Fizzy Water Fun

Did you know you can make your own carbonated water without dry ice?  It's so easy.  All you have to do is mix water, juice, or any other drink, and add equal portions of baking soda and citric acid.  We mixed it with Tang a few months ago and it was tasty.  It changes the flavor of the water a wee bit, so you don't want to add too much.  Experiment until you find a good consistency. Apparently this is how everybody did it back in the 50's.  It's a lost art, I guess.
In this video we mixed 1/2 teaspoon of each to the cylinder.  We got the idea from Steven Spangler's Big Bag Of Science.

Ride on the Magic School Bus

My kids are CRAZY about this show.  We bought the complete series for Christmas, and bar none, it was their favorite item.  They prefer this show over any of our Disney movies.  And because I like it too, I let them watch it.  Well, it's permeated our family life.

How do I know?

My two-year-old starts each day with "Good morning, class."

My four-year-old is our safety queen when we get in the car.  "Single file please."  "Seatbelts everyone!"

My 5-year-old knows he's funny because he has started quoting Carlos' jokes.  All the time.  Only, they usually don't fit.  But because Carlos said it, it must be funny, right?  I laugh because I know this is his thought process.  But he takes it further.  He has started making his own acronyms like Carlos.  For example, he asked me a few days ago, "Mommy, did you know that plants need CD?"  Huh?  I'm wondering if "seed-ie" is some kind of Peter language talk for seeds.  He was so pleased when I didn't get it and he could deliver his punchline-  "Carbon Dioxide!"

But it's not just my kids.  I am changing too.  I absolutely love and admire Ms Frizzle.  I am saying things like "It's time to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy."  "Ah, excellent observation, Helen, blah blah blah", in Frizzle fashion.  And before I answer (they know I'll get to it), I say, "Excellent question, anyone care to guess?"  Haha, I've been frizzled, all right.

As I've watched the show, I know more and more that it's not just her enchanting bus with it's Mesmerglober, her porta-shrinker, her amazing house, her deep bag Mary Poppins must have given her, or even her crazy outfits and glowing earings that make her special.  Ms Frizzle is a first-class teacher and I am trying to learn from her.

When her kids argue, she doesn't just barge in and stop it.  She creates an environment where the children will learn better behavior on their own.  When children ask questions, she gives them a hands-on experience to answer it.  When things go wrong, she is always optimistic.  "Ah, don't you just love it when that happens?  Now we can learn about...."    She is kind.  She keeps her kids safe (somehow.  gee, I would love to know how she does that in a volcano, an oven, or in an airplane without power).  She's not afraid to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy BECAUSE she understands that this is the way that children learn.  The best part of all is that she takes her kids on field trips.  Homeschooling shouldn't all be in the house.  I need to be better at that.

Yes, I can learn a lot from Ms. Frizzle.  Yes, children, you may watch another episode while I make dinner.  But just one.  Let's use it as a springboard and learn more about it together.

The Electric Universe (or Plasma Cosmology)

Warning:  Contents of this post challenge mainstream science, and the ideas are really “out there”.   A paradigm shift in how you view the universe may result if, like me, you believe them.  I share this on my blog because it may be a scientific theory of interest.  It is what I plan on teaching my own children.

As always, take what you want and leave the rest.  I have been addicted to a study of the electric universe over the last couple of months, and for those who have never heard of it, well, here’s your chance to become aware.  At the very least, it is an emerging scientific theory to be aware of.  This post is also long.  It takes an essay to present a case like this.  I’ve referenced some YouTube videos you can skip to if that’s more to your liking.

For me, finding this information was like finding the missing puzzle piece in my scientific view of the world.  From a Christian perspective, I believe that the world was created during a relatively short period of time.  From an LDS perspective (this is not a religious post, bare with me), I have been taught that the earth once orbited a different sun, and that as a result of the fall, the earth was sent to this solar system.

Mainstream science tells us that the solar system evolved over millions of years, and the Earth’s place within it has likewise been constant.

Mainstream science once told us that the earth was flat.  Then it was the center of the universe.  Now gravity, dependent on the mass of an object, governs the role of celestial bodies.  The only problem with that assumption is that, while it works perfectly within our own solar system, scientists have been at a loss to explain the phenomena we are now viewing in deep space.  If gravity is based on mass, then there must be massive objects, such as black holes, holding galaxies together.  Well, that was fine at first, but then black holes didn’t behave the way they should, and not only “dark matter”, but “dark energy” was hypothesized.  Given this “blank check” variable as they explain the universe, they have placed these mysterious, unseen elements anywhere they want to make the math work.  Now, only roughly 5% of the universe’s mass is the matter that we can actually see.  If you do a crossword puzzle and the last word just doesn’t fit, do you change the spelling of your word, or do you go back and see if you made a mistake somewhere else?

