"Look Mom! It sticks!"

Fun with friction!

Felt and fleece work really well when it comes to adhering to other materials using friction alone. This is a great, quick science lesson to hypotheses about what will and won't stick vertically on things. Would the pillow stick to the wall? What about a heavier pillow? Would silky objects stick to the couch? Would silky objects stick to the wall? What if the materials were wet? Experiment and have some fun!

What can you stick to the back of your couch?

Doing science with your kids blog

Christopher Danielson has been a reader of this blog since the beginning. He started the Talking Math with Your Kids blog where he discusses how he and his young children talk about math. We follow each other on Twitter where he virtually introduced me to Casey Rutherford. Inspired by Talking Math with Your Kids, Casey started the hashtag "#dswyk" which stands for "doing science with your kid(s)," and I promptly joined the #dswyk party. A few days/weeks (I'm oblivious to time at this point in my life, thanks to Miss Baby J) later, he created a blog: Doing Science with Your Kids, and now I'm a contributor.

My first entry is a lesson on sink or float led by my 5-year old boy, J. Does a Duplo sink or float? The answer might surprise you. Click on over to check it out!

I'll still be using this as my main blog and contributing as I can to Doing Science with Your Kids.

Baking soda and vinegar volcanoes via a 5 year old

A few weeks ago, J woke me up from a much needed nap telling me that he wanted to do science. I asked what he wanted to do, and he really wanted to do balloon science, particularly baking soda and vinegar blows up a balloon. Frankly, I wanted to do something else (because though fun, it is a quick experiment that we've done more than once), but we kept the baking soda and vinegar part of the science he wanted to do. I asked him if he wanted to do volcanoes. He gave us an enthusiastic, "YES!"

Being lazy and having a new baby (who at the time was content), I didn't want to spend time looking up the experiment online. We decided to experiment on our own on how much baking soda vs. how much vinegar and the size of the container we were using for the experiment.

Mountainous material for the volcano:
I admit again that I am lazy. J had been given a lot of Play-Doh for a birthday last year, so I'd figure we'd use some up by covering the paper cup in different shades of Play-Doh. I don't want to be crafty at this point in my life, but here is a homemade playdough recipe if you'd like (painted paper mache volcano might be better if you have time to plan ahead and want it to look cool). The Play-Doh got soggy, but held up. We tossed it after we were done though we were thinking of saving it before we started, which is why we only put a small amount of orange and red on our volcano. We remained lazy and just used the Play-Doh container, without any decoration, to test a smaller container. J enjoyed it just as much as the decorated volcano since the "wow" factor is in the interaction between the baking soda and vinegar.

Place volcano in a pan with high sides, or you'll have quite a mess to clean up afterwards.

Amount of baking soda:
We used 1 tablespoon (tbsp) of baking soda as a starting point. We also used 2 tbsp, but 1 was enough to give multiple eruptions with our amount of vinegar, see note below on limiting reagents. We placed the baking soda in the cup first.

Note: We started with about 1/2 of a box of leftover old baking soda from the last time we switched it in the fridge, so there was plenty to experiment with.

Amount of vinegar:
We had a little under 1/2 gallon of vinegar to experiment with though we initially weren't planning to use it all. An adult poured it into a small 8 oz cup for J to handle. You definitely don't need a 1/2 gallon of vinegar, but we buy it by the gallon because it's cheaper and we can use it in impromptu experiments.

Size of container:
It turns out that if you have limited resources (ie. minimal amounts of mountainous materials, baking soda, or vinegar), go with a smaller container. If not, the bigger container works just fine.

Experiment:
Let your little one lead. We let J measure the baking soda and gave him the vinegar in a kid size cup. He knew what to do from other baking soda/vinegar experiments. I thought the reaction was over after the first pass of vinegar. J's curiosity lead to the discovery that 1 tbsp of baking soda can lead to multiple "eruptions" (reactions).

