Monthly Archive: January 2010

Science Experiment Month Has Begun! 0

Science Experiment Month Has Begun!

We’re ready for our month of science experiments!I gathered lots of ideas, printed them out and putthem together into a little booklet. We watch a friend during the school holidays and lastJanuary we did a lot of science experiments together.The experiments were such a bit hit with all the kidslast year that we decided to spend a full month doingexperiments again this year. My goal is for the experiments to...

Experiment 1: What do ants eat? 0

Experiment 1: What do ants eat?

Experiment 1: What do ants eat? There are about 1300 different species of ants herein Australia. We’ve heard that there are more ants(by weight) in Australia than people in the world. I don’t know if that’s true, but I can tell you thatwe see streams of ants an inch thick heading upand down the side- walks in the parks andeverywhere. As an aside, DD was bit by a 1 inch...

Experiment 2: Shine Your (US) Pennies 0

Experiment 2: Shine Your (US) Pennies

In Australia we have 5, 10, 20, 50 cent coins and twogold coins $1 and $2. For this experiment we neededUS pennies. 1) We prepared 4 bowls with vinegar, water, salt and vinegar,salt and water. 2) The kids (each did their own experiment) added a pennyto each bowl. 3) We observed after 5, 10 and 15 minutes to discover whyscientists combine certain chemicals. Experiment from: Mudpies to Magnets

Experiment 2: Shiny Penny Results 0

Experiment 2: Shiny Penny Results

LD found that the vinegar/salt combination was theshiniest. Interestingly, DD’s vinegar/salt soaked penny was NOTthe shiniest in her group (I think the water/saltcombination was). Because of this we talked about theneed for scientists to perform experiments over and over.

Experiment 3: Slurping Celery 0

Experiment 3: Slurping Celery

What you need: 1) Take a stalk of celery, cut the stem and slice the celeryup the center. 2) Stand the celery up in two pots. Fill the cups withwater and add 2 drops of dye to each cup. (I let the kidschoose their own colors, but you get the best results withred and blue). 3) Observe every 15 minutes. 4) Since ED also participated we did a stalk from...

Experiment 3: The Celery Slurping Results 0

Experiment 3: The Celery Slurping Results

We got almost immediate results from ED’s celery whereshe took a big bite out of the stem! It made for interestingdiscussions as to why so much dye accumulated on thatside. When I asked LD why the water was going up the stalkwhen gravity pulls things down, he first answered, “Maybeit’s evaporating.” (Hmm… but it’s not hot in here I pointedout.) “Maybe it’s crawling. Wait but it’s not alive,” hequickly added....

Experiment 4: The Results 0

Experiment 4: The Results

At first, the dye was suspended in the oil, but quickly the“fireworks” began. The red separated out first, followedby the blue and yellow (which looked green). We alllay on the floor and said “ooooh” a lot! This really wasa good experiment for the littlies.

Experiment 5: Science in the Kitchen 0

Experiment 5: Science in the Kitchen

After many of our experiments, LD and DD want tocreate their own experiments. They add all kinds ofingredients to see what happens. In this “experiment”they added (as I recall): water, vinegar, baking soda, margarine, flour, yeast,peppermint, cinnamon, food coloring and pepper. They took it out to the garden to see what it woulddo to the ant trail. I heard that their “ant poison”worked (I was cooking dinner and didn’t observe).

A Magyar Baratiem-nak 4

A Magyar Baratiem-nak

First let me wish everyone a very HAPPY NEW YEAR! — Then, I want to send a special welcome my Hungarian friends and visitors and wish them well in the coming new year.  Many years ago, I lived and taught (English) in Hungary. I was in a small town/city near the border of Romania and was there for two years.  Hungary and its warm, wonderful people have a very special...

Picasso Project — 2 0

Picasso Project — 2

Today we looked a bit more closely at Picasso’s “Still Life.”We did our versions of a still life (complete with lots of‘eyes’). I had the kids draw one continuous line that crossedover itself. Then they filled in the figures using oil pastels. The kids really like the vibrant colors of the oil pastels. You are looking at DD’s picture (and the small print Imade of Picasso’s painting).