Make a Groovy Lava Lamp Craft

In this fun STEM experiment, your child will explore measurement and capacity while creating colorful DIY lava lamps. This activity requires adult supervision at all times.

Learning Goals

This activity will help your child:

• Understand that everything around them can be measured
• Practice measurement skills and make fair comparisons
• Ask questions like "Which one holds more?" and "How much more can we pour before overflowing?"

Materials

• Empty plastic bottle
• Water
• Vegetable oil
• Food coloring
• Fizzing/effervescent tablets

Vocabulary

Capacity describes how much a container can hold. Young children explore capacity when they pour water from one container into another to see which one holds more or at the park when they fill a bucket with sand.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Gather the materials and find a surface that can be easily cleaned to conduct your experiment. Remember, this activity requires adult supervision at all times.

2. Fill a quarter of the bottle with water. Explain that a quarter means one-fourth or half of a half.

3. Next, fill the rest of the bottle with vegetable oil until it is almost full. You can use a funnel to make pouring the oil easier. Ask your child, "Let's make a hypothesis or an educated guess: What do you think will happen when we add oil to the water in the bottle? How do you know?" Explain that the water is denser (heavier) than the oil, causing the oil to float on top.

4. Now, add eight to 10 drops of food coloring. What do you think will happen? The food coloring passes through the oil and mixes with the water.

5. Finally, break your fizzy tablet in half and place it inside the bottle, keeping it open. Notice what happens. The tablet first sinks to the bottom of the bottle producing a rising column of bubbles. Now you have a lava lamp. How groovy!

Keep the Conversation Going

• Try making two more bottles with different colors and different water and oil capacities. Find out what happens when you add more water or less water. How about more oil or less oil? Be careful not to overfill your bottles and spill oil or water (you may want to experiment over a sink or outside).
• You can also try measuring the water in two different ways: by temperature (how hot or cold is your "lava"?) or by weight (how heavy is your bottle?). For temperature, you will need to measure with a thermometer. Ask, "Is it boiling hot like real lava?" For the weight, you will need to set your bottle on a scale. You can ask your child, "Is it heavier or lighter than a normal water bottle?" Record your results in a table and compare them.

Book Suggestion

“Look, Grandma! Ni, Elisi!"/ "¡Mira, abuela! Look, Grandma! Ni, Elisi!” (Ages 3-6)
Written by Art Coulson and illustrated by Madelyn Goodnight
In this book, your child will follow along as Bo explores the math of volume, capacity, and area while participating in an important community tradition.

Corresponding Standards

Common Core State Standards Kindergarten

• CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.MD.A.2 Directly compare two objects with a measurable attribute in common, to see which object has "more of "/"less of" the attribute, and describe the difference. For example, directly compare the heights of two children and describe one child as taller/shorter.

Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework

• Goal P-MATH 8. Child measures objects by their various attributes using standard and non-standard measurement. Uses differences in attributes to make comparisons.

California Preschool Learning Foundations

• 1.0 Compare, Order, and Measure Objects. By pouring water or sand from one container into the other, children learn about the volume or capacity of different containers.