Here's an interesting video on mathematical vs empirical science:  (no offense to mathematics of course.  I love math)

In the Electric Universe, electricity, not mass, governs the universe.  Scientists who support this theory have recreated in the laboratory on a small scale exactly what we are seeing on a large scale in the cosmos.  Is science based on mathematics, or on the scientific method, a key element of which is experimentation?

For more information on the electric universe, www.thunderbolts.info is a central hub for the scientists involved in this study.  For media resources, check this page out:

http://www.thunderbolts.info/mmarchives/index.htm.

Also, their “picture of the day” is an active, growing resource you can use with your kids.  The following is their hour-long introduction to the theory, entitled "Thunderbolts of the gods"

Immanuel Velikovsky is the original author to introduce the idea to society in the 50’s.  His ideas were VERY controversial, but nevertheless entertaining to read so the books did well.  His research was not based on science as much as ancient texts from around the world.  He suggested that the myths and legends should be taken literally, and that the world over, the legends could be explained by catastrophic events witnessed in the heavens.

Video introducing Velikovsky:

Velikovsy held that Saturn was once a star, and the earth it’s natural satellite.  Saturn entered our solar system and became Sol’s satellite.  For a brief period, Saturn, Venus, Mars, and the Earth were aligned in the same orbit.  Then something happened to disrupt that orbit and a “war in heaven”,  played by these planets, commenced.  Then each settled into their own orbits.  Yes, that sounds really far out, but as I have researched the ancient beliefs of different cultures, this story really does appear in the ancient texts, and the electric universe can explain the science behind it.

Take for example, the pagan celebration of Saturnalia, from which many of our Christmas traditions have sprung.  To this day, Pagans hold that Saturn once ruled in the sky, which was a Golden Age for man.  Then Jupiter overcame Saturn, and Saturn was forced to sleep for a time, falling from it’s place in the sky.  The Saturnalia celebration wakens Saturn for a week, in an effort to mimic that golden age (producing instead, in many cases, riotous behavior).  It is also a celebration to remember that one day Saturn will waken and return, creating a new golden age.

But it’s not just the Pagans.  Look at the ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Aztecs, and the various Asian religions.  It’s all there if you’re willing to dig for it.  Since Velikovsky, many scientists have looked into the electric universe, and his work is gaining popularity in the scientific world, especially as we learn more about deep space.

What about the LDS perspective?  Did you know that there are Saturn stones on the Salt Lake City temple?  Why?  mormonprophecy.blogspot.com offers compelling answers.  Here’s a video appetizer:

Nothing about this scientific theory is contrary to the gospel.  In fact, Velikovsky is referenced in the CES Old Testament manual on the creation:

“Although the majority of geologists, astronomers, and other scientists believe that even this long period is not adequate to explain the physical evidence found in the earth, there are a small number of reputable scholars who disagree. These claim that the geologic clocks are misinterpreted and that tremendous catastrophes in the earth’s history speeded up the processes that normally may take thousands of years. They cite evidence supporting the idea that thirteen thousand years is not an unrealistic time period. Immanuel Velikovsky, for example, wrote three books amassing evidence that worldwide catastrophic upheavals have occurred in recent history, and he argued against uniformitarianism, the idea that the natural processes in evidence now have always prevailed at the same approximate rate of uniformity. These books are Worlds in Collision, Ages in Chaos, and Earth in Upheaval. Two Latter-day Saint scientists, Melvin A. Cook and M. Garfield Cook, have also advocated this theory in their book Science and Mormonism. A short summary of the Cooks’ approach can be found in Paul Cracroft’s article “How Old Is the Earth?” (Improvement Era, Oct. 1964, pp. 827–30, 852).”

(https://www.lds.org/manual/old-testament-student-manual-genesis-2-samuel/genesis-1-2-the-creation?lang=eng)

So there, in a nutshell, is a different approach to cosmology, the king of sciences.  I am now a believer in this theory, and this is what I will be teaching my children.  Like evolution, they cannot avoid learning about and being aware of the mainstream sciences, but I am so excited to have a concrete resource to teach them which supports creational science.  I’ve been looking for this my whole life.  I hope that this can be of some interest to you as well.

Tamsyn Spackman

Dissecting a Diaper

Yesterday my children and I dissected a diaper.  After we opened the diaper and pulled out the cotton, I showed my children how the outer layer is waterproof by pouring tap water into it.  Then I remembered that I have a blog, and pulled out my camera...

