The kids had a blast making Matter Pop today. I was impressed with how much knowledge they brought to the table.  My little scientists made me proud. I started by putting the sodas, pop rocks and balloons on the table. I asked the students what we could do with these items.  They immediately said to put the balloon over the soda and shake it up to blow up the ballooon. Pretty smart.  Let’s be honest, they were dying to shake the soda.  We recorded our question and hypothesis on our lab reports and set to work.  We used a funnel to fill each balloon with 1 packet of pop rocks.  I attached the balloon to each soda.  My volunteers were tasked with holding up each balloon so the pop rocks could go slide into the soda.  Once the balloons started filling with air the kids were actually screaming (I love that!). We had a wonderful discussion about how the soda and pop rocks are producing the gas to blow up the balloon.  Of course they wanted me to shake the sodas to see what would happen.  Nobody volunteered for that job.  I had to do it in the name of science! Once the balloons started to blow up even more the crowd went wild.  I must say this lesson really provided the kiddos the opportunity to see gas in action and have meaningful discussions about solids, liquids and gas.