HOW TO MAKE A VOLCANO
- FOR KIDS -
Building a homemade volcano for kids can be easy and fun! This timeless and well-loved
science experiment is easier and less messy than you may think.
Building volcanoes is fun indoors and outdoors!
Take advantage of a beautiful afternoon outdoors and build a volcano outside. An
indoor volcano is just as fun. Building your model volcano in a large cake pan or on a large
cookie sheet with an old towel underneath to soak up any overflow lava makes cleanup a
breeze.
How to make exploding lava
The same basic lava recipe can be used in all three volcanoes. Here are the basic
proportions, but there’s definitely wiggle room to play around with different amounts of
ingredients.
Lava Recipe:
1/3 cup baking soda
1 teaspoon dish soap
1/2 – 1 cup vinegar
Food coloring or washable paint
Note: do not premix
Three Best Homemade Volcanoes for Kids
#1 - Dough Volcano
Our favorite dough volcano uses these two dough recipes—one for lava and one for ash.
Dough Recipe: Mix all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl
3 cups flour until the texture and stickiness are to your
1 cup salt liking. If it is too wet, add a spoonful of
1 cup water flour. If it is too dry, add a spoonful of
2 tablespoons vegetable oil water. This dough will represent your lava
layer.
Sand Dough Recipe:
Mix all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl
2 cups flour
until the texture and stickiness are to your
1 cup sand
liking. If it is too wet, add a spoonful of flour.
1 cup salt
If it is too dry, add a spoonful of water. This
½ cup water
dough will represent your ash layer.
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Other ingredients needed for this volcano:
Volcano Supplies: Lava Ingredients:
Bottle with a narrow opening Baking soda
Plastic straw Food coloring
Masking tape Dish soap
Vinegar
After making both types of dough, gather the other necessary supplies and ingredients.
A 20-ounce soda bottle and a straw work well to form a magma chamber. A larger bottle
could be used if you don’t mind mixing more dough and creating more lava.
Poke two holes randomly on the sides of your bottle, just big enough to fit a straw into.
Cut your straw in half and stick one end of each piece into each of the holes; then secure
them with masking tape. These straws will serve as side vents for your volcano. Set your
bottle in the middle of your pan or directly on the ground if you are outside.
Now it’s time to create your layers. Roll out each type of dough and start to build up
your volcano around the bottle, alternating the regular (lava) dough and the sand (ash)
dough. The thickness of each layer is up to you; be creative! Be sure to leave your straw
pieces sticking out for now. Once you’ve formed your cone-shaped volcano all the way to
the rim of your bottle, trim the straw pieces so that the ends are flush with the sides of
the volcano.
Now it’s time for the eruption!
First, add 1/3 cup baking soda to your magma chamber (bottle). Then add about a
teaspoon of dish soap for an extra foaming effect and top it off with several drops each
of red and yellow food coloring. Last, when you are ready for the action, pour in ½ to 1 cup
of vinegar and watch the eruption.
The different textures on this volcano provide a great teaching opportunity to explain the
composition of real-life volcanoes. The straw vents also add some extra excitement that
can be used in any of these volcanoes.
#2 - Clay Volcano
Next, we built a more basic volcano using air-dry clay. We built this one up around an
eight-ounce disposable plastic cup, and we found it worked just as well as the bottle
magma chamber. Use whatever you have on hand! We didn’t wait for it to dry before our
eruption, but if you want to make yours look a bit fancier and more realistic, let it dry
first and then paint it.
Volcano Supplies: Lava Ingredients:
Bottle or cup Baking soda
Plastic straw (optional for side vents) Food coloring (or washable paint)
Masking tape (optional for side vents) Dish soap
Air-dry clay Vinegar
We also put a slightly different twist on the lava this time. We used the same basic recipe,
but we substituted roughly two ounces of a combination of red, yellow, and orange
washable paints for the food coloring. The result was very pretty, richly colored lava.
Using washable paint is a great idea if you are building your volcano indoors since it won’t
stain like food coloring.
#3 - Dirt Volcano
The easiest and least expensive volcano to make is a dirt volcano. For this one all you’ll
need to have on hand are the lava ingredients and a bottle or cup for the magma chamber
because the rest is built from nature.
Volcano Supplies: Lava Ingredients:
Bottle or cup Baking soda
Plastic straw (optional for side vents) Food coloring
Masking tape (optional for side vents) Dish soap
Dirt, mud, or sand Vinegar
Find a small area of dirt or sand that you don’t mind digging in. We chose an empty spot
in our flower bed and lightly sprayed it with a water hose. Then we dug down just deep
enough to make a cozy little spot for our bottle to sit in. We built up the dirt all the way up
to the rim of the bottle, rewetting it as needed to help it stick together. Don’t let winter stop
you—build your volcano out of snow!
Real volcanoes come in different shapes and sizes, and yours can too! Kids enjoy searching
for backyard plants, sticks, and rocks to decorate the volcano. With so many variations to
choose from, make your volcano unique to your family. It can be as small and simple as
taping duct tape all the way around the rim of a cup diagonally down to the base it sits
on or as large and detailed as using a two-liter bottle, painting your own homemade dough,
and creating an elaborate scene around it. Get creative!
PARTS OF A VOLCANO
Instructions: Find these parts on your homemade volcano.
Then label the parts on the diagrams on the following pages.
#1 Magma Chamber: #6 Ash Cloud:
This hollowed-out cavity lies deep During an eruption water vapor, gas,
beneath the earth and contains dust, rock, minerals, volcanic glass, and
magma and gases. The magma feeds other debris get emitted into the air like
into the volcano. a cloud.
#2 Conduit: #7 Lava:
This is the main pathway taken by Whether molten rock (lava) oozes or
the magma to reach the top of the explodes out of the volcano’s vents
volcano. depends on the lava’s viscosity and
type.
#3 Dike:
Pressure builds up in the crust and in #8 Side Vent:
the volcano. When a crack forms and When cracks or dikes branch off from
cuts across the rock, magma fills the the main conduit and then open at
crack, creating a dike. the surface of the side of a volcano,
a side vent forms. Some volcanoes
#4 Main Vent: have many side vents, creating several
layers of hardened lava.
This is the main opening that comes
directly up from the conduit from
which lava, gas, ash, and other volcanic #9 Layers of Ash and Lava:
materials are expelled. As a volcano experiences multiple
eruptions, ash and lava layers
#5 Crater: accumulate, growing the volcano.
A crater is a bowl-shaped, steep-sided
opening at the top of the volcano
surrounding the main vent. Craters
form from explosive eruptions.
5
STRUCTURE OF A VOLCANO
Use the word bank to label the volcano.
WOrd Bank
magma chamber conduit dike
main vent crater ash cloud
lava side vent layers of ash and lava
5
STRUCTURE OF A VOLCANO
Draw a line to connect each word to the correct part of the volcano.
7
5
8
4
9
2
magma chamber side vent conduit dike
lava layers of ash and lava ash cloud
main vent crater
