Parts of a Volcano

Hello Friends.

I want to share with you a fun {and YUMMY} learning activity that I did in science with my kiddos.

Science has never been my strong subject. Because of that, I try and make it interesting when I teach it so that the information will stick with my kiddos.

We were learning about the parts of a volcano this past week. Although it's pretty straight forward and not a tough concept, I took advantage of creating a sugary project since I had not done one with them in a while.

I have to be honest here. I HATE giving my kids sugary treats. We don't keep candy around the house and for the most part, my kids know their limit (except my little one. She has NO sugar limit). So when it comes time to do a project like this, or this, or even this, I have their FULL attention, and THAT makes this teacher mama happy!

Here are the candies we used:

Starburst - lava
Sour Punch - vent
Cotton Candy - gases
Crunch/Crushed Oreos - dirt for volcano

Here is what I did:

1. Draw a volcano on a piece of paper. This gives them a guideline of where to stay inside the volcano.

2. Unwrap about 2-3 Starbursts and put them in the microwave just a few seconds to melt so that it's moldable. I put it on parchment paper.

I melted ours too much so I just let it cool a bit to solidify it.

3. Mold the magma chamber

4.  Use the Sour Punch for the vent

If the vent is too long, I'm sure that your kiddos will be more than happy to shorten the vent

 PERFECT!

5. Unwrap more Starburst and use it to add lava to the side of your volcano

FAST FORWARD A COUPLE OF STEPS. Sorry! We were having so much fun that I forgot to take pictures of each of the other steps, but here they are...

6. Add Sour Punch to the crater of the volcano.

7.  Add Crunch bites/ crushed Oreos as dirt for the volcano.

8. Add cotton candy for the gases

9.  Add labels. I just had the kids place them on top of the candy.

10. Before they could eat their volcano, each of them had to name each part of the volcano and what it did.

 Of course, my oldest son decided that he wanted to add lava shooting out of his volcano. I'm no fool. I know that was really him thinking, "The more candy I put on my volcano, the more I can eat!"  

11. Time to eat! It's just SO sad that they don't enjoy this part.

When you're so desperate for candy that you don't even care that there's paper stuck to it.

ANIMALS!

In the end, my kids really loved this project! I know that activities like this stick in their heads and they were excited to share with our principal (dad) the wonderful project they did today.