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Make Your Own Gourd Volcanoes!
- Gabrielle Fischer Posted On Oct 18, 2017 | STEM
This fall, take the classic vinegar/baking soda experiment for a spin inside a gourd by making your own pumpkin volcanoes!
Here’s what you will need to make exploding gourd volcanoes:
- Gourds or small pumpkins that can stand upright
- Carving materials
- Vinegar
- Baking soda
- Dish soap
- Food coloring
- Baking sheet or tray
Have an adult cut the top of the gourd or pumpkin. Clear it out completely.
Next, fill the pumpkin about half full with vinegar. Add few drops of dish soap (for extra bubbles) and food coloring. Stir it all together until coloring is dissolved.
Place your gourds on the tray. Depending on how many little hands want to take part in the experiment, fill bowls with baking soda and hand out measuring spoons.
On the count of three, have your little scientists pour in about 2 tablespoons of baking soda into the pumpkins. The chemical reaction is always a crowd pleaser.
The pumpkins or gourds easily wash off for another round of color mixing and explosion fun!
What is the science behind gourd volcanoes? Mixing baking soda and vinegar together produces a reaction of carbon dioxide bubbles. The dish soap adds to the “wow” factor by making the solution foamy, as well as slowing down the chemical reaction. Gourd volcanoes are a scientific way to kick off fall with a bang!
Celebrate Astronomy Day with Kids
Each year Astronomy Day is celebrated worldwide. The stars have fascinated humanity for literally centuries, and even to this day captures the imagination of kids of all ages. Celebrate this event with them this year and don't worry if you don't own any expensive telescopes. These DIY activities use real life discoveries to inspire your little astronomers!
Track the Phases of the Moon
Bone sticks from across Europe and Africa dating back as long ago as 35,000 BCE that tracked the moon’s phases. Use a simple number line with your kids to track the phases of the moon over the course of a month, from full moon and back again. Do it for several months and see what patterns they begin to observe.
Depict a Celestial Phenomenon
A celestial phenomenon is a astrological event that involves one or more objects. The earliest example depicted was discovered in Germany in 1999. The Nebra Sky Disc dates back to 2000 BC and it depicted a star cluster, phases of the moon and the rising sun.
Use a black paper plate, or even just black paper, and encourage your children to depict their own star formations. If they can’t stay up to observe them at night, project some indoors with this Shining Stars Projector.
Astronomy to Keep Time
The Chinese astronomers kept detailed observations beginning about 600 BC, for the primary purpose of timekeeping. Their records allowed them to predict eclipses, and include the first record of events such as supernovas and comets.
On the other side of the world, the Mayans developed their own astronomical tables for predicting the phases of the moon, eclipses, and the appearance of the other planets. They used these and the cycles of the Sun, the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and constellations to establish the Mayan calendar.
All of the above astronomy was without a telescope, and you can still observe these astronomical events with your kids today. Check out this astronomy calendar and pick a full moon, eclipse, planetary event, or meteor shower to observe as a family.
Try this simple astronomy experiment to help kids as young as preschoolers understand what makes night.
Just because ancient astronomers did all of this without a telescope doesn't mean your little ones have to! All of the above activities can be done with the naked eye but if you feel like shooting for the stars check out Learning Resources Big View Telescope. How will you celebrate Astronomy Day?
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5 Spooktacular Halloween Learning Activities from the Busbys
Adam and I are always looking for activities to do with the girls, and there’s plenty of learning and fun to be had this Halloween. It can be as simple as counting and sorting Halloween candy, drawing a spooky picture, or making a paper plate spider web. The learning is always there – you just have to look for it!
1. Pumpkin Coloring Contest
Get out the crayons, print out this pumpkin picture, and watch your little artist’s imagination come to life! Points for the silliest, spookiest, and most creative pumpkins.
2. Paper Plate Spiderwebs
Fall trees aren’t just full of leaves – they’re also full of spiders! Garden spiders are most active in the fall so you’re likely to see more of their elaborate, beautiful webs in the trees in autumn, too. Join the fun and spin your own spider webs out of a paper plate!
- Cut the center out of a paper plate.
- Let your kids color the outer edge of the plate with beautiful fall colors like red, orange, and yellow.
- Using a single hole puncher, punch 12-14 holes around the edge of the hole.
- Tape one end of a length of yarn to the back of the paper plate and wrap tape tightly around the other to form a ‘needle’.
- Demonstrate how to weave the yarn back and forth through the holes to create the web, then hand the plate over to your child.
- Once, the web is spun, remove the pin from the end of the yarn and tape that end to the back of the plate, too.
Add a pipe cleaner spider for the perfect fall finishing touch – cut four black pipe cleaners in half and twist to create an eight-legged creepy crawly!
3. Frankenstein Fun
Start with a blank sheet of paper, then guide your kids, step by step, to draw Frankenstein’s head. Instructions are below:
- Draw a large rectangle, short sides up and down, long sides on the sides, to form the head.
- Add a rectangular ear on either side of the head.
- Add a zig zag line just below the top of the head to make hair.
- Draw two parallel lines coming out of the bottom of the head to form the neck.
- Add the start of another rectangle beneath the neck to form the top of the body.
- Draw two circles for eyes and two half circles inside the circles to form pupils.
- Add rectangular eyebrows at an angle over the eyes.
- Add a rectangular mouth.
- Using the bottom of the mouth as the base, draw three triangles, then connect the pointed tops of the triangles to the top of the mouth’s rectangle to form teeth.
- Shape a nose between the eyes and the mouth
- Once the outline of Frankenstein is complete, kids can go crazy with details – add bolts, scars, etc. Outline the creation in Sharpie, and color him in with crayons, colored pencils, markers, even watercolor paints. You’ll be surprised how differently each of your children’s drawings are!
4. Spooky STEM Sculptures
Put all that Halloween candy to good use, with STEM sculptures! Use candy pumpkins and toothpicks to create STEM structures designed to introduce early math and science principles like gravity, balance, angles, and more. Younger kids can try building a simple tower with a three-pumpkin base supporting a single, floating pumpkin. Challenge older kids to create a taller tower, pyramid, spiral, or spider web!
5. Skeleton Puzzle
This double sided skeleton puzzle not only makes a great Halloween activity, it’s also a great way to teach your kids about the name of bones! It also makes a great front door decoration to help greet your trick or treaters.
Happy Halloween!
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