Number Puzzles

We went to In N Out** earlier in the week (mainly because it's next to Costco and I didn't feel like cooking or stressing about dinner and shopping).  In N Out gives their younger guests stickers.  However, J was handed two sheets of stickers.   One of them was the standard stickers with palm trees and old fashioned cars.  The other sheet was what I thought was 100 times cooler.  It was a puzzle.  The pieces were the stickers, jumbled all on the backside. There was a number grid to stick the corresponding sticker on the other side.  To my surprise, J can recognize all 16 numbers and constructed the puzzle all by himself.

**You guys are going to think I'm a junkfood junkie!  Despite my posts about McD's straw rockets and now my praise for In N Out, we only do fast food once in a while.

Pi Day: you've been warned

Nerdy Holiday Alert!

As of right now, you have 2 weeks to plan your Pi Day celebrations.  Visit last year's run down of prepping for Pi Day and how our family celebrated Pi Day for some ideas.

Since I was a young kid, I always celebrated with pi(e).  My math club actually held a fundraiser a few weeks before so we can celebrate Pi Day the proper way.  It turned out to be a big thank you to the math tutors for volunteering their time rather than a true showing of nerdom.  However, I get very nostalgic towards Pi Day.  I feel it's a day your true nerd can shine, but I do feel that there should always be more to the holiday, like a figure, so to speak: Mathman, Pi-person, Circumference-to-diameter woman, maybe??  I'll keep thinking about it.  Whoever s/he is, s/he should come and leave calculators on desks, bake pi(e)s and pizza pi(e)s, and bless us with smarts till Pi Day of next year.

I'm excited that J is good at drawing circles now.  He's also really good at math, and he likes pie.  I'll probably end up bringing pie to his classroom again and talking a little bit about fractions: how many friends in the class, how many like or can eat pie, how many pieces should I cut the pie into, and as I serve it note when 1/4 and 1/2 of the pie is gone - how many people have received pie at that point?  Maybe, I can get them to recite Pi to a few decimal places.  That would be pretty nerdy.

I'd love to hear how you and  your family celebrate this nationally recognized holiday.

Nerdy Wedding

Photo by David G. Pickett

I went to a very small university for college.  The best part about it was that my professors had time for me and genuinely cared for my well being and future.  Yesterday, I received an email from my thermo prof/undergrad adviser checking-in and saying that she told the author of our thermo book about the pic back in the day and now the nerdy baby blog.

The story goes: As an engineering student, you have many hard classes/assignments that pull you together and closer to your classmates.  Big J and I were great friends starting the second semester of freshmen year, but it wasn't until junior year that we began dating.  We were spending lots of time together on homework, studying, projects, and procrastinating all of the above by talking about life, silly things, dreams, family background, etc.  Both of us were (well, still are) giant nerds, which was one of the traits I tell Big J that I love about him.  Fast forward two years.  We were still nerds and now planning a wedding.

Anyways, I said before, I was close to my profs, especially my thermo prof; I was close enough to babysit her two adorable kids all of the time.  Due to a recent move across country and two young kids at home, she couldn't make the trip to CA for the wedding.  I was sad, but I wanted her to know that she was there in spirit.  Luckily, our photographer was also in our thermo class and was totally in on my idea.  We decided to do a "Where's Waldo" type of game with the Thermo Book in the background of our wedding pictures.  The picture above was the most obvious one.  It was also behind us at the head table, on the DJ stand during our first dance, enjoying treats by the chocolate fountain, and our best man (also in our thermo class) gave his speech with the book in hand.  Ya, we're nerds, but it was fun.

Blue Pee, Not Really

Science fun with urine?  A new potty training technique?

We spent last weekend potty training J.  We also recently put a toilet tab in the tank to keep it cleaner longer; however, unlike our previous tabs, this one dyed our water blue.  I demonstrated how to use the potty, and when I stood up I heard a surprised,  "Mom, your pee is blue!"  I chuckled and responded, "No it's green, sweetie."  That's all I needed to jump start J to using the toilet!  J was so excited to make green water in the toilet (mixing yellow urine with blue water).  I love raising a little scientist.

Now, if you really want more potty experiments, eat lots of asparagus and see if your pee smells funny.  It seems as though not everyone has funny smelling urine after eating asparagus though, so see of you're a statistic.

Mayo Clinic has some answers to different color urine.  Food, drink, and medication can change urine color.  I'm not a big fan of changing diet to excessive to see what happens.  However, I did get called by day care once to be notified of J's bright red BM.  I had to admit that he had quite a bit of Red Velvet cake the day before.


**Please use good hygiene and wash your hands.
***I apologize to anyone offended by nature.  Everyone pees and poops, mommies just seem to talk about it more freely than others.

Balloon Rockets, part 2

As promised, Balloon Rockets, had a part 2.  Not only is it fun to watch balloons fly all over the room, it's fun to direct their path with strings.  What are we learning with this demo?  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction (Newton's Third Law).  The air escapes out of the balloon, propelling it forward.

Materials:

• Balloon(s) (balloon pump optional)
• String (we used embroidery floss and plain old cheap yarn)
• Straw piece
• Scotch tape

Set-up:

• Tie string to something immovable (we used a toy ride-in car and a plastic mug filled with laundry quarters, not shown).
• Put straw piece on string.
• Hold other end, making the string as tight as possible - slack in the string doesn't give good results.
• Blow up balloon, twist and pinch the end. 
• Attach balloon to straw with two pieces of Scotch tape.
• Count down and let go.
• Observe what happens!

Variations:

• Slack the rope (giving the other end of the string to the kid to hold will most likely do this).
• Try different sized balloons, note the differences.
• Try different shaped balloons, note the differences.
• Try different sized straw pieces.  Which size works the best?

Warnings:

• String the string across the room, above or out of the main walkway - or take down when not in use.  The string is very tempting for a young child and can cause injuries if not careful.

**Please excuse the apartment mess.  Our science workshop is in full gear.