While adults have champagne for New Year’s Eve, kids can have their own bubbly with some baking soda and vinegar that absolutely fizzes with fun! Just make sure you don’t get any glasses mixed up! Thank you to Liam and his mom at Little Bins for Little Hands for this sparkling idea and inspiration.
Supplies needed for this are basic ones that you have in your kitchen. You will need one plastic bowl with baking soda and a small spoon for each child, as well as another plastic bowl of vinegar with a ladle or small measuring spoon. The fun can be set up on the floor or on the counter, maybe with some old towels spread out first, and a rectangle cake pan or low container for overflow. Plastic wine goblets are a little easier for stirring and mixing than plastic champagne flutes, but either will work. We just happened to have a package of wine ones. A little food coloring added to the vinegar will look more like wine or champagne. Play clothes are well advised for this activity.
First, put the glasses into the cake pan or container, with the bowls of soda and vinegar close by. To make the bubbly, kids put a big spoon of baking soda in each glass, then they carefully pour in the vinegar. Eyes grow big and there may even be squeals of delight when the vinegar bubbles and fizzes up and up. Of course, the goal soon becomes to get the solution in the glass to come right over the top.
We used soda pop for this. (Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate. Soft drinks are also carbonated.) Count out a few raisins. For some dancing fun, kids can drop a few raisins into a glass of fizzy liquid. What do they do? The bubbles float the raisins up, then pop and the raisins sink down. Then they float back up! Big Sister decided since this was like science that she would use the big test tube in her science kit but it also works in a glass.
Kids love to explore and create. Isn’t it amazing how this science activity is so appropriate for New Year’s Eve?