National Geographic - Build Your Own Volcano Kit **REVIEW**

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In our house we are huge fans of the National Geographic S.T.E.M range and you may have noticed we have been S.T.E.M ambassadors over the last few months sharing some pretty awesome S.T.E.M toys and activities from the National Geographic range and this month is no different! 

This month we were sent the National Geographic - build your own volcano set. It instantly brought back all the memories of making volcanos as a kid and watching them explode and erupt with a concoction containing vinegar and bicarb (I think!?). But anyway this kit it much better than that and it contains everything you need to build and erupt your own volcano as well as some pretty amazing genuine rock specimens to examine! 

The National Geographic - build your own volcano kit contains everything you need to build your volcano and get it to erupt. I absolutely love that with this kit you actually get to make the volcano (and paint it!) yourself. 

The volcano itself is made from plaster of paris and my 9 year old was able to make this all by himself following the instructions provided. I did give him a hand clipping the volcano mould together as this needs to be clicked in properly or all of the plaster runs out (as we quickly discovered!). This takes a few hours to harden and set and then needs to be left, ideally for 24 hours to fully dry before you paint. 

The kids had lots of fun getting creative painting the volcano. The paint took about 1 hour to dry and then we were ready to make our volcano erupt! 

To do this we used the "eruption powder" and citric acid and mixed both dry ingredients together. The kids then spooned a small amount into the hole at the top of the volcano and added water. The "eruption" was immediate and amazing! Both the kids loved seeing the red "lava" bubbling up and flowing over the volcano, plus there is lots of powder as you only need a small amount to create the eruption so it meant they could have lots of fun creating the eruption over and over again. 

For a few tries we added a few drops of washing up liquid (it was a suggestion in the booklet) and the kids noticed that the "lava" was more bubbly and frothy which I thought was a great observation. You could also try adding different things too, perhaps using vinegar instead of water to see what happens etc?

The "lava" is bright red and so I would definitely advise doing the eruption either on a tray or out in the garden like us. The lava has actually slightly stained the grass so its really worth doing this somewhere you either don't mind getting slightly stained or protect the area you are going to do it on. 

Both James and Evelyn had so much fun with this kit making it well worth the £13.99 price tag we think. We all loved the fact that you got to make the volcano yourself which we have never seen before, plus the mould can actually be reused so we can make the experiment again and again if we wanted too (you get plenty of plaster of paris and eruption powder etc to do this kit a few times!). 

If the fun of erupting your own volcano wasn't enough, this kit also contains two genuine volcanic rock samples (a pumice stone and a geode to crack open). These are genuine cooled volcanic rock samples and James especially thought this was an awesome addition to the kit, he actually took them into school to show the class.

All in all this is a fantastic kit, it has provided my two with hours of fun and all for under £20 too!

xXx



**We received this kit for the purpose of this review. However all words, opinions and images are my own. I retain full control of this post.**