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Who doesn’t love a little Mentos and Diet Coke?! Best Experiment!

Well folks, it’s finally starting to wind down here for us Canadians who are still in school! I feel like I need a 2 month nap after this year (challenging class). 

BUT the good news is that we all survived and after months of learning goals and success criteria we are now focusing on all the fun stuff! Not that we didn’t do fun things all year, because we did a ton of really great engaging and fun activities but there is nothing like those last couple weeks of school when report cards are done and you have a bit more freedom with your students.

So, we’re doing the balloon pop experiment that has been circulating around pinterest (my BFF). I’m not sure who came up with this idea but they are a genius!

Inside of each balloon is a piece of paper that tells them what their reward activity will be. Each day we pop the balloon and find out what fun and exciting thing we will be doing the next day.  Now the genius part is that you could really do anything and the kids get excited about because it was in a balloon that popped! You could put, “Math all day” as their reward and you would hear shouts of joy and happiness.  I wish I could get that to work at my house…I would put, “Clean Your Room” inside the balloon. Hmmm maybe I should try it out?
I’m not going to write about all the activities today (I’m saving a couple things for Five For Friday), BUT I really wanted to tell you about the fun we had yesterday.  You should definitely do this with your students.  It’s the old Mentos and Diet Coke experiment, SO MUCH FUN! My kids kept calling it Pimentos and Diet Coke. 
Here are some pics…in the one you can see me jumping away because it happened so fast:
I forgot my funnel at home so used some laminating plastic I found in the recycle bin and made our own. You need to use a funnel because the whole thing happens so fast, you need to get the Mentos in really quickly.
About to drop in them in…

Gahhhh 

At this point the kids were squealing with laughter and I was like, “Please don’t spray all over my Coach bag” lol…in my head of course.

Isn’t that awesome!!
And done.

 I highly recommend doing this fun little experiment with your class. It fits in well with a liquids and solids unit or any other matter and materials unit….but really, I would just make it fit in with the curriculum because it’s just that much fun!

Have you done any great experiments with your kids? Leave a comment, I would love to hear some other ideas!

Comments

  1. Pam says

    I also did the coke and mentos experiment with my kids (used coke zero instead). They absolutely LOVE it! I love doing this every year. Another "Science" thing I do with the kids at the end of the year is poprock observations. They have to practice being scientists and using their observation skills to analyze pop rocks. It's always a fun little thing to do, especially with kids who have never had pop rocks before. 🙂

    Pam
    Diary of a First Grade Teacher

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