Notes:
With 1 tbsp of baking soda, the unmeasured vinegar (under 8 oz) poured in spurts seemed to be the limiting reagent. We poured more vinegar, and the reaction kept going. This is an advance concept for preschoolers, but you can definitely point it out and see if they follow.

After experiment free play:
I'm big on letting my 5 year old continue to play once the experiment is over. This experiment resulted in a sensory bin since there was a big glup of baking soda in basically water. However, when he transferred his pile of baking soda from one part of the tray too another, he got a sizzle. There was still a reaction left!

And apologies for the shaking camera. I was helping J with the experiment, and John was juggling the camera and this cute nugget:

She liked the volcanoes too. Well, at least she didn't fuss.

Have you experimented with baking soda and vinegar volcanoes? How did you model the volcano?

Do plants grow without leaves?

We recently had a rodent eat all of the leaves off of our cucumber plants:

My husband had high hopes that they would recover. I, on the other hand, was not so optimistic and asked that we buy some more and replant. (my hypotheses: the plants wouldn't survive)

We replanted, but we left the chewed plants for an experiment to see what would happen. We also had a cherry tomato plant that had its leaves only partially eaten. We let that one be without replanting.

The result?

A month later both chewed cucumber plants were completely dead.

Why?

Leaves play an essential role in the process of photosynthesis - the process plants use to convert sunlight into energy. I like to think of leaves as mini solar panels, using sunlight to make energy. Without leaves the plant has very little to create the energy needed for the plants to grow bigger.

What about the half-chewed tomato plant?

The tomato plant was only partially eaten by the rodent, meaning that the rodent left some parts of the leaves. The plant has recovered and is flourishing.

What experiment can you do at home?

You don't need a garden or bigger/expensive plants. Beans grow relatively fast from seeds. Plant 3 different beans in jars/cups. When they are big enough to have leaves, break all the leaves completely off of one, break the leaves half way off in one, and leave one to grow normally. Compare how they grow after that.

Personal lessons learned:

We made a crop cage for our garden before planting the new bunch of cucumbers. The new plants have not been targeted. We might blog about the crop cage in the future, but it needs a few tweaks first.

Dancing Raisins - a Magic School Bus Experiment

This Dancing Raisins experiment came from our Magic School Bus Science Club kit on solids, liquids, and gases. It involves raisins, tap water, and soda water. Concepts to discuss are density (what sinks, what floats), forces, and buoyancy.

We started out placing raisins in tap water. They did nothing. Note that I left the sound on this video. J wanted to take over and conduct his own sink/float experiment.

We didn't have soda water, but the kit came with an alkaseltzer tablet. We tried it. It was supposed to be for another experiment in the packet that we ended up observing/conducting on our own. It wasn't the best. The raisins bounced up and down a few times, but mainly it smelled as the gases were released from the tablet. J really didn't like the smell. Yay, science.

We put the experiment on hold while we walked down the street for dinner. The restaurant happened to have soda water available, so we took a cup of it home. We weren't 100% sure the carbonation would survive the 10 minute walk, but we repeated the experiment using soda water. It worked! This is what happened, note I left sound on for J's commentary:

So what happens is the gases in the soda water get stuck in the crevices of the raisins and give the raisins enough air (forces/buoyancy) to float to the top of the water. Once at the top, some bubbles pop and go into the air, and the raisin sinks back down to the bottom. Pretty neat, huh?

Notes: 
I paid for the Magic School Bus Science Club Kits and have no affiliation with them.

I'm taking a brief break from the blog to focus on my family. I'm sure we'll have tons of scientific discussions. I'll try to post some insights to our Facebook Page or Twitter as they come and catch up on the blog once I come up for air.

Gardening 2014

After a month of much needed rain (and we still need more to not see sky-high produce costs this summer), we've been blessed with sunshine and weather in the 70s - perfect gardening weather. Being almost 9 months pregnant, I debated planting a garden this year. It's hard to get up and down from the hard ground at this point and keeping another living thing alive during the summer might be overwhelming with a newborn. However, the motivating factors won: fresh homegrown produce that tastes better than what you can buy from the store and J's excitement for eating said produce. Plus, it wasn't going to be as big of an investment this year since we had made big planter purchases over the last two years.

