Homemade Lava Lamp Craft for Kids

It is important to spend time with your children and do things with them besides the basic parenting tasks we all have to do like teaching our children basic hygiene, to use their manners, reading and writing, etc. We also need to do other things like play board games, outdoor sports, outings to museums, fairs, cooking and crafts to name a few. There is so much that children can learn from these activities and helps strengthen the bond between parents and their children as well as gives everyone lasting memories of these fun learning experiences.

Doing crafts at home with the kids are great family projects. It helps build children's artistic skills, boost their creativity and some craft projects help children become more interested in science. A fun craft that also dubs as a science project is making homemade lava lamps. There are a few different formulas you can try depending on what you have around the house.

You will need:

Formula A:

A glass or plastic bottle with a cap (soda pop bottles work great, make sure you clean them well)
Water
Vegetable Oil
Alka-Seltzer Tablets or Generic Brand

Formula B:

A glass or plastic bottle with a cap
Water
Vegetable Oil
Salt

Formula C:

A glass or plastic bottle with a cap
Water
Vegetable Oil
Baking Soda

There are other formulas that you can find by searching the internet that use alcohol or vinegar. I prefer the cooking oil because there are no harsh odors when working with it.

First fill the empty bottle ¼ full of water. Next add food coloring, this will change the color of the water to whatever color you added. (An added fun step here...on the back of most food coloring boxes there is a chart that shows you how to mix the colors to make even more colors like purple, orange, lime green, etc. You can take this opportunity with your kids to learn about mixing colors and have some fun with it!)

Fill the remaining ¾ of the bottle with vegetable oil, leaving about 1" empty from the top of the bottle. Now comes the fun part...break the Alka-Seltzer tablet into about 6 pieces and drop them into the bottle. If you are not using Alka-Seltzer tablets, drop in about a heaping teaspoon of salt or baking soda. Sit back and watch the lava lamp like display! Afterwards, put the cap on the top of the bottle and you can have fun moving the colored water around the oil or add more tablets later and watch the lava-works again!