My kids have never seen an actual lava lamp but this was still fun to do and watch. It was really easy to do, to set up, not hard to find items needed. We were all really into this one, Hubby and I included. Science experiments are fun, and I really enjoy doing these with my kids.

Homemade Lava Lamp

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It is simple, you don’t need to have any weird ingredients, you can get everything at the grocery store, or even the corner store. It also doesn’t make (much of) a mess, so you can set it up on the counter without needing a pan to catch the mess. I only like science experiments that are simple, like this one where you only need at most 4 simple ingredients to make this lava lamp recipe

Lava Lamp Ingredients

vegetable oil
water
food color – optional
Alka-Seltzer tablets – these aren’t expensive, you can get a lot of reactions out of one little box.

How to Make a Lava Lamp:

You’re also gonna need water and a clear jar or glass of some sort. You don’t need a cover.

You want to add a couple of inches of water to your clear glass. Adding food color will help you see what is happening better, using yellow, however, will not. We used blue, red, and green.

Add a few inches of vegetable oil to your jar. Just doing this alone is an experiment in itself.

Now, drop in an Alka-Seltzer tablet. Watch the reaction.

Once it calms back down, toss in another one, or two. We put a lot through our oil/water and the reaction didn’t change, it didn’t lessen, just kept on reacting.

Science Experiment E-Book

For smaller bubbles, break the Alka-Seltzer tablet into smaller pieces.

For larger bubbles (which we had), you can drop the whole tablet (or more) into the glass.

If after a number of tablets your child wants to take a break, go for it, and come back to it later. It will still be there and still work later on.

Lava Lamp

Active Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Create you own lava lamp with simple ingredients at home.

Materials

vegetable oil
food color
Alka-Seltzer tablets

Tools

mason jars

Instructions

You're also gonna need water and a clear jar or glass of some sort. You don't need a cover. You want to add a couple inches of water to your clear glass.
Adding food color will help you see what is happening better, using yellow, however, will not. We used blue, red, and green.
Add a few inches of vegetable oil to your jar. Just doing this alone is an experiment in its self.
Now, drop in an Alka-Seltzer tablet. Watch the reaction.
Once it calms back down, toss in another one, or two. We put a lot through our oil/water and the reaction didn't change, it didn't lessen, just kept on reacting.For smaller bubbles, break the Alka-Seltzer tablet into smaller pieces.
For larger bubbles (which we had), you can drop the whole tablet (or more) into the glass.

How to Make a Lava Lamp without Food Coloring

You do not have to use food coloring to make this work. Using food color does make it easier to see the reactions. Using oil that has color to it, will work. We used canola oil which, as you can see from the photos and video of our experiment, you can see the yellow clearly.

Homemade Lava Lamp for your Kids