Fizzy Baking Soda Play Date

 

E recently had her first play date without her friends’ parents! My husband was sick, so I had four kids from 3 months to 4 years to entertain for an afternoon. It worked out great and wasn’t stressful at all – and the girls really enjoyed playing with Fizzy Baking Soda in the water table!

 

Sensory Activities and Science for Kids: The girls had a BLAST at our Fizzy Baking Soda Play Date!

(E was 3 years and 11 months old.
L was 4 years and 10 months old.
M was 2 years and 1 month old.)

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To play with Fizzy Baking Soda, you’ll need:

 

  • Baking soda.
  • Instant drink mix {Kool Aid, Flavor Aid, Crystal Light, etc. will all work – it just needs to contain citric acid to react with the baking soda. If you don’t have anything like that, you can absolutely just use good old vinegar to make the baking soda fizz.}
  • Powder tempera paint (optional). {Your drink mix will also add color to the activity, and powdered food coloring is another great option if you want more colors.}
  • Water.
  • Squeeze bottles (optional).
  • Silicone cupcake liners (optional).
  • Apple sauce cups (optional).
  • Water table (optional but very nice to make sure that several kids have enough room to play).

 

To prepare the activity, I put a layer of baking soda into the larger compartment of the water table and sprinkled it with some expired Crystal Light Margarita mix that had somehow found its way into our house even though no one drinks the stuff 😉 It’s white to begin with but turns a nice bright green when it gets in contact with liquids.

I added some red and blue powder tempera paint. It didn’t take much for nice bright colors. {You can see that the drink mix had already started reacting with a little bit of water that was still left in the water table after I washed it out and dried it. It wasn’t a problem at all.}

Sensory Activities and Science for Kids: The girls had a BLAST at our Fizzy Baking Soda Play Date!

Finally, I covered everything with another layer of baking soda to make the colors a surprise.

In the second compartment, I put some water, squeeze bottles with water for everyone, and a few floating cups and cupcake liners.

Sensory Activities and Science for Kids: The girls had a BLAST at our Fizzy Baking Soda Play Date!

Almost 5-year-old L was particularly interested in what I was doing while I set up the water table but kept going back to playing with E and M when I told her it wasn’t ready yet.

Once I told the girls they could get started playing in the water table, there was no stopping any of them. They knew what to do right away.

Sensory Activities and Science for Kids: The girls had a BLAST at our Fizzy Baking Soda Play Date!

They loved seeing the fizzy reaction and the colors, and soon had to refill their bottles. I loved how they all tried different ways of doing that because the water level wasn’t that high.

Sensory Activities and Science for Kids: The girls had a BLAST at our Fizzy Baking Soda Play Date!

They worked really hard at getting a stubborn bit of baking soda to dissolve.

Sensory Activities and Science for Kids: The girls had a BLAST at our Fizzy Baking Soda Play Date!

After a while of playing, the colors had all combined to a muddy brown, and there was no more baking soda visible. It didn’t bother the girls at all, they just tried out different things to do with the materials.

M did some more squeezing and filled up the small containers

Sensory Activities and Science for Kids: The girls had a BLAST at our Fizzy Baking Soda Play Date!

while L went and got some plastic figures to let them explore the muddy waters.

Sensory Activities and Science for Kids: The girls had a BLAST at our Fizzy Baking Soda Play Date!

They noticed the baking soda that was still there under the water level and started picking it up with their hands, getting really excited about how soft it felt to the touch.

Sensory Activities and Science for Kids: The girls had a BLAST at our Fizzy Baking Soda Play Date!

E found a spray bottle, and L and E used it to clean off all their hands.

Sensory Activities and Science for Kids: The girls had a BLAST at our Fizzy Baking Soda Play Date!

Before long, their hand were covered again, of course 🙂 M particularly enjoyed it and rubbed the wet baking soda all over her arms.

Sensory Activities and Science for Kids: The girls had a BLAST at our Fizzy Baking Soda Play Date!

While handling the baking soda, some of it had ended up on the ground, and E and L started cleaning it up with the spray bottle and a baby hairbrush from E’s room {not N’s 😉 }.

Sensory Activities and Science for Kids: The girls had a BLAST at our Fizzy Baking Soda Play Date!

The older girls started losing interest at that point but M was still going strong.

She did more pouring in adventurous ways

Sensory Activities and Science for Kids: The girls had a BLAST at our Fizzy Baking Soda Play Date!

and explored the spray bottle and baby brush in her own way once the others were done with them.

Sensory Activities and Science for Kids: The girls had a BLAST at our Fizzy Baking Soda Play Date!

 

Sensory Activities and Science for Kids: The girls had a BLAST at our Fizzy Baking Soda Play Date!

I think I had almost as much fun as the girls, just watching them play, each in their own way, and interacting with each other. It gives so much life to a pretty basic activity 🙂

 

Do you do play dates? Have you tried sensory activities with several children of different ages? Please leave a comment! 

 

 

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