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I’m going to show you a short-cut on how to make your own volcano, invented by my husband. We are continuing our study of Earth and Space by Bright Ideas Press, and we are doing the volcano chapter this week. The hands-on activity is to make your own volcano, and the book tells you what ingredients you need for the eruption.
But first, I wanted my kids to fill out the diagram provided in the book. One of my sons made the lava into a groovy psychedelic orange, red, and yellow design. Isn’t it cool?
Next we experimented with the eruption itself, using an extra pop bottle. My husband didn’t seem to mind erupting it over and over, and the kids squealed with delight, as you will see in the video.
We grabbed several volcano books out of the library, and we own a volcano video, so the kids enjoyed watching lava come out of volcanoes before we erupted our volcano model.
I’ve seen a real volcano erupting when I grew up in Guatemala. The orange glow looked really interesting against the dark sky, as I stood on the street in front of my house. I also climbed a volcano and looked down into the crater. It was still smoking. I asked my teacher if it was safe to be climbing that volcano, and he refused to answer…
Just so you know, this version of a volcano took 5 minutes of spraying with spray foam (let it dry overnight), plus 5 minutes to chop off and hot glue the foam, plus 5 minutes to smash the terra cotta clay onto the volcano structure. So it took a total of 15 minutes. It was easy and fun.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, here is our video on how to make your own volcano:
Tags: Bright Ideas Press, Earth and Space, earth science, volcanoes
oh, i loved this! I remember watching it on a TV show when I was little and marveling at it.
I never did build one, maybe my son and I can do it together now with these instructions 🙂
It’s way easier to build this than your typical model volcano.
Very very cool!!! Thanks for sharing Susan 🙂
Fun stuff Susan…
Hello Susan, this is really cool. But the title got me surprised: i thought it was a real volcano 🙂
“How to Make a Real Volcano” — That would have been a way more dangerous experiment!
Hey Susan,
I really enjoyed your video of the volcano. I wish I knew about this when I was younger, I would have had a blast!
Wow, that’s WAY easier and faster than the way we did it. We made one using newspaper and homemade playdough, for goodness sakes. Took forever! My boys loved it… but I love the spray foam idea. Thanks for sharing this time saving tip!
The spray foam is way easier and more fun, definitely!
That is super cool!! I would have never thought to use spray foam, my husband is sure to get on board with this project. This is going to be great to do when we start expanding our geography lessons.
I think the spray foam is cheaper than the clay, too, so it’s more fun AND less expensive!
The spray foam volcano looks awesome! That would be a lot of fun!
It was a blast, literally!
What fun! I bet they wanted to do it again and again and again! Love all your ideas and fun lessons!
It was great to see the volcano explode!