Let’s keep going on this Valentine’s Day theme! Today we decided it would be fun to do some chemical reactions and see how baking soda and vinegar react when mixed together. We decided that we could make some love potions!
Baking Soda and Vinegar
Well for starters, let’s learn all about the science behind the reaction that we are doing. Did you know that mixing baking soda (a base) and vinegar (an acid) creates a chemical reaction? When they are mixed together, this creates the chemical reaction that you see. Baking soda is also known as sodium bicarbonate and vinegar is also known as acetic acid. Mixing sodium bicarbonate with acetic acid creates water, a salt (sodium acetate), and carbon dioxide (a gas). When the reaction happens, we witness the carbon dioxide escaping and this is what creates the bubbles we see when we are watching.
Making Love Potions
How to make our love potions:
- Fill a silicone cupcake liner with a little bit of baking soda.
- (We have used a cupcake pan before as well)
- Add in any food coloring or liquid watercolors you desire.
- Fill with more baking soda to cover up the colors.
- Place vinegar in a container to be scooped, squirted, or dumped onto the baking soda.
- Watch the reactions happen and colors appear!
Supplies
Watch Them Grow
This is so much fun and can be done in so many different ways! Allow your kids the flexibility to experiment with both the mixing to make bubbles but also the mixing of colors. Once the colors have appeared, they can dump and mix them together to create more fun. This allows them the ability to see how colors blend and allows them to make the potion their favorite color!
We have used this same experiment for other fun reactions! See our Halloween one here.
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