Fizzy Sidewalk Painting

This is your basic – “Hey over here I have an acid, and hey over here I have a base, lets mix them together and make carbon dioxide! Woo!” – type activity.

First we mixed up three different batches of fizzy paint:
Washable tempera paint with baking soda,
Washable liquid watercolors with baking soda and corn starch,
Washable liquid watercolors with baking soda, corn starch and bubble formula.

Pair this alkaline paint with a spray bottle of vinegar and you have a very fizzy driveway! Woo, spray bottles!

Disappointingly for my experiment but yay for you, all of the formulations pretty much worked the same, and I can’t say the proportions matter all that much, I used roughly 1:1, adding in the baking soda until I didn’t think it would stay paint if I added any more. I hypothesized that adding bubbles to the mix would result in bigger more long lasting fizzy bubbles, but it didn’t seem to have an effect, I’m guessing it was too dilute. Next time I will try dish soap.

In any case, the girls were crazy about this, so my ‘research’ has shown that you can take whatever paint you happen to have, mix in a bunch of baking soda, and hand it out along with a spray bottle of vinegar and the result will be lots of squeals, running around, and a very messy driveway!

Happy Friday!