Volcaneus

Carston has been excited to make his own volcano for the past few days. He originally got the idea from the movie Nim's Island and a kit he saw at the toy store. Something sparked his memory and yesterday he insisted that we study volcanoes and make our own model. He and Mark read about volcanoes last night and watched videos of them erupting. Mark printed off an explanation from about.com detailing how to make your own volcano and then to cause it to "erupt".

Carston wanted to wait until Dad got home before we started the "experiment" today, which was fine by me. They mixed together the dough to make the volcano and I finished mixing it and formed it into a volcano around a small bottle on a baking sheet.

We mixed some green food coloring into the dough, but Carston felt that the coloring wasn't quite right. So, I painted it greener with finger paints and then a dark gray with some food coloring (I still have black fingers from the dye).

This was much better! They were now ready for Mark to pour the baking soda and vinegar in to create an eruption. He used red food coloring so it would look more like the lava Carston was imagining.

Here is our volcano after it erupted. The boys were all excited and gave me a thumbs up (Grant's "thumbs up" is a finger up). We explained the reaction between the vinegar and baking soda to Carston and he asked for us to do it again. So, our volcano erupted twice. I asked Carston if we should name the volcano "Mount St. Carston" but he decided to name it "Volcaneus" and wants me to paint a face on it in the morning, since it is now an old family friend. The volcano is "sleeping" with Carston and Jackson in their room tonight. They begged to have it placed on the train table. There volcaneus sits now, dormant. I guess it was worth it to use all of our flour and salt!