Papier-Mâché Glitter Volcanoes

My girls helped me make three glitter volcanoes for a Girl Scout meeting one summer. I was leading the meeting and we were earning the Brownie Home Scientist badge. This was one of my favorite meetings and I prepared a series of five science activities for the girls to do, one of which was the glitter volcano. It produced lots of squeals of delight and laughter, so I declared it a success.

I decided to make several volcanoes so that all the girls could participate, but instead of making them all the same earth-tone colors, I drew upon my favorite TV show Adventure Time for inspiration. I modeled the colors after each of the elements in the Land of Ooo, pink for the Candy Element, Blue for the Ice Element, and orange for the Fire Element. There is one more element - Slime - but I only had time to make three so I chose my favorites.

Making papier mache volcanoes is surprisingly easy and fun. I followed the recipe and instructions in the Smithsonian Maker Lab book, but you can find one anywhere on the internet! I often use Pinterest for searching for recipes and experiments. You can find a link to my Pinterest page below.

HOW TO MAKE A GLITTER VOLCANO

Supplies:

Empty plastic bottle (tall and slender is better)

Scraps of paper cut into strips

Tape

Cardboard base, preferably with a lip or ridge to catch erupting lava

3-1/4 cups of flour

Water to mix with flour for binding paper

Dishwashing liquid for bubbles

Acrylic paint & brushes

Lots of glitter (gold, blue, pink)

Food coloring to color lava

2 - 3 T. Baking soda per volcano

3 T. vinegar per volcano (add more if you have a larger bottle)

Warm water to help the reaction proceed

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Cut the top off the bottle with scissors to prepare a wide opening for your lava mix. This step is optional. I did not cut the top off of mine, and it still worked fine.
2. Tape the bottle down to the cardboard base.
3. Crunch up some paper or plastic - whatever you have available - into shapes (balls work well) and tape them down to the base and bottle to create a cone shape. This will be the basic shape of your volcano.
4. Mix the flour and water in a bowl to make a paste for the papier-mâché. It should be thick but a bit runny so you can easily coat your paper strips without it being clumpy.
5. Lay the pasty strips over the sides of the volcano, taking care to cover the bottom where the volcano sits on the base and folding the strips over the top and inside of the bottle to make a smooth surface. The final shape of the volcano should be lumpy to simulate a natural volcano shape.
6. Let your volcano dry overnight or several hours if you have a nice warm sunny spot.
7. Paint your volcano using the acrylic paint and have some fun making it your own. Add some flair - glitter, plastic dinosaur toys, whatever you like!
8. Let the paint dry before preparing for your lava eruption.
9. To make your lava eruption, pour into your volcano 2 T. dish liquid, 2 T. warm water, and 3 T. vinegar colored with your choice of food coloring. I also added lots of glitter at this stage to make the lava sparkle. Keep the vinegar handy just in case you need to add more.
10. Finally, add the baking soda and watch your creation erupt!