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Today I’ve got a fantastic Valentine themed activity for your little ones to try. This Valentine Heart fizzy painting activity combines art and science for lots of fun and creativity.
For more Valentine crafts and learning activities, see my Valentine Activities for Kids page.
This activity was inspired by a post at Toddler Approved, where they used baking soda and vinegar to make a fizzy pumpkin project. We decided to use the same concept to make fizzy Valentine’s hearts!
To do this activity, I had to prepare the fizzy paint. I decided to stick with just four, Valentine’s-inspired paint colors: red, purple, blue, and white. For each color, I mixed 1 TBS of paint with 3 TBS of baking soda in our no-spill paint cups
Then I prepared a cup with vinegar, to which I added some plastic pipettes
I also prepared a craft tray with a paper heart for each kid.
And my kids had plenty of painting brushes to choose from.
Initially, my kids just thought it was a painting activity, and they happily began applying color to their Valentine’s hearts.
After a while of normal painting, both kids decided to try painting with two brushes at a time.
Once they had done plenty of painting, I brought out the vinegar and pipettes. Since we had used the pipettes before, the kids knew how to use them, but they were not expecting the paint to start bubbling and fizzing.
They oohed and ahhed to watch the reaction between the baking soda in the paint and the vinegar in their pipettes.
They kept adding more and more vinegar in order to make their paint fizzle again and again.
This activity was a big hit with the kids, which I know because they asked to do it again right away. 🙂
More Valentine’s Day learning resources
More Valentine posts from Gift of Curiosity:
- Valentine Montessori activities
- Valentine sensory bin
- Heart suncatcher
- Marbleized hearts
- Find the hearts Valentine’s sensory bin
- Books about Valentine’s Day
- Valentine’s Printables Pack
- Valentine Bingo
- Valentine I Spy game
- Valentine Do-a-Dot Printables
For more Valentine ideas, check out my Valentine Activities for Kids page and my Valentine’s Pinterest board.
This looks like so much fun! What kind of paper did you use for the heart? Is it just regular paper?
I used a special painting paper with a glossy surface, but I I imagine it would still work on regular paper too.
Cool! We love fizzy “science!!!” at our house, so my kiddo might go for this.
That looks pretty neat momma! I may have just added this to our Valentines to do list 🙂
Thanks for sharing at Sharing Saturday!
What a fun surprise to add to a painting project! We’ll have to give this a try.
These are so neat! New follower from homeschooling on the cheap linky!
Love this for valentine’s day! Thanks for linking up at Family Fun Friday.
Pinned it!
Monica
What a cool idea! I need to do this with my girls. They would have a blast! Thanks for sharing on We Made That!
What a great idea and wonderful surprise for the kids! I will be doing this soon with my daughter! Thanks for sharing!!
I hope your daughter enjoys it as much as my kids did!
That must have been some seriously gritty painting. 🙂
Thanks for linking up to Science Sunday!
I was actually surprised at how normal the paint felt. It was a bit thick but not as gritty as I expected.
Love this! What a fun surprise for your children. Thank you for linking up this week to the Hearts for Home Blog Hop!
Thanks for hosting the blog hop. I always enjoy seeing what other people are up to. 🙂
Sorry I missed this for Valentines, but will have my class do this with shades of green for shamrocks for St. Patricks. Combo of art and science…thanks.
We might end up doing the same thing!
I love how you mixed art and science together! How much fun! Thank you for sharing at the After School Link Up!
This looks like so much fun! I am featuring it in tomorrow’s Hands-On Play Party! Thanks for linking up!
I love this, but am I doing the ingredients correctly? 1 tablespoon of paint and 3 tablespoons of baking powder???? I can’t get the paint to soak in all that powder???
Yep, that’s the ratio we used. But if the paint isn’t soaking in, just add more paint, maybe in a 1:2 ratio instead of a 1:3 ratio. You will still get a fizzy effect even if you change it up a bit!
will the paint dry so you can display the shamroocks
Eventually, yes, it should. But how long that takes will depend in part on how much vinegar the kids put on (and how warm your climate is).
What kind of paint specifically do you use?
Poster Paint? Acrylic Paint?
Please advise.
We used washable tempera paint.