How to Make a Fast and Easy Volcano

This technique for making a volcano is one of the fastest and easiest you can do. All you have to do is mix up some dough with bread, flour and salt and you are half done!

The volcano shown here in the photo on the left was made by a web visitor. (Kenny T. of Texas) My thanks to Kenny for the great volcano and the idea was his to try using just dough to make a volcano. As you can see it came out great!

OK! Lets Make this volcano

Materials Required:

These are the basic Materials:

Bottle, can be snapple, plastic soda, just about any size
A Cardboard box
Scissors, Tape,
A Plastic bag

Ingredients for making the dough:

Six cups of Flour
Two cups of Salt
Two cups of Water
Four tablespoons of cooking oil

About this mixture of dough. These amounts give you a pretty good amount of dough but you may have to make another batch depending on how big you want your volcano to be!

Make the Volcano Shell:

This is an easy method that uses materials around the house. The Dough Method

In a bowl mix six cups of flour, two cups of salt, four tablespoons of cooking oil and two cups of water. You mix this up real well and it comes out a nice doughy material which will be perfect for your volcano shell. You can tinker with the ingredients a bit to get a consistency you are comfortable working with. Typically its good to add a little more water as you see fit.Once this dough is a nice consistency you can use it to make your volcano. Simply pile it and form it around the bottle until it is the shape you want.

You can also add some paint or food coloring to the dough if you want it to have a nice volcano like color. I prefer to keep it the natural color so I can paint it later.

Here is what you do:

box and bottle Start out with your box and your bottle. Use a corrugated box because it is nice and strong. Just about any bottle will do, plastic or glass. The box should be taller than the bottle.

box and bottle 3 Put the bottle in the box and cut out the box just like shown in this picture. The slanted part in the back, behind the bottle will be where you can draw a nice diagram of the volcano and how it works.

Cut a hole out under the bottle. This will be so you can easily take the bottle out for cleaning and reuse of the volcano.

Now cover the bottle with a bag. This will keep the plaster or dough from adhering to it. Makes it much easier to get in and out.

Kenny's Volcano!

Now all you have to do is start putting the dough right onto the box and around the bottle! It's as simple as that. This picture here is another view of Kenny T's volcano.

Be creative with it. Notice how Kenny made his volcano nice and bumpy. This gives it a great look. It's a volcano that is erupting.

Once it dries you can paint it up. Paint the volcano one color and add a little green at the bottom then once these colors dry you can add the erupting colors at the top of Red, Yellow, and Orange.

Some Quick Tips: This volcano is made of dough! So make sure you paint it to seal it or the eruption may soften and melt the dough. Of course you might want that to happen!!

Now for the Ingredients for Making this Volcano Erupt

Take the bottle out of the volcano and fill it almost full with water
put 4 or 5 drops of detergent right into the water
Add Two Tablespoons of Baking Soda to the water
Put the Volcano over the bottle so it is in place and ready to go
Pour some vinegar right into the volcano bottle and watch it Erupt!!

Here are a couple more pictures of Kenny's Volcano

Looking for some Great Volcano Kits?

Amazon.com has some great volcano making stuff too!

Mega Volcano

The ultimate science project is exploding with fun! The twelve inch volcano is easy to mold out of quick-dry plaster gauze. Kids can paint the details of the mountain on with red and brown paints for a realistic look. Pretend play continues with three to scale plastic dinosaurs. The best part, a recipe for "lava" and the plastic cup that perfectly fits, concealed in the "blow hole" of the volcano is included. Measures 14"L x 15"W x 12"H. Adult supervision recommended.

Volcano Island

Create a believable model volcano - with eruptions that shoot up to six feet in the air!

3-D volcano landscape to build and paint
Uses baking soda and vinegar (not included) to create spectacular eruptions
Lights and sound make for a realistic volcano effect
Erupts up to 6 feet in the air
Rumbles like a real volcano
Includes miniature trees, paint and red lava dye
Four legs built into frame

Explore the most destructive force on earth and learn all about volcanoes with this hands-on kit. It's fun, dramatic, and engaging - the very best way for kids to learn.

How to Make a Chemical Volcano: And Other Mysterious Experiments

In recent years, the fascination among kids with chemistry sets has seemingly dwindled. And after all the terrorist bombings worldwide, many parents are probably reluctant to have their kids messing around in the basement with the test-tubes and chemicals that used to be de-rigeur in adolescent development. But here's a delightful book of simple chemistry experiments that any kid can do with household compounds like baking soda, vinegar, and whatnot -- perfectly safe, and highly educational as well (and the volcano seems like it would be very cool). And, I was pleased to find out that it was written by a 13-year-old! Recommended.