Halloween Fizzy Play Dough

Kids will love this fizzy play dough. It’s a soft and squishy dough that fizzes and bubbles when you add vinegar. We made Halloween themed play dough by using an orange color. Choose any color you like and have some sensory science fun.

Fizzy play doughs are tons of fun. We’ve made fizzy coconut lime play dough and fizzy Valentine play dough in the past.

Our Halloween fizzy play dough uses the same recipe. It’s just orange. I had intentions of adding Halloween spiders like we used in our Halloween sensory bin or our spider math games. My daughter, Lily, was enjoying the fizzy dough so much I forgot about the spiders. Oh well.

Fizzy Play Dough Ingredients

1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup baking soda
1/4 cup hair conditioner
liquid watercolors
vinegar

How to Make Fizzy Play Dough

Mix together the baking soda and cornstarch. Stir in the hair conditioner. Next, add in the washable liquid watercolor. You could also use food coloring, but it has the tendency to stain.

Knead the dough together until it forms a soft play dough. If it’s too sticky, add more cornstarch. If it’s too dry, add a bit more conditioner. Knead again until it feels right.

If the dough is too dry, it’s still a pretty neat cloud dough. Crumbly and moldable.

If it’s too wet, it’s really slimy – similar to oobleck. You decide what works best for you and your kids. They’ll love it regardless.

Once you’ve made the play dough, allow your kids to experience the super soft dough for as long as you like. It’s a great play dough just like this. (You can use only corn starch and accomplish the same thing.)

How to Make the Dough Fizz

We added baking soda to the play dough in order to make it fizzy. All you need now is some vinegar.

Set out a container of vinegar and a pipette or spoon. (We also added liquid watercolors to make it orange.)

Invite your child to add vinegar to the play dough.

Add drops of vinegar or just pour some on. The play dough will fizz and foam.

Eventually you will get a container full of foamy bubbles and the play dough will dissolve away.

The Science Behind It

The baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) in the dough reacts with vinegar (acetic acid) to form water, a salt (sodium acetate), and carbon dioxide gas. The bubbles produced are the carbon dioxide gas escaping the liquid. The foam is created because of the addition of the conditioner (similar to lathering soap).

More Fizzy Halloween Science Activities

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