Beating the Heat... Our Summer Fun with Exploding Sidewalk Art

My kiddos had a lot of fun making exploding sidewalk art.  We found the directions at http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2013/05/play-recipe-sidewalk-chalk.html.  (Ramya was still eating (after 1 hour, we begin our activities, we can only wait so long, and even the smallest meals take over an hour to eat most days, for every single meal), so she didn't help with set up, but she did enjoy watching them explode.)

Here's what we did...

First gather your supplies.  You need a box of corn starch, a container of white vinegar, a box of baking soda, Ziploc bags, and paper towels. 


Add 4 tablespoons of corn starch to a bag...

 

 

Add 1/2 cup of white vinegar...

 

 

Mix it together and then add in a few drops of food coloring...



 

Be prepared for a mess....

 

Store all of your bags together.  We put ours in a small plastic bin.

 

 

 

Make baking soda pillows by pouring a nice big pile of baking soda in a paper towel and fold it up.  We kept ours in a bag to keep them closed.

 

 

 

Go outside.  Take one chalk bag and put one "pillow" in it.  Zip it up very quickly, shake well, and quickly put it down.  It should pop.  Ours didn't pop on their own, so we helped them.  The girls didn't want to run over them with their wheelchairs, but Conner had no problems running and jumping on them.

 

 

 

Here's a video of one popping....

 



 

 

We talked a bit about why mixing the vinegar and baking soda caused a reaction, which they thought was interesting. 

 

The kids declared this their favorite summer experiment so far!