volcano terrariums

Need a fun, affordable, and educational activity for a rainy day? Check out our DIY dinosaur terrariums. This project did take place over the course of a few days since we literally didn't feel like watching paint dry. However, if you used a different clay recipe you could complete it in one day.

On a visit to Dollar Tree I picked up the medium sized white tubs, which can also be used as a basin for making slime and a variety of other DIY play recipes, visit my Pinterest page for more ideas. The plastic dinosaurs, baking soda, and corn starch were also from Dollar Tree.

The first step was to make our volcano. I used the mini plastic soda bottles as a base since we will be pouring in ingredients to make it "explode". We then made the clay which we molded around the bottle to form a volcano. Once the volcano was made it did take a solid 24hrs for the clay to dry. Once dry, the boys used tempera paint on the clay to paint their volcanoes. Tempura paint can be picked up at any local craft store or on Amazon.

Clay Recipe

2 cups of baking soda

1 cup of corn starch

1 1/2 cups of water

Mix ingredients in saucepan over medium heat, stirring until it is too thick to stir with a spoon.

Let cool for about 15 minutes

Knead the clay for a couple minutes and use. You can also store in plastic wrap until needed.

While the clay was drying the boys and I went outside to collect sticks, rocks, leaves, and anything else we thought would make a good environment for the dinosaurs.

They set up their terrariums with their volcano, dinosaurs, and everything we found outside. The final step was to make the volcano explode which we did with this simple recipe:

 Eruption Experiment

1/4 cup of baking soda

1/4 cup of vinegar (the more vinegar you pour in the more it erupts)

and a squirt of blue Dawn dish soap
red food coloring

The boy's reactions were priceless! After making the volcanoes explode a few times, they played with the terrariums. Easy and fun!