September 23: Weigh In!

I found this fabulously simple idea in The Preschooler's Busy Book by Trish Kuffner.  I pulled the bathroom scale downstairs for Ty and Brielle.  They love standing on it and watching the number pop up.  Tysen weighed 38.8 lbs. and Brielle was 23.2 lbs.  We talked about that Ty's number was bigger because he's a bigger boy that Brielle and that makes him heavier. 

The idea from the book was to find items around the house to weigh and figure out what weighed more, less, or the same as the kids.  Ty just wanted to weigh his favorite toys, though, and none of them are even close to his weight.  Nor were they heavy enough register on the bathroom scale.  Fortunately, I have a kitchen scale, so I pulled that out and Ty was unbelievably excited to weigh all of his favorite things.  We tried to line them up lightest to heaviest, but many of them weighed the same.  I did ask Tysen a bunch of questions as we were playing around with the scale: 

• Why did Ferdinand weigh more than Thomas (Ferdinand has a tender!)
• Before we weigh Sally and Mater, hold them in your hands and guess who will be heavier (Mater because he's bigger!)
• Will Bash and Dash weigh the same? (Yes!  They're twin trains.). 

He created his own hypothesis when he brought Cranky the Crane to the scale and said, "Maybe Cranky is the heaviest!"  (He was right!)  When he placed 3 Bob the Builder machines on the scale at the same time he said, "Three are the betterest!" (meaning heaviest). 

He weighed toys for over 30 minutes!  We'll have to do this again someday...maybe we can branch out from die-cast toys and compare books, tools, and other household items.

The lineup:  lightest to heaviest.



September 7: Coloring Carnations

I've always loved this experiment, but it's been ages since I've thought about it!  I was glancing through a Family Fun idea book and came across this experiment again.  I knew Ty would love it, too! 

We purchased 4 white carnations from a local market, then came home and trimmed the ends at an angle.  Ty carefully poured water in each glass, but he didn't want to add the food coloring, so I did that while he counted out the number of drops.  Then Ty placed one flower in each glass, and we began to wait...and wait...and wait.  That can be quite difficult for a 3-year old! :)  About 2 hours later saw a tinge of blue on the outside of the carnation in blue water.  Ty was thrilled!!!  Slowly, the petals of the flowers turned blue, green, and red...but the purple never turned.  We waited a week...and still no purple!  The flower must have been taking in water because it didn't even wilt, but the food coloring was never evident in the petals.  I read on Steve Spangler's website that this might happen if there's an air bubble created when you trim the stem.  Apparently, the best way to trim stems is under running water to avoid air bubbles, which I recall learning at some point but had forgotten. 

While I didn't get into all the science behind this experiment, Tysen and I talked about how the color might be getting into the petals.  He knows now that flowers need to drink water to survive and that the stem is like a straw for the flower.  He enjoyed checking on his flowers every day and watching the colors deepen. 

24 hours after starting the experiment.

August 25: Steve Spangler Science Experiment: Ivory Soap Souffle

We haven't done much in the way of science over here, unless you count all the baking we do.  I discovered Steve Spangler's website a while back which has some great ideas!  Most are for older kids, but I thought this one would be fun for the boys to do with me. 

We took a bar of Ivory soap and a bar of Lever 2000 soap to compare and contrast.  First, I had the boys feel each bar of soap to make any observations.  The different colors was an obvious difference, and then Koen thought the Lever 2000 bar was heavier than the Ivory.  So we put them in a bowl with water to see what would happen, and wouldn't you know the heavy one sank and the Ivory floated. 



Ivory soap...after being microwaved.



And then the fun really started!  We first put the Lever 2000 soap in a glass bowl and put it in the microwave for 2 minutes.  We stopped the microwave before the 2 minutes was up as we just wanted to see what would happen.  Any guesses?  It melted!  Next, we put the Ivory soap on a paper plate (Steve Spangler's website showed it broken into 4 pieces, but I forgot to do that, we just put the whole bar in).  I set the timer for 2 minutes and hit "start".  Instead of melting, the Ivory soap puffs up!  It's really cool to watch, and of course, the boys were extremely excited!!!  (It makes the house smell clean, as an added bonus!