Tackling concern #1, getting the garden started at almost 9 mo pregnant:

J is almost 5. He's become quite the helper and was super eager to help us with all steps off setting up the garden. This was probably our most successful garden shopping experience yet with him. He wanted to buy almost every sprout at the gardening store (because of our limited window space, we start most of our garden with store bought sprouts). We settled on lemon cucumbers, regular cucumbers, and cherry tomato plants, and we are germinating bell peppers and green beans. 

Here's J helping us plant the tomato plant:

He then staked the tomato plant since tomato plants like to have support to aid their growth.

Then he helped water all of the plants.

Our strawberries survived another winter and already have buds! This surprised us because we're in the middle of the worst drought in CA record keeping (and we basically ignored them all winter). This is 3 years in a row for our strawberry plants - definitely a great investment for us. I still love our strawberry planter (affiliate link).

We're trying cucumbers again this year. They were really successful last year, maybe even too successful because we saw how many cucumbers were growing, but they would disappear before we'd get to pick them (it was a hot summer last year and they are mainly water - the neighborhood critters got to them before we could). Going into gardening cucumbers last year, we didn't know/realize that they were a climbing plant, so this year, we spread them out a little more and gave them a cage to grow on. I hope keeping them off the ground will keep some of the critters away. We'll probably end up netting them again.

We just planted the green beans and bell pepper seeds. They are currently in terra cotta pots in our window sill. I'm hoping they'll sprout in time to get them in planters before the baby comes. If not, it'll be shortly thereafter.

As for concern #2, keeping other living things alive:

I think I can manage a garden, especially since I'm on maternity leave for a few months. The garden is right outside our apartment. If we had invested in a community garden plot, motivation to get out and about would be harder to find.

We're focusing on planting things that can be harvested all summer long. I love seeing J pull off green beans and strawberries, wash them with the garden hose, and pop them in his mouth. We haven't had good luck with our larger tomato plants, but we've done alright with cherry tomatoes in the ground in the past. I'm hoping we can do alright with this year's cherry tomatoes in a pot to give J the satisfaction of eating them all summer long.

If you have any tips to get the most from our plants, I'd love to hear them. How do you deal with critters? Ours are mammalian (raccoon and squirrels). How often do you replenish your soil? Do you use any plant food? Do your kids eat more veggies when they help in the growing process?

Pi Day Posters

Let me tell you how excited I am about March 2014. Basically, it's Pi MONTH! 3.14, get it? Why wait till March 14 (also 3.14, in the US, at least) to celebrate? I decided we should get into the nerdy spirit a little early and start decorating.

Pi is the ratio of the circumference of the circle to its diameter. I thought we can have art with circles and numbers to hang above our couch for Pi Day.

Here's what we did:

I convinced J to help me lay out some circular items we had around the house (it helps that I have a lid collection for unknown special occasions). We used bowls, lids, bottle caps, and a tape roll and arranged them on some craft paper. Then we traced each circular item. J was really excited to trace the double circles of the tape.

J is almost 5. He's getting really good at writing his letters and numbers, so I let him write Happy Pi Day and as many numbers of Pi that he had the patience to write. He added a heart (though it looks like a pie with a slice taken out) and "I Love You Pi."

Friday is the official annual Pi Day (March 14 or 3.14...). I will be participating in my first Blog Hop, where a group of bloggers write their own posts about a particular topics and link to other blogs writing about the same topic. Friday's topic: Pi Day!! Make sure to come back for a geometry lesson on circles!

Happy Pi Month to you!

Related Post:

• Investigating Pi for Preschoolers
• Prepping for Pi Day

Mathematical Dice Games

J spent a day sick at home last week. It was a minor illness, so he was very antsy about being inside all day. He pulled out his dice to pass the time. J's great aunt had given him the Tenzi Game (affiliate link) over the summer. We haven't played it the way it's supposed to be played (getting all 10 dice to show the same number, which sounds like some super Yahtzee game), but we now have 40 dice to play with however we want. This is heaven for this math mama! Let me tell you some fun math games we've played with them and how we plan to continue to grow and develop mathematically with the dice.