Let's dissect a diaper.  First we cut open a disposable diaper, pulled out all of the cotton, and placed it in a gallon-sized zip-lock bag. The children kneaded the bag until the powder separated from the cotton.

We put the cotton in one bowl, and the powder in the other.  I asked my son which would be more absorbent, the cotton or the powder.  He voted for cotton.  Let's find out!

Then we filled our 2 ounce shot glasses with water.  Then we colored it with food coloring.  The children loved to help mix the water.

We poured ten ounces of liquid in the cotton bowl, then decided that there was too much of the polymer-gel still in the cotton to make it a real contest.

It's time to get messy!  The polymer gel was a lot of fun.  After pouring 18 ounces into the powder, it felt very wet and squishy, but still it absorbed all of the liquid.  We stopped at this point because the children were getting it all over the floor.  I was surprised at how easy it was to sweep up.

Look at the texture!

This experiment was inspired by this video:

Disclaimer: Elsewhere on this blog I praise cloth diapering. This is true, about 95% of the time we use cloth diapers, but I love disposable diapers when we travel, or if I get behind in my laundry. :o)

Celery Experiment

You have seen this experiment before:  Place celery in colored water to see how celery draws water from its bass to the roots.  I have been wanting to do this with my children for some time, but it seems like we always eat the celery before we get around to doing it.  Last time I prepared ants on a log, I realized that the center of the celery would be perfect for the experiment.  We chose red, but in the future I will use blue because the red mostly makes the leaves look brown, but blue has more prominent results.

Using the base of the celery, and not just individual stalks was really interesting.  The celery drinks from the outside edge only, and not from the center.  I didn't know that, but it makes a lot of sense, because that is where the rain water would most likely be.  Perhaps this is also why the center stalks in celery are more yellow and the outside are more green, the outside stalks get more water.  Maybe we will find out in a future experiment. 

We also cut the stalks and showed the colored strands where the water had traveled to the leaves.  My children loved this experiment.

Color mixing experiment

We did an experiment yesterday that was inspired by The Wonder Years.  The ingredients are simple:  Milk (2% or Whole), soap, and food coloring. 

Pour the milk into a bowl and add food coloring.

Then dip a cotton swap in the soap and dip it into the milk to see what happens.  There are YouTube videos that show how to do this.  I have to admit that I didn't get it when we did the experiment, and we added the soap to the milk first.  Oops.  The results were still very pretty, and my children loved it.  My daughter is sitting on my lap looking at these pictures while I'm typing and saying "Milk!  Neat!"

Luckily there is still some rotten milk in our fridge, so we are going to try this experiment again today.  Add the soap last!!

Quick-growing crystals

I give full credit for this experiment to Home Science Tools.  Click their link to see the science behind the experiment, and for more crystal-growing ideas.

For this experiment we needed:

·                    1/2 cup Epsom salts

·                    Food coloring

·                    1/2 cup hot tap water

·                    A refrigerator

Mix the Epsom salts with hot tap water and color the water any color you want.  Then refrigerate them and see what happens after a few hours.  We made ours in the morning and took these pictures at dinner-time.

With my son's recent obsession with Superdog, I'm going to revisit this experiment and make red and green kryptonite with him.  You could make a whole crystal garden if you wanted to!

Mommy, what happens to fish in the winter?

Well, it's a good thing that ice floats, or they would all be dead.  Luckily, what happens is that they just keep swimming and and living during the winter as they do in the summer, but the lake freezes on top.  Yesterday we illustrated this with a tasty treat, albeit with foods containing food coloring and corn syrup, which are usually avoided in this house.
We made blue jello and added Swedish fish.  If you add them right away, they will all sink to the bottom, so it's best to let the jello set a couple of hours before adding them.  My husband is the one who put the fish in, and he said that after some experimentation, the cleanest way to put the fish in was to make a slit in the jello with a butter knife and then push the fish in with the knife.  When the jello was ready we pulled it out compared our treat to fish in a lake during the summer.

In the winter, the surface of the lake sometimes freezes, and then is covered in snow.  If the ice is strong enough, people sometimes go ice fishing.  Our snow and ice was demonstrated with whip cream.  The children loved it!

Snow density

Here is a simple experiment that we adapted for our preschooler.  When we had a blizzard last December, in addition to making snow cones with juice concentrate, we filled our graded measuring cup so that there was about 2 cups of unpacked snow.  We talked about how snow is made of water, and that when the snow melts it will take up less space.  This means that it will have less volume.  We also talked about how some snow is more dense than others, and that this snow was especially light and fluffy.  It was an introduction to the vocabulary and concepts and he seemed to think that it was interesting.  I am going to do this experiment next time it snows and compare the results.

