fizzy heart dinosaur rescue

We had such a fun time rescuing our dinosaurs in their frozen heart rocks! This fizzy hearts dinosaur rescue activity provided some preschool science fun, fine motor practice, language learning, and sensory play for little hands!

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Invitation to Play

I set our trapped dinosaurs in a bin, and presented eye droppers for the kids to use, concentrate, and rescue the dinosaurs! John {4 1/2} got the hang of this immediately. May {2 1/2} didn’t quite get how to use it, so she just played along.

It was so wonderful to see John work so intently on rescuing the dinosaurs. He kept carefully releasing the dropper’s liquid and laughed each time he saw some bubbles begin to happen.

Fine Motor Skills

This activity is perfect for children working on their pincer grasp. All the fingers have to work together while the child concentrates to fill and release the dropper.

Science Fun

I explained to the children that baking soda is basic and vinegar is acidic. I kept repeating these terms, as well as “chemical reaction” — they were so excited!

Sensory Play

My favorite part about this activity was this face:

John has really grown a desire to participate in sensory play activities — which is exciting for me as a homeschooling parent — but also explores new worlds and textures and ideas for him! He was really in his element — which involves a lot of concentration and imaginary sequences.

Language Learning

John made up stories about these little dinosaurs and how they needed to be rescued. His imagination goes wild with these little invitations to play and learn. He is building his vocabulary, and strengthening his sister’s too! Augh! Almost a total bomb here, but they are excited to see the chemical reactions as John swished the bin back and forth.

Fizzy Hearts Recipe

To start, I had to freeze our dinosaurs in a water-baking soda paste — we made it 50/50. We froze them in our heart mold, and added food coloring, which made this activity more festive, and baby safe too! If you’re not worried about little mouths, you could use liquid watercolors.
After the hearts froze outside, I carefully got the hearts out of the mold and presented them to the kids on a splash mat — for us this is old towels with a sheet on top.
I gave each child a little dropper with red-colored white vinegar. After a long time, they began dumping all of their vinegar to see more of a chemical reaction.