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You are here: Home / Themes / Bubbles / Baking Soda and Vinegar Science: Dancing Rice
August 12, 2015 By Chelsey 15 COMMENTS
Baking Soda and Vinegar Science: Dancing Rice
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Make rice dance with this cool baking soda and vinegar science
experiment for kids! You’ll just need a few items from your kitchen to
create this exciting science activity.
Follow our Science for Kids Pinterest board!
My kids always love science explorations involving baking soda and
vinegar. The chemical reaction created by these two ingredients leads to
all kinds of fun with carbon dioxide bubbles!
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In this science activity children will explore what happens to rice that has
been placed in water as a chemical reaction with baking soda and vinegar
takes place. This post contains affiliate links.
Dancing Rice Science Experiment
for Kids
Materials for Dancing Rice Science Experiment for Kids
Clear container
Water
Baking soda
Vinegar
Rice (We used a short grain brown rice.)
Spoon
Optional: Food coloring
Directions for Dancing Rice Science Experiment for
Kids
Note: I encourage you to let children add the ingredients all on their own. It
could get messy (so do this in a an area you can easily wipe up), but allowing
the kids to do this activity independently will allow for all kinds of exploration
and observations.
1. Pour one cup of water into your clear container.
2. Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda to the water and stir.
3. Sprinkle some rice into the mixture. What happens to the rice? Why do
you think this happens? The rice sinks to the bottom because it is denser
than the water. (If your rice doesn’t sink, it might be less dense than the
water. Try a different kind of rice, broken pieces of vermicelli, or
raisins.)
4. Add 1 tablespoon of vinegar to the water. What happens? Why? The
vinegar reacts with the baking soda in the water creating bubbles of carbon
dioxide.
5. Observe what happens over the next few minutes. Eventually the rice
will begin to “dance”. As bubbles of carbon dioxide adhere to the rice, the
rice is brought up to the surface. Once it reaches the surface, the gas is
released, and the rice falls back down again.
Optional: Add a couple drops of food coloring and watch it slowly begin
to mix into the
solution.
Notes
– As the chemical reaction slows down, add a little more baking soda and
watch what happens. Then try adding more vinegar. Can you make the
rice continue to dance?
– If you are using a larger container, be sure to use larger amounts of
baking soda and vinegar.
Want to go even further?
Even more activities to inspire creativity and critical thinking for various ages.
What else can you make “dance” in the solution? Try small
pieces of spaghetti or raisins.
Experiment with different types of rice. Do they all “dance” the
same?
Try our Dancing Raisins science experiment.
Make your own colorful chemical reactions science lab . (This is
Lucy and Theo’s favorite!)
Why is the Statue of Liberty green? Try out this science
experiment to discover why.
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Filed Under: BUBBLES , ELEMENTARY , KINDERGARTEN , PRESCHOOL , QUICK & EASY , SCIENCE Tagged
With: BAKING SODA AND VINEGAR , CHEMICAL REACTIONS , SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS
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Comments
1. ILINCA SAYS
August 14, 2015 at 11:34 pm
What a fun experiment! Can’t wait to try this with the kids! Thanks!
Reply
2. DEBBIE SAYS
September 30, 2015 at 7:20 am
Was disapointed in this one.
No matter what we did, we could not make our rice “dance”
Maybe it was the type of rice we used, I don’t know.
We tried Basmati and Jasmine
Am going to buy some brown rice to see if this makes a difference.
Was fun adding the ingredients though and waiting to see what reaction
would occur.
Thanks Deb
Reply
O CHELSEY SAYS
September 30, 2015 at 9:01 am
Sorry it didn’t work out, Debbie. At least with science the fun part
is trying out new ideas when the first one doesn’t work. So glad
you are not giving up! We used short grain brown rice in
ours. Also, you might want to continue playing around with the
addition of more vinegar and baking soda. If it just doesn’t work
at all, you can always use just carbonated water like we did in
our dancing raisins activity . Please keep me posted!
Reply
3. JESS SAYS
November 1, 2015 at 1:43 am
Sorry for a silly question but is the rice cooked or raw?
Reply
O CHELSEY SAYS
November 1, 2015 at 8:28 am
Not silly at all! It was raw.
Reply
4. LINDA SKUCE SAYS
November 22, 2015 at 9:47 am
I really like this idea! What fun to show the majic of science. However we
can’t use food in experiments at our school. Perhaps small pebbles will
work or fish tank gravel. Thanks for the idea!
Reply
O CHELSEY SAYS
November 22, 2015 at 11:48 am
Thanks, Linda! I’d love to hear what you guys end up trying. I think
that is one of the best parts of science- kids predicting and trying
out different ideas!
Reply
5. ANONYMOUS SAYS
March 2, 2016 at 8:10 am
It didnt work at all???
Reply
6. ANONYMOUS SAYS
April 1, 2016 at 9:36 pm
Unpopped popcorn kernels work great, too!
Reply
7. JEANNIE SAYS
May 2, 2017 at 4:52 am
Love this idea! We just bought a large bag of rice. My son made a rain stick
and is really enjoying sensory play with rice using different items we
transferred from his sandbox to the rice sensory bin. (You can see the items
I’m referring to if you visit my site).This is another great idea we can use
with the bag of rice I bought. Thank you!
Reply
8. STEFANIE GARCIA SAYS
December 5, 2017 at 6:33 pm
Looks like a fun idea. We will have to give it a try.
Reply
Trackbacks
1. 25+ Fun Ways to Introduce Your Preschooler to Science - Mommy's
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January 22, 2016 at 7:03 pm
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August 13, 2016 at 2:02 am
[…] Dancing Rice by Buggy and Buddy […]
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September 20, 2016 at 8:25 pm
[…] Amaze your kids with Dancing Rice! This baking soda and vinegar
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[…] Dancing Rice from Buggy and Buddy […]
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Welcome to Buggy and Buddy! I'm Chelsey, a former teacher and
parent living on the central coast of California. I love sharing crafts, science, STEM
and STEAM activities, free printables and more! Read More…
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