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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We love the baking soda experiments – and there are several here we haven’t tried! These will keep us busy for awhile!
Loving the baking soda ideas – we’ve tried a volcano before. Will have to try some more.
Thanks Erica 🙂
this was so helpful in help of finding fun and new experiments thank you to the creators of this.
We have done every single one of these experiments before we even looked at this website and they were really cool.
i found a science project but it calls for 80% vinegar. where can i find it