We started out with each person having their own color of dice, so we can easily distinguish who rolled what.

The Bigger Number Wins!

J actually came up with this game on his own. We started out with one dice (aka. die) each. We rolled the dice, and J first counted the dots on each die and told me which die had the most dots. As we played more, I encouraged J to make his decisions quicker, without counting.

This game is great for older toddlers (who won't shove dice in orifices that they shouldn't be in) and preschoolers to understand the concept of greater than/less than.


Addition: The Bigger Number Wins!

The next game included two dice each. Again, having different color dice is wonderful for determining what numbers belong to each person.

We rolled the dice, and J added up the dots on everyone's rolls. Whoever rolled the biggest number wins! J also ranked who came in second, third, and last. We also increased the frequency of rolls and decreased the amount of time between each roll as we progressed. This challenged our 4.5 year old to make quicker decisions and encouraged more mental math rather than counting dots. In our picture example, the yellow dice wins with 11, green comes in second with 10, white is third with 9, and blue is last with 7.

For older kids: This game can be adapted to use more dice for a greater challenge.


Subtraction: The Smaller Number Wins!

We haven't played this game yet. I imagine it going something like this:

Each player gets two dice of the same color. Everyone rolls their dice and each person's smallest number rolled is subtracted from the larger number rolled. Whoever gets the smallest number wins! In our picture example above, we have a tie for first: yellow and blue both have 1. Green comes in next with 2, and white loses with 3.

For older kids: This can also be a two player game with two dice of different colors each. Pick a color to always subtract from the other color. Note that this might give you negative numbers! The smallest number still wins.


More Math Fun with Dice!

During his childhood, my husband was given a dice game by his grandpa (he has no idea of what it is called). After his old game broke, John went on to design one for himself on his 3-D printer and uploaded it to Thingiverse (to share with other nerdy people). The goal of the game is to use mathematical operations (you know, please excuse my dear Aunt Sally's loud radio - the mathematical order on how you're supposed to solve complex problems parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction from left to right) on the 5 white dice in order to get the result of the two black dice added together (so on the picture above: how would 2, 3, 3, 3, 6 make 42?). If you want more details on the game or want to print one of your own, visit the Dice Game Thingiverse page. This game is also great for older kids.

Do you have any fun math games you play with dice?

Scientific observations of different balloons

I promised J some science after naptime. I decided to nap too instead of prepare a science lesson. He awoke pretty excited, so I asked him what kind of science he wanted to do. Since he was close to our stored, small helium tank while waking me up, he pulled that out. Not wanting to repeat the hover balloon lesson, I had to think of something else with balloons on the fly (which is harder to do in a sleepy stupor and with preggo brain). It's also been bothering me from the scientific standpoint that a post is going around Pinterest saying that our baking soda + vinegar reaction blowing up a balloon is a good alternative to helium.

I decided that we should play with the weight of the balloons and that this could be a good lesson for J in making hypotheses (educated guesses about what he thinks will happen when conducting the experiment).

Objectives:
*To determine what three different balloons will do: sink or float. The three balloons would be filled with 1. air (blown up with our mouths); 2. helium; 3. carbon dioxide (CO2) which is the gas product of the chemical reaction between baking soda and vinegar.
*To determine which gas is heavier: air, helium, or carbon dioxide.

J's Hypotheses:
*Hypothesis 1:
     1. Air will sink.
     2. Helium will float.
     3. Carbon dioxide will sink.
*Hypothesis 2:
     1. Air is heavier than carbon dioxide.
     2. Helium is lighter than air.