The reason for this (in very simple terms) is that Ivory soap is filled with air pockets.  In 1890, a Proctor and Gamble employee forgot to turn of his machine during his lunch break.  This whipped air into the soap and allowed the soap to float.  This mistake was a huge hit with the public population and the floating soap stuck around.  These air pockets also contain water.  When the water heats up it vaporizes and forms bubbles while the soap itself heats up and becomes pliable, so the whole thing expands.  (Thanks to Steve Spangler for explaining this on his website.)  While the kids didn't care so much about why this happened, we did talk that this soap had air bubbles in it and that made the difference for why the soap grew bigger rather than melting.  Incidentally, the soap may look different, but it still works!  Save it for a fun bath time!



Microwaved marshmallows.



Koen's s'more.

Steve Spangler compared the process to what happens when you heat up a marshmallow, so next we put some marshmallows in the microwave for 30 seconds.  Sure enough, they expanded to, and when I asked the boys why they thought that happened, Koen surprised me with, "Well, the marshmallows probably have air bubbles, too!"  I love those moments! :)  After that great connection, how could I deny him when he suggested we make s'mores with the puffy marshmallows! 

May 19: Baby Diaper Experiment

All the polymer from the diaper...not much!

We had a fabulous time at gymnastics again this morning, but today just needed a little extra fun. Now, I'm the first to admit that I am NOT a science-minded person, but I do appreciate it and want my kids to experience the amazing things about science.   A few days ago Koen saw I was looking at something on the computer and asked about it.  I was reading an idea from http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00000064 to take apart a diaper and look at those tiny crystals that make the diaper so effective.  Koen thought it'd be great fun to take Brielle's diaper apart, so that's what we did today!  Ty was more of an observer than a participant for this project.

We followed Steve Spanger's directions:

• Line the table with newspaper.
• Carefully cut through the inside lining of the diaper and remove all the cotton-like material. 
• Place the stuffing material in a large plastic bag, seal it, and shake it to loosen the powdery polymer.  (There's not much so don't worry if you don't feel like you did it right)
• Remove the stuffing from the bag.
• Pour the polymer into a plastic clear plastic cup and fill with 1/2 cup water (4 oz). 
• Mix it with your finger until the mixture begins to thicken.
• Observe the gel!  Even turn the cup upside-down and see how it's solidified.  

Steve Spangler actually does more with the experiment, but we paused here with an "I wonder" side-track.  We wondered if we'd get the same results with Tysen's pull-up.  We cut open Ty's pull-up and that's about when the boys lost interest.  I, however, wanted to know the answer.  I assumed it'd be the same results, but that wasn't the case!  I added the same amount of water to the polymer from the pull-up but it never fully turned into a gel as you can see in the picture.  Strange!




Stirring the water and polymer
 mix with his finger.



After the polymer changed to gel Koen
could hold the cup upside down and no
liquid spilled!  He thought that was
pretty cool!

The cup on the left is the polymer from the
pull-up (never gelled) and on the right
is the diaper's results.



May 13: The Life Cycle of a Butterfly

This week's project was decided upon earlier this week by Tysen after Koen came home from school with a butterfly life cycle set.  Koen's class has had caterpillars in their care for the past few weeks and watched the whole life cycle process, even setting the new butterflies free.  Along the way they made a book and finally did a project to help remember everything that happened along the way.  After seeing Koen's life cycle set, Ty wanted to make one, too.  (Once again, none of this was my idea...we completely copied Koen's teacher!)

