Fizz!

We took an old favourite today and put an art spin on it! We spread baking soda in  shallow baking trays and invited children to drop primary coloured vinegar (using pipettes) onto the powder to see what happens! 

The children had many predictions for what they thought the powder was - flour for making playdough, ground up chalk dust, and salt. They immediately noticed the strong odour of the vinegar and many guessed what it was correctly, even with the food colouring added to it.

We are always fans of anything that involves colour mixing, so it was wonderful to see the experiment turn into a piece of art as the children explored the materials. Using the pipettes helped strengthen fine motor control as the children had to accurately pinch and release the bulb at the end of the pipette to gather and release drops of vinegar.

It was so interesting to watch what happens! We had just as many children eager to observe the experiment as we did participants!

The activity appealed to many of the children's senses - hearing, sight, and touch! They noticed that the liquid reacted with the power and fizzed and popped when put together. They observed the wonderful swirls of colour as they were created, and they felt the materials by squeezing the pipettes and mixing the powder with their fingers!

This is an easy activity to replicate at home! If you don't have pipettes you can use any kind of dropper.