Lava lamps bring individuality to any home. Moreover, kids love to play with them as the lava-like bubble goes up and down the lamp. Another great feature of these lamps is they glow in the dark.
This beautiful decor is an expensive one. But, you won't have to worry as you can make a DIY lava lamp for your home. Invite your children while working on it because they will surely adore it.
Materials you need:
- Soda bottle with cap/empty water bottles
- Vegetable oil
- Food coloring
- Effervescent/Alka-seltezr tablets
- Glitters (optional)
Empty the bottles and thoroughly clean and rinse them. Next, pour water into the bottle until its one quarter full. Any sealable container will do. The bottle must be transparent for you to see the display. You can let your children do the experiment just assist them especially with the pouring process.
Pour five drops of food coloring into the water. You can choose any color you want. Then, give the bottle a little shake. You can add more drops until you achieve a fairly dark color. You can also combine primary colors (red, blue, yellow) to obtain dark secondary color (violet, orange, green) if the later is not available.
Fill the rest of the bottle with vegetable oil (you could also use mineral oil). As you pour the oil, bubbles form so you have to wait until they disappear before you proceed to the next step. You will also notice that the oil floats above the water because it is less dense.
Next, break the tablets into pieces and put them into the bottle. Table salt could also be used as an alternative for the tablet. As the tablets settle at the bottom, colored bubbles form and go up. Once the tablets dissolve, the bubbles then start to go down. Add more tablets to start the chemical reaction all over again. You can also add glitters to the solution for sparkling effect.
This experiment will surely catch the attention of kids.
