The kids recently went to a VBS where they brought home fun rockets.  The rockets were basically a film canister and a single Fizzy tablet.  Similar to the Alka Seltzer Rockets that are all over Pinterest.  The main difference is that the Fizzy’s are colored.  This got me thinking that maybe we could use paint instead of water and create our own colorful exploding art.

To make your own Exploding Art your will need:

• Film Canisters- One that has a tight fitting lid.  The clear ones were really cool to watch since you could see the paint as it built up pressure before the canister exploded.
• Slightly watered down tempera paint.
• Alka Seltzer tablets
• Large sheet of paper

Make sure you are doing this activity outside.  It is messy, but totally worth it.

• Pour about a tablespoon of watered down tempera paint into your film canister.
• Break the Alka Seltzer tablets into half.
• Quickly drop 1/2 a tablet into the paint, tightly put on the lid and give it a quick shake.
• Quickly place paint filled canister lid side down on your paper and stand back.

The film canister will potentially fly 20 feet in the air, so make sure you are in an open area.  Most of the paint splatters on the paper.  You can see the lid left behind on the paper along with some of the Alka Seltzer tablet.  We did reuse the tablets as much as possible with good results.  The kids were having to much fun and we needed to get our moneys worth:)

Notice the canister is basically void of paint and most of the main splatter is on the paper with a slight trail leading up.

This project was so much fun!  It got 2 thumbs up for everyone at our house.  Now I need to find the perfect wall for our beautiful new exploding art work.

Here is a link to a fun list of great experiments that my kids love.

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Tammy