Experiment:
*Fill 1 balloon with air from your mouth.
*Fill (or obtain) 1 balloon with helium.
*Conduct the baking soda + vinegar reaction (see link above) and tie off the balloon once it's full of carbon dioxide gas.
*Hypothesize about what the balloon will do when dropped: sink or float?
*Drop each balloon and observe what happened.
*Make conclusions on your observations: where your guesses correct?
*Now using what you just learned from your balloon dropping observations, make hypotheses about which balloon is heavier or lighter.
*Weigh the balloons on the scale/balance (like the one we used in our balance game), or create your own balance from office supplies.

Results:

*Helium floated.

*Air balloon sank.

*Carbon dioxide balloon sank.

*Air balloon is heavier than helium:

*Carbon dioxide balloon is barely heavier than the air balloon, but it is also smaller.

*The air balloon is slightly heavier than a deflated balloon (but not by much).

Discussion:
*There is a difference in balloon volume between the air and the carbon dioxide. We didn't have a large enough reaction to really blow the balloon up to the same size as the one we blew up with our mouth. Even with a smaller balloon volume, the carbon dioxide balloon is heavier than the balloon we filled up with our air.
*It's also important to note that carbon dioxide is a product of what we exhale when we breathe (or blow up a balloon). However, there are a lot of other gases mixed in with the carbon dioxide.
*We couldn't figure out a good way to measure the weight of the helium, so we tied it to the scale, which immediately raised the scale on the side of the helium balloon, but helium is lighter than air.

Some other fun we had:
*We played, what can we tie the helium balloon to in order to keep it from floating to the ceiling.
     - We ended up using a Cootie Bug.

After the experiment, J thought it would be fun to launch balloons with our balance/scale.
     - I always recommend well-supervised free play time after experiments.
     - Kids are awesome at finding fun new ways to explore their world.
     - Don't forget to explain what's happening as they make new discoveries.

The Guessing Game - Practicing Descriptive Words

Lately, J has been playing this game where he pulls out everything he owns and hides it behind his back. He then makes us guess what it is by his clues. Luckily, his clues have gotten better as the game has progressed.

This is a great game for beginning to use descriptive words, which are useful in the scientific world. 

These words can describe:

• what the object looks like.
• Is it big, small, colorful, etc.?
• the shape of the object.
• Is it round, oval, square, rectangular, etc.?
• what the object feels like.
• Is it smooth, slimy, bumpy, etc.?
• what the object is used for.
• Is it used for cooking, cleaning, fun, a specific purpose?
• what letter the object begins with.
• what sounds the object makes.
• if it can be used more than once.

My favorite clues J has come up with:

• It is used to hit a baseball. (Baseball Bat)
• I wear this on my head to protect my eyes from the sun. (Baseball cap)
• It begins with an M and is used to make cold food warm. (cardboard microwave - this one threw gma off during a Skype guessing game session)

One that threw us off:

Clues:

• He said there was something behind his back.
• He was not holding it.
• It's blue.

Yay for static electricity!

Seriously, this game has killed much time in our household. It's usually an impromptu game due to boredom, but we love to play it on Skype with his grandparents. It's fun to see him improve on his descriptions too.

Happy 3rd Blogiversary to Nerdy Science!

It's always fun to do an annual reflection on how things are going with this blog and my goals. Thanks for joining me on our science adventures.

My goals have always been to do simple, easy science at home and making science part of everyday life/conversation.

My goals from last year and how I met them:

- I want to be still blogging weekly about the wonderful scientific world around us. 
**Blogging weekly has been a challenge this year. We're having a new nerdy addition joining our family in April, and though I've been blessed with no morning sickness, pregnancy is no walk in the park. We talk about math and science all of the time in our house. Translating interesting and thoughtful lessons to the blog became the bottleneck.

- I want to continue Science Saturdays in the Park, hopefully starting back in February or March. 
**Science Saturdays have been a real gem in my life. I have so much fun sharing science and conversing with families who have similar passions. We had one per month from March - October (except May), with many new lessons including: Squishy Circuits, Magnet Detectives, and Ice Cream in a Bag to name a few. Every time we pass a park where we've had a lesson, J states that's a park for science and which science we've done there.

