Tagged with 'holidays'

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! 

It’s almost fall! You’re probably spending a little less time swimming, climbing, and playing outside and a little more time relaxing indoors – the perfect place for fall craft projects with your preschooler! Luckily, fall is ripe with inspiration for preschool crafts, like the three we’ve chosen below. So pour some cider, have a seat, and let’s get crafty!

Turning Leaf Scratchers

With less sun and shorter days, autumn weather suppresses chlorophyll production in many leaves, allowing their beautiful orange, red, and yellow colors to shine through. Demonstrate this process with a fun leaf scratcher!

1. Cut a large leaf shape out of a piece of card stock or other sturdy paper. You can find lots of printable templates online, if you need one.
2. Have your kids cover the leaf in red, yellow, or orange crayon (or all three), making sure to leave a thick layer of color over the entire leaf.
3. Next, have the kids cover their leaves in a layer of green crayon.
4. Using a penny (keep a careful eye on very small children), scratch off the layer of green to reveal the beautiful fall colors beneath.

Click for a simple explanation about why leaves change color in the fall!

Fall Foil Trees

Continue the foliage fun with a painting project depicting all the beautiful colors of leaves in the fall.

1. Let your kids scrunch three pieces of tinfoil into loose balls.
2. Squeeze blobs of orange, yellow, and red paint on three, separate paper plates.
3. Instruct your kids to dip their foil into one color of paint paint, then press onto a sheet of paper several times to make their “leaves”.
4. Repeat, printing the foil in different colors on top of the original colors and in different places on the paper.
5. When your foil prints are dry, use brown paint to fingerpaint a trunk and branches into your fall forest.

Don’t forget to print some fall foil leaves at the bottom of your page – as chlorophyll production decreases, the stems of leaves weaken, and the leaves fall from the trees!

Paper Plate Spider Webs

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!

1. Cut the center out of a paper plate.
2. Let your kids color the outer edge of the plate with beautiful fall colors like red, orange, and yellow.
3. Using a single hole puncher, punch 12-14 holes around the edge of the hole.
4. 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’.
5. Demonstrate how to weave the yarn back and forth through the holes to create the web, then hand the plate over to your child.
6. 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!

Fall is chock full of fun craft ideas and it’s so easy to slip just a bit of learning into the fun!