Inside: Your kids will never turn down an invitation to do baking soda and vinegar activities. This is one of those experiments that can be kept basic or notched up a bit to increase the wow factor.
Sometimes all you need to keep your kids busy and put a smile on their faces are a few kitchen staples. The baking soda and vinegar combo is like peanut butter and jelly, chips and salsa, macaroni and cheese, or eggs and bacon. They go so well together that the result is much greater than the sum of its individual parts.
Which is a win for both of you!
With these activities, your kids will be busy learning and experimenting, and you will have the satisfaction of feeling like a magician.
7 Classic Baking Soda and Vinegar Experiments
Warning: if this is your first time doing these activities or your kids are little, please supervise at all times. I talk more about how to teach vinegar safety at the end of this post.
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#1: Basic Baking Soda and Vinegar Experiment
When the vinegar (an acid) is mixed with the baking soda (a base), there is a spectacular chemical reaction that is easily observable to the naked eye. The reaction releases a gas called carbon dioxide, but don’t worry: it’s a safe experiment as long as you follow instructions.
What you need
Baking soda
Vinegar
Container (tall, narrow ones are the best)
Rimmed tray to contain the leaks
(Optional) food coloring
What to do
- Add some baking soda to a container. If you are using food coloring, add a few drops now.
- Pour vinegar on top of baking soda (and food coloring).
- Watch how the reaction sizzles and bubbles over the edge.
Note: To make it even more fun, use containers of different shapes and sizes simultaneously!
#2 Volcano Eruption
A Reactant is a substance (or substances) present at the start of the reaction. The Product is a resulting substance (or substances) formed by a chemical reaction. What are the reactant(s) and product(s) in this experiment?
What you need
Baking soda
Vinegar
Food coloring
Playdough or LEGO volcano
What to do
- Add baking soda and food coloring to the container that can fit inside your LEGO volcano or use playdough to cover the container to look like a volcano.
- Add the vinegar to the mix.
- Watch the eruption!
What factors affect the intensity of the reaction? As you think about quality and quantity, don’t forget about the effect of mixing and stirring. What was produced by this chemical reaction? What gas? How can the quantity of gas produced be maximized? (Hint: stir baking soda).
#3 Dancing Rice
What do you think will happen to the rice when the water runs out of carbon dioxide bubbles?
What you need
Baking soda – 1 teaspoon
Vinegar – 1 cup (or more)
Warm water – 1 cup
Rice (long grain brown is best)
Clear glass
What to do
- Add one teaspoon of baking soda to glass. Stir it well.
- Add a few rice grains. We always have good luck with brown rice, while white rice sometimes doesn’t work. If your experiment didn’t work and you don’t have brown rice, try raisins instead.
- Now pour in the vinegar and watch the grains dance up and down in the glass. The bubbles of carbon dioxide (from the reaction between baking soda and vinegar) adhere to each rice grain and make it float to the surface. But once up, the gas is released, so it sinks back down again. You can add more vinegar as you go.
#4 Balloon Fun
One can’t have a list of baking soda and vinegar activities without including this one. Basically, you use the power of a chemical reaction between the soda and vinegar to fill the balloon up for you. Can it get any more exciting? With this activity, you can learn about gas and chemical reactions while playing with balloons. Woo-hoo!
What you need
Baking soda – ⅓ cup
Vinegar- 1 cup
Plastic bottle
Balloon
Funnel
What to do
- Use a funnel to fill a balloon with ⅓ cup of baking soda.
- Now pour one cup of vinegar into a plastic bottle (the funnel will help).
- Fit the balloon over the bottle, trying not to drop any baking soda inside.
- Once the balloon is securely attached over the bottle, lift the balloon to let all the baking soda drop inside the bottle.
- Watch as the balloon fills with air.
#5 Plastic Baggie Explosion
Do you remember that the reaction between vinegar and baking soda creates carbon dioxide gas? In this experiment, the reaction is contained within a plastic bag. What do you think will happen if there is more carbon dioxide than the bag can hold? 😉 Hint: you might want to do this outside or in a clean-up friendly zone.
What you need
2 tablespoons baking soda
½ cup vinegar
Sandwich size Ziploc bag
Tissue
What to do
- Put 2 Tablespoons of baking soda into the middle of the tissue and fold it up.
- Add half a cup of vinegar to the bag.
- You have to work quickly now. Throw the tissue into the bag and immediately zip it completely closed. Set it down and step back.
- Watch the bag expand and … POP!
If you want to have even more fun with this experiment, line up plastic bags and vary the amount of baking soda you put into them. We show how to do it in more detail HERE.
#6 Frozen Fizzies
For this activity, we used Star Wars ice tray molds. On the photo above the Millenium Falcon is under fire. For my kids, vinegar-filled droppers are the shooter, and fizzing chemical reaction is explosions. Hours of fun guaranteed!
What you need
½ cup baking soda
1 cup of water
Vinegar
Ice cube tray
(optional) food coloring
Dropper or spray bottle
What to do
- Dissolve baking soda in water and add food coloring (optional).
- Pour the mixture into ice cube trays and leave in the freezer overnight.
- Place frozen baking soda cubes on a tray.
- Sprinkle some vinegar on the cubes and watch them fizz.
How do you know that a chemical reaction occurred?
#7 Snow Day Any Day
Every day should be a snow day! Ummm, not really, but you can always make some fake snow and play all day!
Perhaps the longest-lasting baking soda and vinegar activity of all, this one can go on all day. As you can see in the photo above, my kids are engaged in pretty complex imaginative play involving snow-eating dinosaurs, speedy trucks, and blizzard. Everything that needs to be blasted with vinegar goes into a plastic container to keep the majority of “snow” intact.
What you need
1 box of baking soda
Water
Vinegar
Squirt bottle
What to do
- Freeze a box of baking soda overnight.
- Pour frozen baking soda into a container.
- Slowly add water and mix it in with your fingers or spoon until the desired consistency is reached. Our ideal consistency is when “the snow” forms into snowballs.
- (optionally) Make a snowman and blast it with a vinegar-filled squirt bottle!
- Fill a squirt bottle with vinegar, point it at the “snow,” and shoot. Warning: if more than one child is doing this activity at the same time, please, get out safety goggles and position their chairs in such a way that they can’t shoot each other in the face.
- Watch the snow erupt. Hours of fun!
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Vinegar Safety
Even though vinegar is a common ingredient in many foods, it can cause serious injuries.
- Stress to your kids that they should never drink or touch vinegar with their bare hands.
- Tell them that to do any experiments containing chemical compounds, they need to act like scientists, and remain calm, cool, and collected at all times. I tell my kids to push a “Focus” button, something like putting on a Thinking Cap. Each of my kids found a different location for their button 🙂
- Plus, they should never splash or shake containers with vinegar because if they get it in their eyes, it can result in a serious burn. As someone who once burned eyes by direct application of hydrogen peroxide, (long story!), I can attest first hand that eye burns are very uncomfortable.
- Invest in kids’ safety goggles. They are light, and kids get used to wearing them during science demonstrations really fast. Plus, they help set the science-y mood and get kids ready to play professionals.
Hi
Thanks for the contributions of such nice activities. I found these very useful.
Would you please add the safety equipment like goggles, gloves and apron for the use of ingredients for small kids like soda and vinegar activities.
The safety instructions are at the end of your post and some people just follow the main method and don’t look at safety instructions at the end.
This would be useful if you mention at the start as warning.
Kind regards
Farah