshly washed produce on the butcher block to dry. Right away, I could see that she was putting all of the fruits on one side and the veggies on the other, so I grabbed a wooden spoon to act as a divider {and she grabbed her poster to add to the display}. Instantly we had a real life sorting game.
These are her piles when she decided she was done playing. The Chinese eggplant on the right is what she chose this time for our