Saturday night at dinner time had us conversing about our world. Somehow, the conversation was turned to, "What do you think will happen if we put ice in the fridge?" J, without hesitation, hypothesized that it would melt. Why? Because he's just that smart (intuition).
John and J put an ice in a cup and placed it in the fridge over night.
J checked on it during breakfast this morning and found that it wasn't completely melted! He was baffled. We left it in the fridge until lunch time, when it was found completely melted. They put another piece of ice in a cup and left if out between breakfast and lunch. That too was completely melted by lunch time.
Why did the fridge ice take longer to melt?
The temperature in the fridge was above freezing, so the ice would melt. It took a long time since the temperature in the fridge was in the high 30 (deg F) range. The air from the fridge did melt the ice. It was just slightly warmer than the ice itself, so it took a long time.
The temperature of the room (~72 deg F) was much higher than freezing point (32 deg F), so it didn't take as long to melt the ice cube.
Other things you can try with ice:
Melt an ice cube in front of a fan. Have one away from the fan to compare the two. What happened?
Record the temperature of various locations around your house (fridge, freezer, closet, patio, washing machine, etc.) with a thermometer and predict which ice cube will melt the fastest based on the knowledge you learned here. Place an ice cube in various locations and see if you're right!
Related Posts:
*Melting ice, measuring temperature
*Melting ice with colors
Everyday science for families with young children.
Showing posts with label physical science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label physical science. Show all posts
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Monday, January 6, 2014
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:
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.
Monday, October 21, 2013
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.
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.
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.
 |
| 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)
 |
| 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 22, 2012
Water surface tension - pennies in a cup
Note: We got the idea for this experiment from Science Play book by Jill Frankel Hauser.
I grew up with a scientist mom, and her favorite experiment was the drops of water on a penny to analyze surface tension of water. That's a little too hard for my 3 year old to do (I remember being somewhere around 7 for those experiments). So when I found the experiment with placing pennies in a cup of water, I figured it would work for J.
Now, being a scientist myself, I had questions of my own that weren't answered by the book, like how does temperature affect surface tension of water? I decided that could be our experiment.
To complete the experiment, I filled up clear plastic glasses with different temperature water (cold water from our fridge, cold water from the sink, hot water from the sink - ours comes out really hot!) almost to the top of the glass. While the glass was on the table, I used a clean medicine dropper to fill the glass to the brim. We started gently adding pennies, one at a time waiting for the water surface to be calm before we placed another one on there.
The adults showed J how to do it.
J was so excited to do it himself, but three year olds aren't super careful and like when things splash.
In general: as temperature increases, surface tension should decrease (making it harder to stick together). Our hypothesis (educated guess) was that the colder glasses of water would hold more pennies.
Our results:
Cold glass: 26 pennies (J)
Room temp glass: 25 pennies (Big J)
Hot glass: 18 pennies (Mommy)
Things to discuss:
*What shape does the water make after adding pennies?
*How many pennies did you get into the cup before it spilled?
*How did the temperature affect the surface tension in your experiment?
*Which cup of water held the most pennies?
*Repeat the experiment with different liquids (ex. juice or isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol -under extremely close adult supervision). How do the different liquids act when the pennies are placed in them? Why do you think that is?
Things that could have affected our results:
*Cups might not have been filled to the same levels.
*We didn't place the pennies in gently enough, causing a splash.
*Pennies weren't fully dry between cups (adding more water).
*Someone could have accidentally bumped the table (it happens with a three year old).
*Pennies had various amounts of dirt on them. A piece of grass ended up in the cold cup, which could have affected the experiment.
*Each person did pennies in a different glass. Ideally, we would repeat the experiment with the same user for all three glasses, but we're not that patient around here and everyone wanted a turn.
Happy experimenting!
I grew up with a scientist mom, and her favorite experiment was the drops of water on a penny to analyze surface tension of water. That's a little too hard for my 3 year old to do (I remember being somewhere around 7 for those experiments). So when I found the experiment with placing pennies in a cup of water, I figured it would work for J.
Now, being a scientist myself, I had questions of my own that weren't answered by the book, like how does temperature affect surface tension of water? I decided that could be our experiment.
To complete the experiment, I filled up clear plastic glasses with different temperature water (cold water from our fridge, cold water from the sink, hot water from the sink - ours comes out really hot!) almost to the top of the glass. While the glass was on the table, I used a clean medicine dropper to fill the glass to the brim. We started gently adding pennies, one at a time waiting for the water surface to be calm before we placed another one on there.
 |
| The set-up |
 |
| Water careful filled to the brim |
The adults showed J how to do it.
J was so excited to do it himself, but three year olds aren't super careful and like when things splash.
 |
| Gently add pennies 1 by 1 |
In general: as temperature increases, surface tension should decrease (making it harder to stick together). Our hypothesis (educated guess) was that the colder glasses of water would hold more pennies.
