10 AMAZING Baking Soda Experiments

Baking soda experiments or activities are a great, safe and easy way to introduce the concept of a chemical reaction to children. Baking Soda is alkaline and reacts with acids such as vinegar, releasing carbon dioxide ( a gas ) and water. The fizz produced is brilliant fun for children to watch especially if you combine with washing up liquid ( dish soap ) to make even more bubbles or add a bit of food colouring, ice or a theme.

Note: This is an old post that I have updated, so there’s now more than 10 ideas!

Amazing Baking Soda Experiments

Baking Soda Powered Boat

We loved making our baking soda boat, although it was a bit tricky to get the mechanism to work properly. It’s definitely worth persevering with though.You could try making several different size versions and investigating how they move when you add different amounts of baking soda and vinegar.

Monster Tea Party

Our monster tea party was filled with fun fizzy potions and a great opportunity to try baking soda as well as bicarbonate of soda. Which do you think worked the best?

If monsters aren’t your thing how about making some witchy potions or fairy potions.

Baking Soda Volcano

A baking soda volcano is a staple science activity for kids. Try asking children to investigate using different amounts of vinegar, but keeping the amount of washing up liquid and baking soda the same. Can they create the perfect recipe for an eruption?

Volcanos can be made using snow, sand, papier mache, LEGO or anything else that you can make a basic volcano shape with.

Baking Soda Popper

My children loved these Baking Soda Poppers. Please be careful though and stand back as these can shoot up with little warning and a lot of force.

We experimented to discover the best best baking soda and vinegar combination for a launch.

What reacts with baking soda?

This fun investigation is great for children to start thinking scientifically. We tested lots of different liquids to discover what reacts with baking soda and what doesn’t.

Remember to keep the amount of baking soda and amount of test substance the same.

Fizzing rocks with baking soda

Make baking soda rocks and watch them fizz! Can you hide something inside them?

Blow up a balloon with baking soda

Did you know you can blow up a balloon with baking soda and vinegar or other acid?

Baking Soda Ice Cubes

Make some colourful baking soda ice cubes and watch them fizz as you add vinegar.

Frozen Vinegar

Inspiration Laboratories froze the vinegar instead of the baking soda which worked brilliantly as well.

Dancing Raisins

Watch raisins dance around a glass due to bubbles of carbon dioxide.

Fizzy Paint

We did this many years ago, but loved our fizzy paint afternoon.

Exploding Sandwich Bag

We haven’t tried these yet but love the look of the very impressive exploding sandwich bag from Steve Spangler.

Christmas Elf Lab

We very much enjoyed our magical fizzy elf lab for Christmas time too!

Do you have any more baking soda experiments to tell us about?

What is a baking soda and vinegar reaction?

If you combine an acid and an alkali they react together to neutralise each other. Vinegar is an acid and bicarbonate of soda is  an alkali.

The reaction releases carbon dioxide gas, which is the bubbles you see. If you add washing up liquid ( dish soap ) to your eruption mix the bubbles make the washing up liquid bubble up, giving you an extra bubbly mix.

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