Colored Vinegar and Baking Soda

My kids had SO much fun with the first baking soda and vinegar activity we did, so I was excited to try this one. 

Supplies:

Vinegar

Baking soda (1-2 boxes)

Food Coloring

Shallow containers

Ice cube trays

Droppers

Straws (optional)

Fill shallow containers (one per child) with about an inch or so of baking soda.

Pour vinegar into several wells of the ice cube tray, and add 1-2 drops of food coloring to each spot of vinegar.  I used toothpicks to mix the vinegar and food coloring.

These are the droppers I found at Hobby Lobby near the candy making supplies (I used a 40% off coupon):

You can also find droppers in the pharmacy section at most stores.

We took our supplies outside to start the fun.  The sun was too bright to get a good picture.

I followed the directions on the site where I got this idea, and I cut straws in half and stuck them in the baking soda. 

However, the straws did nothing for us.  They kept falling over, and they never gave a volcano effect.  So, the kids just used their droppers to squirt colored vinegar onto the baking soda.

I had to give the kids a lesson on how to suck up the liquid with the droppers.  Nora still needed a little help.

I enjoyed seeing the kids all in a row doing their activity.

I liked the colors in the baking soda:

It didn't take long for someone to accidentally get some baking soda in one of their wells of colored vinegar:

That led the kids to use their droppers and straws to transfer baking soda to their colored vinegar.

Nora ditched the tools and just used her hands to dump large quantities of baking soda into her vinegar.

And this was naturally the next step of this progression:

Nora's messy face:

And hands:

The end result:

My report:

This was not nearly as successful as the Magic Baking Soda Activity.  I'm still happy because it was relatively cheap and easy, and it still entertained my kiddos for a bit.  Plus it gave them a little freedom to experiment with mixing the colors and deciding how to combine the baking soda and vinegar.  I still think we probably won't do this exact activity again, but I'm glad we tried it.

Jessica