V is for Volcano

Jurassic Lands including volcanos, Pangaea, Jurassic Plants, Extinction, and museum topics. Of course, volcanos are the favorite topic! See our V is for Volcano Preschool Activities including science and sensory, literacy and art.

Volcano Science and Sensory

The easiest and most exciting science activity for chidlren must be the baking soda and vinegar experiment! It’s fun to demonstrate a large volcano eruption to the group, but I think the lesson is much more effective when we put it in the hands of the children.

We used small portion cups with baking soda in one and red colored vinegar water in the other.

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Using pipettes the children transferred the vinegar into the baking soda to see what would happen when they put the ingredients together.

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They soon discovered they had better results with larger amounts of each!

I offered more baking soda and vinegar as needed. They loved to overflow the cup with bubbling lava!

Along with the eruption effect, my group enjoyed playing with the mixture with the pipettes, their hands and the little dinosaurs.

Coloring Letter V

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Make & Play Volcano Art

Exploring Earth and science concepts through art is hands on and developmental appropriate way for young children to learn about volcanos and lava.

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First everyone painted their cardboard bowls (soufflé cups) brown. My toddlers were game – couldn’t wait to start painting! They came to the table and waited for their project.

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As the children were painting, I put a small amount of orange and red paint into paper cups. I added a small amount of water so the paint was pourable.

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They couldn’t wait to pour “lava” over their volcanos and make them “erupt”! See, we’re also learning new words.

It didn’t take too long for the paint to dry. After they were done with their art (some poured the paint back into the cups off their plates and poured again and again), I poured off the excess paint and put them on a fresh plate to dry. They were mostly dry within a couple hours.

I felt pouring the paint over rather than painting the volcano with a brush created a more realistic lava effect. Plus it was fun!

After completely dried, we glued red tissue paper to to the top of the volcano to make it look like it was an erupting volcano.

These Make & Play crafts from Experience Preschool curriculum are wonderful for play after they have been made. The volcanos are perfect for creative play with small dinosaurs.

Writing Letter Vv

Each month we focus on three letters. We receive these wonderful letter and phonics sets from Experience Curriculum. They include a large letter card with corresponding images. There are also uppercase and lowercase letter and picture cube cards for games like this.

I made a simple V is for volcano with construction paper and laminated it. The teacher guide suggested a paper volcano everyone could take turns writing on, but laminating it made it last longer. I know my kids respond well to using dry erase markers too.

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I spent one on one time with those of my group who were interested in writing the letters and words. Their work was impressive!

The girls who are pictured working on letters and word writing are 3 and almost 5 years.

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I love how fun literacy is with our Experience Curriculum thematic units!

There are so many ways to explore volcanos! Find some more dinosaur themed activities below.

More Dinosaur Activities

Dinosaur Habitat Play
Fossils STEAM Station
Searching for Dinosaur Bones