Everyday science for families with young children.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Kid friendly pumpkin carving
J's at an age where all of the holiday traditions start becoming fun! I really wanted him to get into pumpkin carving, but I wasn't sure of the knife aspect of pumpkin carving. Flashback ~8 yrs ago, my roommates and I found these cute pegs for pumpkins, Fright Lights; think Lite Brites but for pumpkins. I don't think I ended up with the pegs, but I bought new ones just in time for Halloween.
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| J's excitement builds as we open the pumpkin |
Ewww, gooey!
J's turn to feel the pumpkin guts
Pumpkin's clean, now time to tape on the pattern and poke holes, which will be used for hammering in the pegs.
Hammer time!
Almost done. Instead of whacking every which direction, J figures out he can press really hard on the hammer against the pegs. It worked well!
The finished product (the pattern came with the pegs)
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| Kid friendly pumpkin carving |
The happy carver!
Halloween light lesson: opaque, translucent, and transparent.
Pumpkins are opaque. Without carving them out, if you shine a light on them, you can't see the light through the other side of the pumpkin.
Light Pegs are translucent. Translucent items let some, but not all, light through. Another good example of this is a frosted glass shower door.
The carved part of the pumpkins are transparent. Light shines through transparent items, unblocked. Windows and clean glass are great transparent objects.
What happens if you change the quantity/quality of light?
Is it easier to see the pumpkin with the lights on/off?
Before carving, stick your lighting source in the pumpkin to see if you can see it. Can you see it when the lights are on or off?
How does the inside of a pumpkin feel?
Unplanned science lesson while prepping for the holidays? Check!
Happy Halloween!
Monday, October 29, 2012
Science Saturday - Pumpkin Catapults
This was the last Science Saturday of 2012 (mainly due to holidays), but it was fun to go out with a bang! Thanks to the families that came out! We had a beautiful morning in the park. I took some pictures of our friends and the craziness of having 10 catapults shooting at the same target, but I haven't gotten permissions from parents to post. Here's the non-identifiable rundown.
I took 10 minutes the night before to cut and paste some Halloween themed characters made out of construction paper onto the back of a 36-pack of Diet Pepsi (ya, I haven't quit my drinking habit) and made some arbitrary point system that the kids loved! Who doesn't love scoring 50 points vs 25 or 10? Yay, math!
And I arbitrarily set up three cones, which the kids moved throughout the day. As long as they were having fun, learning science, and not bored, I didn't really care where they shot their catapults from.
I covered a paper box with construction paper and drew a spider web to hold our ammo.
Here's our ammo of various sizes and weights; we also used candy corn pumpkins:
Big J and I spent the week before gluing sets of 3 Popsicle sticks together to use for the catapult structure and 5 Popsicle sticks for the launching stick, using wood glue - white glue works well too (both have to dry for ~24 hrs before applying load/playing). Catapult directions (note we only used 3 sticks instead of 4 for the structure sides to save Popsicle sticks and time and it worked well). Since we do these events at the park and there are times little kids grab things that are hot (be it knowingly/unknowingly), I invested in some Ultra Low Temp Battery Power Glue Guns. They worked well for the two hours we needed them. They use a lot of their "special" type of expensive glue sticks, but we didn't have burns or complaints. The batteries also pop out really easily, so I'd recommend taping the battery case shut. Also, since the glue doesn't do a great job (just a so-so job), I'd recommend reinforcing what you glued with masking tape.
Big and Little J launching pumpkins. Little J being a tad bit over dramatic.
A friend playing the target game.
We only had one friend who ventured outside of the example catapult design. He modeled his new design off of one Big J had 3D printed and brought to the event. I love it when kids challenge themselves.
Remember the science behind catapults? It's the transfer of energy, from elastic energy (which is a form of potential energy - it will potentially do something once you let go after stretching it) to kinetic (a fancy term for motion) energy.
Humans also need energy to "go" - can you name how we get our energy? Hint, it's not elastic.
I took 10 minutes the night before to cut and paste some Halloween themed characters made out of construction paper onto the back of a 36-pack of Diet Pepsi (ya, I haven't quit my drinking habit) and made some arbitrary point system that the kids loved! Who doesn't love scoring 50 points vs 25 or 10? Yay, math!
