All children are inquisitive, many of them are interested in various natural phenomena. Any child wants to know what a tsunami, tornado or volcanic eruption looks like. All these unusual phenomena can be used as ideas for creativity and home teaching. How to make a real volcano at home? It is not difficult to build an eruption model with your own hands from improvised materials.
Volcanoes - what are they?
Recall the structure of the earth: under the solid crust is magma - molten rock that can solidify, seep to the surface through thin cracks or erupt through large holes. In the latter case, we are talking about volcanoes. Most often, these are mountains located at the junctions of continental plates. But sometimes volcanoes can appear in a relatively short period of time in an area with almost flat relief. Most often, lava-spewing mountains are depicted as quite high and having the correct shape. But in fact, volcanoes are different, including low,may visually resemble small hills. At the time of the eruption, magma and gases under significant pressure come to the surface of the earth. Explosions often occur at this moment, and some volcanoes gush with red-hot lava, like geysers.
Making a blank for the "fiery mountain" with our own hands
"How to make a volcano model at home?" - a popular question of parents who decide to spend an interesting creative activity with their children. To make this craft, you will need: cardboard or a plastic bottle, paper or gypsum plaster, paints and some auxiliary tools that can be found in every home.
Prepare some kind of base for crafting. It can be a piece of plastic, such as a lid from a food tray, or other dense material - plywood, cardboard. Cut off the top of the bottle, this will be the volcano, respectively, and leave the height for it at your discretion. An alternative is to make the base out of a suitable size cardboard cone. Attention: if your volcano is an active model that will erupt more than once, the base must be an airtight container. Glue the cut-off part of the bottle tightly to the plastic base using waterproof glue or sealant. You can cut off the bottom and top of the container and insert them into each other.
Volcano decor
The workpiece should be some kind of cone or cylinder with a narrowtop on a stand. Once this design is dry, it's time to start decorating it. To decorate the slopes of the mountain, take decorative plaster or prepare paper pulp from which you can create papier-mâché. In the second case, it is better to take white napkins, paper towels or toilet paper. Grind the raw material, after wetting it, with a mixer and add a little PVA glue. In this case, the mass will be homogeneous and easy to apply.
How to make a do-it-yourself volcano model from an existing blank? Everything is very simple. Cover a cardboard cone or part of a plastic bottle with your chosen sculpting material. Form the likeness of a mountain - with an extension at the foot and a sharp top. Don't forget to leave a crater hole at the top. Your volcano will look much more interesting if you make the surface ribbed, covered with a network of channels through which lava will flow picturesquely. When the modeling is completed, dry the workpiece well. After that, you can start coloring it. If you are using non-waterproof paints, you can additionally cover the craft with a clear varnish. That's all - the volcano (model) is ready, if you wish, work on the surrounding landscape. If the size of the stand allows, make trees, draw grass or sand, you can add figures of people and animals.
A simple version of plasticine crafts
If the above method of making a homemade "fire mountain" seems too laborious for you, try making it using a simpler technique. A small volcano can be molded from plasticine. Take brown modeling material or mix all the sticks in the kit until you get a uniform "dirty" shade. Blind a cone with a hole on top, outline the relief if desired. If your volcano is an active model and is being made to perform an "eruption", stick it on a modeling board or a plastic panel/tray from a food package. Try to make the connection airtight. Additionally, you can decorate the craft with red plasticine, depicting frozen lava on the slopes of the mountain.
Eruption begins
Most often, a "volcano" is made to carry out a home "eruption". Do not be afraid, this experiment is completely safe. Take a small amount of baking soda, a dye of a suitable shade and a drop of dishwashing detergent (you can replace it with a couple of pinches of washing powder). Mix all the ingredients and place them inside the mountain (take care of a special recess in advance). In order for hot lava with foam to rise from the crater of the volcano, you just need to drop quite a bit of vinegar inside. Such an interesting experiment will amaze kids and surprise schoolchildren. The volcano eruption model will help not only to interest children, but also to tell them in an interesting way about the interaction of baking soda and vinegar.
Fun or fun chemistry?
Making such a craft, even with the smallest children, should be combined with training. Tell us about volcanoes and their formation, give interestinghistorical facts. Such homework will surely be remembered better than subsequent chemistry lessons. When doing an "eruption," also try to explain that with the help of home chemical experiments, we only imitate a real natural phenomenon. The reaction itself deserves special consideration. Invite the child to think and describe the interaction of two substances. It is also useful to draw a conclusion with a chemical explanation of the experiment.
Volcano sectional model: how to make?
In addition to making crafts depicting the general view of the fiery mountain, it is not difficult to make another educational model at home. We are talking about a model of a volcano in a section - respectively, its half with a demonstration of the inner layers. What is the mountain, spewing lava and ashes, made of? A volcano is a combination of different rocks, respectively, layers can be made in different colors: from yellow to dark brown. Do not forget to mark the crater at the top and from it to the very bottom lay a channel through which the lava rises. It is most convenient to make such a model of a plasticine volcano. Your layout can be three-dimensional (mountain cut in half) or flat. Use materials of different colors and combine layers in the correct sequence. If you make a flat layout, you can additionally show how magma rises to the earth's crust and finds an exit to the surface through a volcano crater.
