I am not always very good at doing hands on projects for science with my kids.  We do a lot of science "book learning," but that hands-on stuff is just so messy and time consuming.  Oh, and you have to plan ahead to have all the materials on hand.  BUT...I did actually do a volcano building project with the kids this year! They happened to have one of their best buddies over that day (also homeschooled...and also here as I type this post... :) - We love Nate!), so it was even more fun for them.

Mixing the salt dough and deciding where to put the plastic bottle volcano core.

Packing dough around the bottle.

Great buddies!

The lava kinda oozed pink out of the volcano, rather than blew out all red and destructive.  Oh, well.  Notice all the "burned out trees" on the volcano! Can you tell we visited Mt. St. Helen's last summer? :)

Whether the volcano fizzled or blew its top, this project was a success!