- As J grows, I want to establish worksheets, puzzles, and games that keep his mind active and help him learn new science and math concepts. These would be shared with my blog followers. 
**I have not been able to much progress on this goal. I did make a worksheet for the M&M math for preschoolers.

- I want to learn how to draw to help with the worksheets and activities listed above. 
**I still suck at drawing anything.

- I hope to have a website to go along with this blog. 
**Ya, this goal was supposed to be completed by June 2012. I have all of these ideas of what I want it to look like, how I'd like it to function, and the features I'd like it to have. Unfortunately, the little html knowledge I have will not translate into a website that I can be proud of. I will maintain the domain name with hopes of one day having a website.

- I hope to have time to join the bigger community of Mommy Bloggers. There's so much we can learn from each other.
**Thanks to suggestions from my friend MaryAnne of Mamasmiles, I joined the Kid Blogger Network and have connected with many other parent bloggers.

2013 highlights

• The most popular posts: baking soda + vinegar blows up a balloon and water density and the floating egg.
• The most popular pin from Pinterest: model lungs in a bottle.
• The most popular Facebook post: melting ice and colors.
• The most searched for term: balloon racers.
• Most referring traffic: Hands On As We Grow 
• Thanks for featuring me in the Top 10 Water Experiments for Kids

For 2014, my goals are:

• Give birth to a healthy baby girl.
• Show Miss Baby J the world through science, hoping to add on to my baby science tag.
• I secretly hope J gets in on the lesson creations for Miss Baby J. I just love how his mind works! And right now, there is nothing sweeter than him reading to the baby and explaining the pictures and what big words mean.
• To continue bringing simple, fun science to young children through Science Saturdays and community outreach programs.
• Develop some fun supplemental science and math worksheets.
• Blog more about science that does not need set-up/clean-up time: how science in our everyday life and how to think like a scientist.
• Continue to develop and grow the relationships that are formed by networking.

Related Posts, Previous Year's Reflections:

• Year 2 of Nerdy Science in review
• Year 1 of Nerdy Science in review
• The Beginning of Nerdy Science

Streetlight Shadows

I love impromptu science lessons. Today's experience came from J's observations on Grandpa's shadow cast by the streetlights as we were walking to their favorite frozen yogurt store at night. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me to capture the original excitement, so I tried to recreate at home under our streetlight.

We were walking down a well-lighted pathway at night, behind Grandpa. We were originally stepping on Grandpa's shadow, but as we walked, Grandpa's shadow jumped ahead of him. What caused this?

As Grandpa (modeled by J) was approaching the light, the shadow was behind him. The further away from the light he was, the longer the shadow was.

As Grandpa reached the light, his shadow became smaller and smaller and was basically straight out from his body, not at an angle.

As Grandpa walked away from the light, his shadow went in front of him and became larger (until the light from the next streetlight took over, not pictured, but imagine the series repeated).

Note: Nighttime shadows are hard to capture on camera since you don't want to use a flash. My camera had a "Handheld Night Scene" mode, which is what I used.

Luckily, the pathway was long enough to continue with our forward progression and explain what was happening to J while in real time. We definitely saw his light bulb moment.

Related Posts:

• Experiments you can do with shadows in the daylight.

J's lesson on light

I've been really behind on posting science experiments. Most of my days are spent at work and then tending to J's needs. By the time he goes to bed, I'm spent and rarely want to spend more time at the computer, let alone trying to make coherent posts.

Anyways, this morning, in the hustle and bustle of getting ready for church, J excitingly proclaims that he has a science lesson for me. Of course, I stopped in my tracks to listen to my four year old. He shined his finger light (LED of sorts) on the wall and showed me what happens when he was close to the wall versus when he was further away from the wall.

After dinner, I asked him to demonstrate again, so I can record it:

What is happening:

*The light is more concentrated the closer it is to the wall. The light is approximately the size of the LED finger light. Though it is small, it is very bright.