And I arbitrarily set up three cones, which the kids moved throughout the day. As long as they were having fun, learning science, and not bored, I didn't really care where they shot their catapults from.
I covered a paper box with construction paper and drew a spider web to hold our ammo.
Here's our ammo of various sizes and weights; we also used candy corn pumpkins:
Big J and I spent the week before gluing sets of 3 Popsicle sticks together to use for the catapult structure and 5 Popsicle sticks for the launching stick, using wood glue - white glue works well too (both have to dry for ~24 hrs before applying load/playing). Catapult directions (note we only used 3 sticks instead of 4 for the structure sides to save Popsicle sticks and time and it worked well). Since we do these events at the park and there are times little kids grab things that are hot (be it knowingly/unknowingly), I invested in some Ultra Low Temp Battery Power Glue Guns. They worked well for the two hours we needed them. They use a lot of their "special" type of expensive glue sticks, but we didn't have burns or complaints. The batteries also pop out really easily, so I'd recommend taping the battery case shut. Also, since the glue doesn't do a great job (just a so-so job), I'd recommend reinforcing what you glued with masking tape.
Big and Little J launching pumpkins. Little J being a tad bit over dramatic.
A friend playing the target game.
We only had one friend who ventured outside of the example catapult design. He modeled his new design off of one Big J had 3D printed and brought to the event. I love it when kids challenge themselves.
Remember the science behind catapults? It's the transfer of energy, from elastic energy (which is a form of potential energy - it will potentially do something once you let go after stretching it) to kinetic (a fancy term for motion) energy.
Humans also need energy to "go" - can you name how we get our energy? Hint, it's not elastic.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Pressure and water painting
Big J pulled this from the same book as our modified penny in a cup, surface tension experiment, Science Play by Jill Frankel Hauser, but again, we modified it for our family. Being not big into messes (and having a somewhat mischievous boy), we don't stock paint in the house. However, we have TONS of construction paper, and water "paints" very well on construction paper.
The objective of this lesson was to demonstrate pressure and see what it does to water. Big and Little J put a large drop of water on the construction paper and blew through a straw to see how the water reacted. We noted the direction of the water spray.
Then Big J decided to put two similar sized dots of water on the construction paper (close to his hands).
He gave the one on our right (his left) a little blow (barely blowing) and blasted the one on our left (his right) with a big blow. Can you tell how the water drops reacted to his experiment?
J gave it a try too.
Then he decided water painting was much more fun. Yay, for construction paper absorbing water!
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| Hand prints using water on construction paper |
Then Big J decided to put two similar sized dots of water on the construction paper (close to his hands).
He gave the one on our right (his left) a little blow (barely blowing) and blasted the one on our left (his right) with a big blow. Can you tell how the water drops reacted to his experiment?
J gave it a try too.
Then he decided water painting was much more fun. Yay, for construction paper absorbing water!
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Happy Mole Day!
What kind of science loving nerd would I be if I didn't wish you Happy Mole Day! Too bad it's a little late. Maybe I'll be more on top of my game next year.
On Mole Day, we celebrate Avogadro's number, which is 6.02x10^23. Some people celebrate it at 6:02 in the morning of 10/23.
What is a mole? It's a unit consisting of 6.02x10^23 somethings (that's a lot of somethings!).
In 10th grade chemistry, we celebrated by making cute little moles (see above). Mine was Super Mole, but just recently lost his cape after he became a toy for the 3-year old. He saved the world 6.02x10^23 times, if I remember right. I also made a Mole Kent who had a super awesome telephone booth where he changed to become Super Mole. My little sister reincarnated Mole Kent to Whoopi Moleberg, who was then saved by her chemistry teacher (not sure what her mole consisted of - remind me, Julie?).
What's the whole point of Mole Day?? To remember the number! 10/23 falls relatively early in the school year, and it's a number chemistry students frequently need to use, so it works very well. I can still state the number 15 years after celebrating my first Mole Day. Thanks, Dr. Mr. P (my high school chem teacher)!
There's no real set way to celebrate. We made cute moles and gave them stories. I hear a lot about eating guacamole on Mole Day (but we're picky eaters and green paste isn't on our list of things we eat).
How do/did you celebrate Mole Day?
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