Our results:
Cold glass: 26 pennies (J)
Room temp glass: 25 pennies (Big J)
Hot glass: 18 pennies (Mommy)
Things to discuss:
*What shape does the water make after adding pennies?
*How many pennies did you get into the cup before it spilled?
*How did the temperature affect the surface tension in your experiment?
*Which cup of water held the most pennies?
*Repeat the experiment with different liquids (ex. juice or isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol -under extremely close adult supervision). How do the different liquids act when the pennies are placed in them? Why do you think that is?
Things that could have affected our results:
*Cups might not have been filled to the same levels.
*We didn't place the pennies in gently enough, causing a splash.
*Pennies weren't fully dry between cups (adding more water).
*Someone could have accidentally bumped the table (it happens with a three year old).
*Pennies had various amounts of dirt on them. A piece of grass ended up in the cold cup, which could have affected the experiment.
*Each person did pennies in a different glass. Ideally, we would repeat the experiment with the same user for all three glasses, but we're not that patient around here and everyone wanted a turn.
Happy experimenting!
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Airplane house - lesson on building tall and modifying designs
J pulled out his Duplos for the first time in forever and stated that he wanted to make an "airplane house", which I assumed was what I call a hangar (where the airplanes live, right?).
He built the tall structure (on the left) and started flying it around our house. He seriously meant an airplane house. Upon building the "tall tall" structure, J had a few balance issues. We discussed where to put blocks if it was leaning one way or the other. Once he got his airplane, I showed him what I thought he meant by airplane house (hangar), and he thought that was so much fun that the airplane almost fit under his airplane house. We modified his house slightly (adding a block of height and widening the legs - all by "trial and error") until the airplane fit in its house. J was so excited that he then built a train and a house for the train all by himself (to the right on the picture).
What I hope J took from this impromptu lesson:
- Hands-on experience building tall structures - balance, design, modifications, re-design, re-build.
- Spatial awareness - does the airplane fit? What can we do to make the airplane fit?
- When he tried to give the blue airplane a tall tail, we had a brief discussion about simple aerodynamics and why I thought the airplane wouldn't be able to fly in real life.
Thanks to J for showing me some fun, unexpected science this past weekend!
Monday, July 9, 2012
Make at home silly putty and no-cook playdough
I'm preparing for a fun visit to a local preschool. I was given the theme "Silly Lab" and free to do whatever came to mind. Immediately, I got a vision of little kids with gunk and goo. Sorry in advance, parents.
For J's 2nd birthday, we did a very non-toxic cornstarch based goo, and it was a hit, but it was VERY messy. I told the director that I'd try some homemade silly putty recipe this weekend and report back.
So here's the recipe for homemade silly putty that I went with. I actually found one with measurements, so I went with that: 2 cups Elmer's White Glue, 1 cup StaFlo (according to all sources it has to be the exact brands) + food coloring.
Combine ingredients into a plastic zip baggie. If you use 2 cups of glue + 1 cup StaFlo, use a quart size bag, as the sandwich bag was too small. I recommend 1 4oz bottle of glue + 1/4 cup StaFlo for something a little smaller (or even half that!).
Kneed, press, shake the bag. After a while, solids form. This is where you should start to get your hands dirty. We kneaded the mixture inside of the bag some more before pulling it out. We started stretching, folding, and kneading some more for about 15-30 minutes.
This made a giant amount of "silly putty"**.
I left it out all day to dry (on top of gallon plastic baggies since the putty picks up every piece of dirt/crumb), kneading it intermittently between my other Saturday duties/obligations. While we were meeting our new neighbors, I was kneading the mixture. The new neighbor's 3 and 5 yr old girls thought the putty was great! While I continued kneading, J and our two new friends divided half of my putty and started playing. They all seemed intrigued by the stringiness of the putty (all over the freshly cleaned carpets, I'm sorry :-( ).
**I'm disappointed that this is called "silly putty" hence the " " 's. It's a very similar texture to Nickelodeon Gak back in the day (yes, I dated myself) - it even makes the farting noise. I didn't point this out to my 3 year old boy yet. It's still great and has a lot of similar properties to silly putty (viscoelasticity). See below lesson for how to demonstrate this property to kids (if they don't figure it out on their own). After drying overnight (and getting a dry film on top that we removed since we didn't wake up every hour or two to knead it like we were doing during the day), it felt more like real silly putty, and it bounced a little, but not super high bounces.
Safety warning: though Elmer's is non-toxic, liquid starch, such as StaFlo, probably shouldn't be consumed. I don't see warning labels, but it has lots of chemicals. It's used to starch clothing, not for eating.
Side notes: stores are getting in back-to-school mode and you can get bottles of Elmer's glue for super cheap. 4oz bottles (1/2 cup glue) were $0.50, and I'm sure that's not the best deal out there. I was worried about where to find StaFlo. I searched online. Amazon does have it, but so does Walmart.com. However, the store locator for the item was not available. I decided to start my search for liquid starch at Walmart and succeeded (under $3 for a gallon in the laundry section).