*As you move further away from the wall with the light, you have the same amount of light spread out over a bigger area (the more diffuse the light gets). The light may get bigger in size, but it's not as focused and bright. The light has more space to move through and spread out.

Other fun things you can do:

*Have fun with shadows. Hold a light source at a set distance from the wall. Make shadow puppets. How do the shadows look when your close to the light? How do the shadows look when you are close to the wall?

Related Posts:

• If you like my son's experiment he came up with all on his own, check out some other science lessons he has made up: J Lessons. One of my favorites include a finger counting lesson.

Turkey Sail Cars

We're not huge on celebrating Thanksgiving (despite J and I being Mayflower descendants). I feel like kind of a Thanksgiving scrooge (we're not cooking a feast this year).

To reduce the scroogey feeling, I really wanted to do something Thanksgiving themed for science. I decided to adapt the toilet paper sail cars into a turkeymobile by adding a turkey to the mast!

Turkey details:
I remember from my elementary school days turning hand prints into turkeys. I traced J's hands, and we cut them out in yellow, orange, and red. Originally, I was going to add half of a toilet paper tube on top for a head and use the handprints as feathers behind the head, but J was so excited to make his thumb the head of the turkey. We went with J's idea (I think it's ultimately easier). He even gave it an eye and a beak.

J and his turkey:

Action shot!

J wants to bring to to his Thanksgiving themed share day (think Show and Tell) coming up on Wednesday. Score!

LEGO Race Car Purchasing and Lesson Information

Note: This post contains Amazon affiliate links, which means I get paid for clicks/purchases on the Amazon links (in term supporting my blog and future Science Saturdays).

Last summer, we had a Science Saturday where we experimented with race cars out we made out of LEGOs.

Using our Pepsi Refresh Grant, here was what we purchased to make our LEGO Race Cars for around 20-25 cars:
3 sets of LEGO Education Wheel Sets
1 set of LEGO Bricks & More Deluxe Brick Box
4 sets of LEGO Bricks & More Builders of Tomorrow Set

There were no instructions, we just let the kids build whatever kind of car they wanted (first come first serve on the size of wheels though, which affected the drive too). If they had time, they were encouraged to test  and redesign their cars to see if they could make them go faster and further down the ramp/landing strip.

We used particle boards as race car ramps and placed them at different heights. Quickly, the kids learned the biggest ramp yielded the most desirable results. The link above has a good rundown on how the experiment went with our friends. It was one of our most popular Science Saturday event and will most likely be repeated in 2014.

Impulse and packaging bubbles

J loves popping all of our packaging bubbles (luckily for him, we do a lot of online shopping). He has experimented with the most efficient and satisfying way to pop the bubbles. One day, I decided to record his tactics:

He figured out that popping works best with a quick jump on the bubble, but he had a hard time popping the bubbles with his hands? Why?

With jumping:
1. He gets all of his weight (and then some - biomechanics, yay!) on the bubble.
2. The time he exerts the force is short.

With his hands:
1. Not all of his weight is transferred to the bubble (ie, he's not doing a handstand on it). Some of his weight remains on the ground while his legs hold him up.
2. The time he exerts the force is a lot longer when he uses his hands (the bubble takes time to deforms before it pops).

What simple science experiments have you done this week?

Science Saturday: Halloween Goo!

We had our last Science Saturday of 2013 the weekend before Halloween and decided it would be most fun to celebrate Halloween with Goo! Here's the original silly putty science post. This Science Saturday activity was a repeat of this Silly Putty Science Saturday from last year.

I encouraged friends to dress up in Halloween costumes and then realized that it was going to get messy. Luckily, I found these disposable aprons on Amazon (affiliate link). We only had one casualty, an adult sweater sleeve, but I think he got enough goo out and it was recoverable.

In honor of the Halloween spirit, here's my Capt. Hook and Smee before the festivities:

We had fun mixing glue, liquid starch, and colors to make our silly putty. I'm still surprised about how much little kids love mixing colors and telling you what the combination of colors make. We had green, purple, orange, and all of the primary colors represented.

