Volcanoes

Along with dinosaur week, we made a volcano to errupt. Jim made the volcano out of plaster of paris using newspaper and a small plastic soda pop container. He had a great time doing this project and trying to make the volcano as real looking as possible. He sat there for hours making it look just right :) When it came time to paint the volcano, Jim suggested we paint it gray. We didn't have gray paint, but black and white make gray, right? Going on the paint looked gray, but dried it looked a whole different color--blue. I'm sure there are blue volcanoes somewhere! It worked just the same and the kids enjoyed watching it errupt. Matthew kept saying "Again, again!" We set off three or four explosions before deciding to trash the volcano since it would be hard to store and we would just want to make another one again sometime. Next time I think we will try paper mache!

Here are some good links for learning about volcanoes:

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/environment/environment-natural-disasters/volcanoes/volcano-eruptions.html
This is video of a volcanic erruption, and there are other videos found on this site as well.

http://www.fema.gov/kids/volcano.htm

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/0312/main.html

http://www.weatherwizkids.com/volcano1.htm