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The Magic Lamp

The Magic Lamp

5 to 8 years

You have surely seen a magic lamp with liquid, imitating hot lava.

Make the lamp with your kid!

The following steps will help you:

Activity picture for The Magic Lamp in Wachanga


1. Add some water and food coloring (red or blue) to vegetable oil. Be sure to make the water fairly dark in color. Notice that the food coloring only colors the water and not the oil.

Activity picture for The Magic Lamp in Wachanga

2. Then add a tablet of effervescent aspirin and... view an amazing effect!

Activity picture for The Magic Lamp in Wachanga
Activity picture for The Magic Lamp in Wachanga

To make a cool looking lava lamp, you’ll need a large flashlight like the one in the photograph. Carefully rest the bottle of oil and water directly on the lens of the flashlight and repeat the experiment above with the bright light shining up and through the liquid. Groovy, baby!But how does it work?

First of all, oil and water do not mix. Even if you try to shake up the bottle, the oil breaks up into small little drops, but it doesn’t mix with the water.

The aspirin tablet reacts with the water to make tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide. These bubbles attach themselves to the blobs of colored water and cause them to float to the surface. When the bubbles pop, the color blobs sink back to the bottom of the bottle, and the whole thing starts over until the tablet is used up. When the chemical reaction between the aspirin and water is over and the bubbling stops, you’re left with a cool looking wave bottle that will sit proudly on your desk.

Hurry up to make cool photos of your bubbling lava, upload to the App. Write about your kid's reaction to the magic experiment.

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