I love it when things work out so beautifully!  We had a library book home this week all about the life cycle of a butterfly:  A Butterfly Grows by Stephen Swinburne!  Tysen and I read the book and made the project simultaneously...it was perfect!  He can actually talk you through the life cycle using his project.  Having The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle as background knowledge probably helped a little bit, but I'm still impressed. 

Beads on a pipe cleaner
to create the caterpillar.

We started with a puff ball for the egg.  Next we took part of a pipe clearer and Ty threaded beads on it to create a caterpillar.  I was going to have him work on a pattern, but the jumbo bag of beads I have didn't have enough similar beads to even try to create a pattern, so we just went with the colorful variety.  We then took a green piece of paper that I'd cut into the shape of a leaf and Ty punched holes in it to show the caterpillar ate the leaf.  Next was the chrysalis:  a toilet paper tube that we glued brown squares to.  Finally, the butterfly.  There are so many craft butterfly ideas out there, but we used the idea for the Coffee Filter Butterfly.  I actually had cone-shaped filters, so I just cut one apart and we used that.  He colored it with washable markers.  I encouraged him to make it the same on both sides since a butterfly's wings are usually mirror images.  We then sprayed the filter with a few squirts of water and watched the marker spread a little.  We let it dry and then pinched the middle and secured it with the remaining pipe cleaner. 

Koen's set came home from school and a gallon bag, so naturally Tysen's is stored in a  gallon bag.  But before he put it away he got lots of play time out of it!

Working hard to create a
beautiful butterfly!



Letting the wings dry.



The full life cycle:  egg, caterpillar, leaf to eat, chrysalis, butterfly!



Playing life cycle.

Catching the butterfly with the bug net.

June 16: Combo Day

I've mentioned before that our "schedule" is a flexible one, so today we combined Project Day and Library Day since Mommy had plans to scrapbook on Library Day.  But don't worry...the boys didn't care because they got to play with Ian all day on Thursday. 

MIXING DAY --  I'm not what you'd call a science-minded person (so please excuse any inaccuracies as I describe things), but I enjoy little science experiments and think it's important for the boys to be exposed to as well.  Of course, when we mix things we get different results depending on what we're mixing. 

The first things we mixed together were vinegar (as much as you desire) and baking soda (about a Tablespoon).  If you've done this before, you know that it creates a high volume of fizz in a volcano-like eruption.  Koen's preschool teacher had done this for his class this spring and all the kids were impressed.  Not surprisingly, Koen and Tysen were impressed by this reaction and asked for it to happen again and again. 

Next, we mixed 1 cup of cornstarch with 1/2 cup water.  This was another idea from Disney's Family Fun magazine.  It creates an amazing substance that isn't quite solid and isn't quite liquid.  Tysen refused to touch it, but Koen enjoyed playing with it, trying to grab it, and letting it drip off his fingers.  (WARNING:  If you choose to make this substance, DO NOT save it to play with it later.  I kept it in a container to play with it another day and the stench made me gag.  It's better just to make a new batch!)

The final mixture project was making Ocean Waves bottles.  These didn't turn out as well as I thought they would, but the boys LOVED them.  They liked the color, how the water and oil made little bubbles when you shook the bottle and then separated again as you left it alone (not that they left it alone for long). 

The "recipe" had called for vegetable oil, but we used canola oil...I don't know if that was part of the problem, but I thought the water and oil mixed too easily?!?  I also tried to glue the cap on so we would have no accidental spills (can you imagine the clean up on that?), but Seth got the cap off easily when he was looking at it.  I reglued it, but maybe I need something stronger than Elmers.  Besides, Seth is so much stronger than the boys, it may have been his brute strength that busted the cap open!

In the picture...notice Hiro next to Koen's Ocean Waves bottle -- an almost constant companion.  Also note Koen's cool visor made in Children's Worship in Grandpa & Grandma Smits's church.  He rarely takes it off! 

Prior to making this fabulous mixtures, we had gone to the library and signed up for the summer reading program!  We read everyday anyway...why not get prizes for it?!?!