Memorial Day

What better time to visit Veteran's State Park than to celebrate Memorial Day?! The park was established in 1946 as a memorial to US Veteran members from the Revolutionary War through the present day. Fi enjoyed all of the tanks, helicopters, etc on exhibit around the area. There are 4 miles of nature trails throughout the 1,308 acre park perched along Lake Blackshear along with camping, fishing, golfing, and the SAM shoreline railroad.

We checked out the exhibits to learn more about our militaries history and then met up with some friends to do the nature trail and have a picnic. It's a great place for the kids to run and play!

After our trip to Veterans State Park we decided we should do a fun patriotic themed activity and found a great STEM project called Exploding Paint!

For Exploding Paint you'll need:

Vinegar (1 cup split between 3 ziplock bags)

Washable Paint

Ziplock bags

Muffin liners

Baking Soda

Butcher Paper

The science behind this activity is vinegar and baking soda create a chemical reaction when mixed. When acetic acid and sodium bicarbonate mix, it creates CO2, or carbon dioxide.

This expands the bags, which eventually explode, spraying paint everywhere.

When adding paint to the bag, we noticed that we needed more baking soda to get the same reaction.

We had three different attempts with varying amounts of vinegar and baking soda but found that 1/3 cup of vinegar and two tbs of baking soda worked the best for us on a very hot and humid day.

Get your supplies together and then pour vinegar into a ziplock bag. We used a mug to hold the bag in place for easier handling.

Next measure out 2 tbs of washable paint.

Then you'll pour the paint in with the vinegar and seal the bag.

Next you'll put the baking soda into the muffin liner and twist to close.

Then go outside and lay out the butcher paper to catch your exploding paint artwork. Put the three bags in the middle and open them a little to slide the baking soda in and then give them a shake and back away!

We tried three times in all to see how varying the amounts would change the explosion. Normally, Josh would have them explode on him which was hilarious! The first try had 1 cup of vinegar in each bag and exploded almost immediately with barely a shake. The second try is in the above video, and the third try was with 1/3 cup of vinegar and 2 tbs of baking soda which seemed to work the best explosion wise!

It was messy and fun which is always a great combo for a 7 year old!