We also did a simple homemade playdough recipe when the blog was a baby. It was cooked, which makes it hard for kids to do themselves. I found another no-cook playdough recipe on Cooks.com to try today. I substituted cream of tartar for alum (there was a comment that said in England they use c of tartar as a preservative, similar to alum - and I've seen it on other playdough recipes, so I did it too instead of buying alum). It's super salty (I didn't even use the full amount of salt) and gritty, but it'll work for this lesson.
Lessons to learn for this messy, silly lab:
Chemistry:
Measuring
Mixing different ingredients
Different chemical properties (viscoelastic, plastic)
Making a mess
Physical Science:
How do different materials react to different stresses?
Things to do to demonstrate:
*Slowing stretch or let the putty hang. What happens?
*What happens when you pull the putty apart quickly?
*Squish the putty into something (like a cup). Does it make any sounds?
*Which material keeps its shape when you squish it?
*What happens if you let the putty sit for a few minutes?
*Can the putty bounce? Can the playdough bounce?
J's quote: "It's like icky sticky bubble gum!" when referring to his first experience with the silly putty.
Related Posts:
For J's 2nd birthday, we did a very non-toxic cornstarch based goo, and it was a hit, but it was VERY messy. I told the director that I'd try some homemade silly putty recipe this weekend and report back.
So here's the recipe for homemade silly putty that I went with. I actually found one with measurements, so I went with that: 2 cups Elmer's White Glue, 1 cup StaFlo (according to all sources it has to be the exact brands) + food coloring.
Combine ingredients into a plastic zip baggie. If you use 2 cups of glue + 1 cup StaFlo, use a quart size bag, as the sandwich bag was too small. I recommend 1 4oz bottle of glue + 1/4 cup StaFlo for something a little smaller (or even half that!).
 |
| Glue |
 |
| We're not that patient |
 |
| Liquid Starch |
 |
| Food coloring |
Kneed, press, shake the bag. After a while, solids form. This is where you should start to get your hands dirty. We kneaded the mixture inside of the bag some more before pulling it out. We started stretching, folding, and kneading some more for about 15-30 minutes.
 |
| Mixing it together |
 |
| Kneading it |
 |
| Stretching it |
 |
| fun texture |
 |
| Sticky |
 |
| Is this what pulling taffy is like? |
 |
| This has to be my fave pic of the day |
This made a giant amount of "silly putty"**.
I left it out all day to dry (on top of gallon plastic baggies since the putty picks up every piece of dirt/crumb), kneading it intermittently between my other Saturday duties/obligations. While we were meeting our new neighbors, I was kneading the mixture. The new neighbor's 3 and 5 yr old girls thought the putty was great! While I continued kneading, J and our two new friends divided half of my putty and started playing. They all seemed intrigued by the stringiness of the putty (all over the freshly cleaned carpets, I'm sorry :-( ).
 |
| What's left after we shared with the neighbors - still drying |
**I'm disappointed that this is called "silly putty" hence the " " 's. It's a very similar texture to Nickelodeon Gak back in the day (yes, I dated myself) - it even makes the farting noise. I didn't point this out to my 3 year old boy yet. It's still great and has a lot of similar properties to silly putty (viscoelasticity). See below lesson for how to demonstrate this property to kids (if they don't figure it out on their own). After drying overnight (and getting a dry film on top that we removed since we didn't wake up every hour or two to knead it like we were doing during the day), it felt more like real silly putty, and it bounced a little, but not super high bounces.
Safety warning: though Elmer's is non-toxic, liquid starch, such as StaFlo, probably shouldn't be consumed. I don't see warning labels, but it has lots of chemicals. It's used to starch clothing, not for eating.
We also did a simple homemade playdough recipe when the blog was a baby. It was cooked, which makes it hard for kids to do themselves. I found another no-cook playdough recipe on Cooks.com to try today. I substituted cream of tartar for alum (there was a comment that said in England they use c of tartar as a preservative, similar to alum - and I've seen it on other playdough recipes, so I did it too instead of buying alum). It's super salty (I didn't even use the full amount of salt) and gritty, but it'll work for this lesson.
 |
| No cook playdough |
Lessons to learn for this messy, silly lab:
Chemistry:
Measuring
Mixing different ingredients
Different chemical properties (viscoelastic, plastic)
Making a mess
Physical Science:
How do different materials react to different stresses?
Things to do to demonstrate:
*Slowing stretch or let the putty hang. What happens?
*What happens when you pull the putty apart quickly?
*Squish the putty into something (like a cup). Does it make any sounds?
*Which material keeps its shape when you squish it?
*What happens if you let the putty sit for a few minutes?
*Can the putty bounce? Can the playdough bounce?
J's quote: "It's like icky sticky bubble gum!" when referring to his first experience with the silly putty.
Related Posts:
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