Dear Readers,
I have always enjoyed science. I love seeing how things react, so when I was trying to think of things to do that had a Halloween flare to them I just couldn’t resist making ghost shaped baking soda blocks and letting my kids melt them with vinegar.
The process was very simple. First make a paste with your baking soda and water. Second form into ghost shapes, I used a cookie cutter. Third let them dry. Fourth place in a cake pan or cookie sheet. Lastly give your child a way to drip the vinegar onto the ghost to melt it.
There is one thing I would do differently though. When I let the baking soda dry directly on the cookie sheet they were hard to remove. Next time I will let them dry on the cookie sheet I am giving to each child, or use baking paper for it to dry onto. That way they are easier to get where they need to.
My kids had a blast with this. They enjoyed watching the ghost melt away. My middle child didn’t want to stop and had I spun it out longer we probably would have been still doing for an hour.
This activity can be done with both toddlers and preschoolers. You just have to modify which tools you use. For toddlers pipettes would be the easiest, but you could also use a spray bottle. Preschoolers do well with syringes (the kind you get with liquid baby medicines) or spray bottles as well.