Our friends also had fun examining the physical properties of silly putty. If you pull it really fast, it rips pretty cleanly:

If you pull it slowly:

You can make a jump rope!

Thanks to everyone who showed up and had fun! I'm hoping to find a community room/center, so we can start Science Saturday back up in January or February (to make up for the 1-2 mo I'll be out of commission in the spring).

Does it dissolve?

We subscribed to the Magic School Bus Science Club when I found a half off coupon (making each kit ~$10/mo). J is a little young for the intended age group, but many of the experiments he can do with guidance. He gets so excited when he sees the Magic School Bus package on the doorstep. We usually do an experiment the following weekend (though we haven't done more than 1-2 before the next month arrives - they are saved for later use of course).

This month's experiment packet was on water. The experiment that we chose was Substances Dissolving in Water. We used their recommended mixtures and added another (see details of the experiment below). We also didn't use test tubes standing up in clay, as they recommended. Instead, we used custard bowls and mixed the substances with clean spoons.

Materials:
*6 custard dishes filled half way with water
*vegetable oil
*food coloring
*salt
*sugar
*sand

Hypotheses:
*Guess whether the material will dissolve (go away) when combined with water. A good way to think of it would be: can you separate out the material to get just water + material after you combined them? If you can't the material dissolved.

J's Hypotheses: Does the material dissolve?
*Water and oil: Yes
*Water and salt: No
*Water and sand: No
*Water and food coloring: Yes
*Water and sugar: Yes

Directions:
*Add a few drops of oil to one cup and stir.
*Add a few drops of food coloring to one cup and stir.
*Add a teaspoon of salt to one cup and stir.
*Add a teaspoon of sugar to one cup and stir.
*Add a teaspoon of sand to one cup and stir.
*Observe your matter. Did each one dissolve in water?
*Record your observations.

Results:
*Water and oil: No
*Water and salt: Yes
*Water and sand: No
*Water and food coloring: Yes
*Water and sugar: Yes

Oil at the top, water below (not dissolved)

J loved this simple science experiment. His hypotheses were all over the place, but now if he does this experiment in school, he'll know which material dissolves in water.

I can't wait to try other experiments from the Magic School Bus.

Melting Ice and Colors!

I've seen this activity a few places, but this ice and color lesson caught my attention on Pinterest last year.

I thought I'd share our experience with melting ice and colors and how we conducted the experiment. J had a great time, and he really directed the lesson. I was happy with how it turned out!

We tried to fill the ice cube trays with primary colors (red, blue, yellow) food coloring and then added the water, and it was a disaster. I rinsed out and started over. We filled our ice cube tray 1/2 full of water (to give us a little wiggle room putting into the freezer) and then added the primary food coloring drops (4 drops per cube). We stirred each color with its own spoon (so we didn't cross contaminate colors before we even started our experiment).

We froze the ice and then placed them into clear custard bowls. We put two ice cubes in each dish, making sure each of the colors mixed (yellow/blue, red/blue, red/yellow). J predicted/hypothesized what was going to happen in terms of colors using little note cards in front of each dish, using markers for his predictions of colors.

I particularly like the yellow, which didn't show up in the wide shot above (see close-up below). I also liked the purple heart and the orange pumpkin.

Now, let me warn you that cheap food coloring is hard to wash off of hands. Both J and I were dyed for a day or two (surprisingly, the clothes remained unscathed):

We let the ice sit through naptime and brought out the paint brushes to see if his hypotheses were correct. He was spot on with his predictions:

Now, J was thinking like a true scientist, "What if..." He wanted to know what would happen if he mixed all of the colors. He tried dipping his brush into all the colors and then painting, but that would just end up the color of the last color he dipped in. Grandma suggested doing dots of each color and spreading them around:

It made brown! However, J wasn't super satisfied or convinced. He wanted to combine all the colors into one big bowl.

He painted with it, and he ended up at the same solution: brown (see brown line above the red line, below)

I loved making this experiment our own, how simple it was, and how excited J got about experimentation.