Have you ever made hatching baking soda eggs before? The process is so easy and will really wow the kids!
My girls have been obsessed with these little turtle toys lately.
We have one turtle that is slightly bigger than the others and that one is Mama Turtle and the rest are her baby turtles.
My youngest, Lia, loves to cuddle the baby turtles. The girls have been enjoying playing with them in water sensory bins, but I really actually got them for this specific activity.
Hatching turtle eggs!
How to Make the Turtle Eggs
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You’ll need:
- miniature toy turtles
- baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)
- water
- food coloring (optional)
To make the eggs, I mixed 2 cups of baking soda with 1/4 cup of water.
I divided the mixture and used food coloring to dye one half of the mixture blue and the other half yellow. This was just to make it pretty. You can skip this step if you want to.
Next is the fun part. Time to make the eggs!
Watch this video to see exactly how I did it, and I’ll break it down in the text for you below.
Slightly wet baking soda makes this really packable, almost snow-like material.
In fact, this exactly what we use to make play snow and magic snowballs, minus the food coloring of course.
Take a palm-sized amount of the baking soda mixture and put a toy turtle inside. Then grab some more of the baking soda mixture and pack it on top.
Tightly squeeze and pack everything together with your hands and shape it to resemble an egg. The turtle should be completely covered and hidden inside.
I had enough of the mixture to make 11 eggs.
How to Hatch the Turtles
You can probably guess how we’ll hatch these turtles.
Vinegar!
I gave Elena a small pan of vinegar and a dropper.
She placed a turtle egg in a pie plate and squeezed vinegar on top.
It fizzes and bubbles, and if you do it carefully, it kind of looks like a little volcano.
Eventually the “eggshell” disintegrates, revealing a cute little baby turtle inside.
Elena rinsed the baby turtle off in water and got another egg to do all over again.
We had her older cousins (8 and 5) over that afternoon as well, and they both loved this activity!
It worked really well having the three kids take turns selecting an egg and hatching it themselves because
- It made the activity last longer. Like I said, I only had 11 eggs!
- Each kid got to observe the reaction multiple times.
Also, I think it’s good for kids to take turns and share space. They learn how to negotiate, how to be patient, and to value and respect one another.
Tips for Doing This Activity
If you’re not using the eggs the same day, store them in the freezer to keep them from drying out and falling apart.
I kept one egg out for my youngest to hatch the next day, and the “shell” was very dry and starting to crack.
You can dilute your vinegar by half with water if you need to stretch the amount or if you know your kids will be getting their hands all over the vinegar.
The acid in vinegar can sting if it gets in your eyes or in an open wound, so be careful!
Things We LEarned from This activity
Elena learned that turtles hatch from eggs!
She knew that birds hatch from eggs, but she had no idea that turtles do too.
We also talked about what happens when vinegar and baking soda are combined.
Baking soda and vinegar experiments like these are one of our favorite types of activities.
For this activity, I asked her to describe what she saw happening and how she was making the reaction happen.
This helped her practice her observation skills.
Mostly, we had fun making the turtles hatch from their fizzy eggs.
Will You Try Hatching Turtle Eggs?
This could be a great birthday party activity where the kids take their hatched turtles home as party favors.
It’s also a fun new way to play with little animal toys that you may already have lying around the house.
Leave a comment below letting us know if this activity was a hit or a miss!
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