Erupting Volcano

Why did the dinosaurs die? My 4-year old loves to ask that question. I tell him that a big rock might have hit the earth or the earth got too hot for them or a volcano might have erupted. His favorite answer is the volcano erupting because he likes to make a path in the lava and jump from rock to rock (pillow to pillow). We made an erupting volcano to help make it more real.

I gave my sons a cookie sheet and had them build a volcano with play doh. The play doh wasn't homemade, but if you don't want to waste the real stuff, you should consider doing this. The volcano should have a hollow middle, which I had to help the boys with. The boys put their play dinosaurs around it, along with some other creatures. I had them put approximately a teaspoon of baking soda in the middle of the volcano. Then I put some vinegar in 2 bowls, one for each of the boys. They added 10 drops of yellow food coloring to the vinegar to make it more lava like. I gave the boys spoons to put spoonfuls of vinegar in the volcano. After each spoonful they watched it fizz out. I didn't want a huge mess, so spoons worked really well. It also kept the volcano erupting. 

The boys played with this for a while. The dinosaurs got caught in the lava, and some got away on a rock, but some died. This activity helped them understand how the dinosaurs might have died. It also helped them understand how a volcano erupts. I didn't explain the significance of mixing an acid and a base, but if they were older I would explain it. The boys took it a step further and added some water to see what would happen. 

Hint: this is comparable to Coke and Mentos. The coke bottle would be the volcano and the eruption would be everywhere, which is why I didn't do this. Coke is the acid and Mentos is the base.