The Sunchild spent a week and a half building a paper mache volcano (which looks quite a bit like Mount Rainer) with his papa. It took several days- from building the infrastructure, to filling in the spaces and making a nice smooth surface that could be painted. They spray painted it with primer gray, and then highlighted it with a beautiful pearlescent white.

He waited patiently for his friend from next door to be around so that they could explode the volcano together. Hidden inside the volcano is a plastic water bottle, which they primed with baking soda. Then, they added a combination of Red #40 food coloring and white vinegar. This, of course, was only after a large community of Legos, Hot Wheels, and other toys were assembled at the base of the volcano. It was interesting to see which direction the lava flowed. They had a great time, and this volcano experiment has catalyzed an interest in chemistry for the Sunchild. I got quite a bit of video footage, but rather few stills.

The Sunchild wants to add:

Side post: The vinegar and baking soda is what caused the explosion. This happened because when vinegar and baking soda connect, they fizz up, and that is exactly what happened. And, it got all over the Legos.