Volcano

After reading about the volcano created by Teacher Tom, I couldn't resist trying to make our own.  If it worked I planned to use it in our small world play to enhance the current interest in dinosaurs. 

 So we started last week.  As the older children are on their Easter holidays, we had a bit of extra help.  I got a tray for a car boot sale for 50p and created a frame for the children. 

After the older children cut the newspaper into strips, all the children busily set about dipping them into the flour and water mixture and placing them carefully across the frame.

We then had to be very patient and wait for the volcano to dry out.  The lovely hot weather we are having at the moment helped to speed this up and the following week our volcano was ready for painting. 

We started off with lots of colours but our volcano ended up black.  This was probably due to our self-appointed 'chief mixer!'

It needed one more coat of paint, this time with a bit of sand mixed in for extra effect, a coat of pva glue and it was ready. We eagerly gathered round, got some chairs to make sure we were really comfy and waited.

Fantastic, we weren't disappointed!

We then decided a bit of red food colouring would make it even more authentic and erupted it again.....and again.....and again......and again until we ran out of bicarbonate of soda.  Next week our volcano is going in with the dinosaurs.