Fizzing Baking Soda Paint

Baking soda and vinegar experiments are always a huge hit at Mud Mates Headquarters so we decided to give this fizzing baking soda paint recipe a go. The exploding, fizzy eruptions were great fun.

As Master 5 and Miss 3 love any kind of painting they gave this activity a massive thumbs up. In fact, they enjoyed it so much we did it again the very next day!

What You Will Need

• baking soda (approximately 1 cup)
• food colouring (range of colours)
• water
• whisk or fork
• small bowls or containers
• watercolour paper (or thick card)
• paint brush
• spray bottle / dropper/pipette / squeeze bottle

Instructions:

Whisk together 1/4 cup baking soda, 1/4 cup of water and a few drops of food colouring in a small bowl or container. Repeat for as many different colours as you like.

I recommend using watercolour paper for this activity, but you can use thick card. We tried using both 300gsm watercolour paper and 220gsm card and the watercolour paper held the liquid better and resulted in better fizzy eruptions.

Then simply let your kids paint away! The baking soda does tend to settle so either keep giving the paint a little stir or, if your children are old enough, encourage them to mix it up when they dip their brush in. Make sure they paint it on reasonably thickly and cover the entire piece of paper/card to get the best fizzing eruptions.

Once the painting was complete I gave the kids a container of vinegar and a dropper plus a vinegar-filled spray bottle and squeeze bottle. They took great delight in applying the vinegar to their paintings and watching the fizzy, bubbly eruptions that resulted.

This is a great opportunity to discuss colour mixing (Master 5 particularly was interested in seeing what new colours he could create). Using the dropper, squeeze and spray bottles is also great for developing their fine motor skills.

Once we were finished, Master 5 took the leftover paint and some extra vinegar and happily spent an hour making volcanoes, eruptions and magic potions! Baking soda and vinegar really are fantastic, versatile messy play ingredients which kids of all ages (and even me!) thoroughly enjoy experimenting and playing with.

Our NZ-made long sleeve Craft Aprons will protect your child’s clothes from any paint spills!

If your kids loved this, they’re sure to enjoy a fizzing shaving cream car wash!

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