Volcanoes

Ah yes, the classic science experiment of pouring vinegar over baking soda for a chemical reaction. This is one of my children's favorite activities to do. I have a pie tin set aside to catch the results, and a baby bottle that we use as a volcano.
The volcano was actually a tool that I used to teach my son his colors. I use white vinegar, and pour it into a clear shot glass. We would then talk about our chosen color and add a few drops of food coloring to the vinegar. For green, orange, and purple, and brown, we mixed primary colors. It was the volcano that taught my color the concept of "clear" also.
When I was a child, we made several volcanoes out of salt dough. We molded the dough around a baby-food container or small glass baby bottle, and then baked it in the oven to make it permanent. My brother once made a whole dinosaur landscape which included a volcano. After the baking, he painted the scene with tempera paints. Then my mom helped him hot-glue small plastic trees and shrubbery to the scene.
Whether the simple experiment is a launching pad for discussion of colors, dinosaurs, volcanoes, or chemistry, the baking soda and vinegar reaction is bound to remain a favorite.

Flying Machine

Of Flying Moterhomes

 If you run into my son at the grocery store and are polite enough to give him eye contact, he is sure to tell you about one of the features of his flying moterhome. "I have a flying moterhome, and it has boosters that make it go really fast…"
Where he got the idea, or why it has so captivated his young imagination, I am not sure, but whatever it was, he's hooked. Suddenly blimps and spaceships are variants of his mot erhome, and we begin seeing the world with different eyes.
Flying machines are actually very common in children's media. Just think about the house inUp, the blimp in Kiki's Delivery Service,, the make-shift balloon-flag in The Great Mouse Detective, or the many hot-air balloons attached to boats that make their appearances in the Saturday morning cartoons. All of them captured the imagination of my son.

 

Creating our own flying machine

After hearing, "I want a flying moterhome" every day for several weeks, I contemplated how I might give him one. The answer for us was to make our own flying machine out of paper and helium balloons.
Our boat was made from the comic section of the paper, attached to four balloons. To make it "sea worthy", we connected a fifth line to make an "anchor", which was tied to a heavy toy so that the children wouldn't accidentally send our craft on any un-wanted adventures.
For hours that day the flying machine traveled through the air, carrying whatever small toys that were light enough to enjoy a ride.

 

 

 

Feeding the flame

Children learn best through play. When teaching moments accompany something that they are interested in, their ability to focus and retain knowledge is increased.
While playing with our "flying machine" we discovered which toys could fly in the boat. He solidified the concepts of heavy and light as he experimented with different toys. He learned that four balloons will carry more than two.
  He also learned about origami. On day two of our flying exploration, as our boat sank to the ground, my husband helped me make lighter ships, carried by two balloons, and doubling the fun. I will post a video soon on how to fold paper boxes like the pictured posted on the right.
When my children are older I want to repeat the experiment with a scale. We will weigh how much one balloon can carry and make predictions for how much weight two balloons can carry. How many balloons will it take to carry a marble? A toy car? A plush toy? Will a bigger balloon carry more? How much more? How many balloons would it take to carry a house? What about a person? Has it been done before? (Yes! check out http://www.couchballoons.com/ )
Happy Flying Everyone!

Play Dough Nature Display

For this activity, help your child gather a collection of nature items such as grass, leaves, pebbles, twigs, whatever the child may wish to display.Then make a simple salt dough solution. The recipe I use is

• 1 cup flour
• ½ cup salt
• ½ cup water
• Food coloring, optional

I have found that play dough is much easier to color if you add the food coloring to the water before adding it to the salt and flour. In this picture you can see how evenly the blue color is throughout the play dough. Some of the batches I have made were not so clean. Of course I have to add a disclaimer here; Peter was very eager to play with the dough and dumped it out before we were done mixing it. That's all part of the experience!
After the dough is made, add the different nature items and create a display for them. For a two year old, you will probably have a finished product similar to the display pictured. It is all about the journey, and not the destination! For older children, you can suggest something more artistic, by pressing different textures individually in their own space, or you could roll the dough out and use the nature items to make a picture.
For a display case, I used a cardboard box that had food storage cans in it. You could use a shoe box lid, an egg carton, a paper plate, or anything else you have lying around the home. If the project is worth keeping, set it out to dry for about a week. Do not bake this project! It will spoil the leaves and grass. Enjoy your nature display!

Periscope Toy

Sometimes it seems like my children's favorite toys are the ones I have made for them. This one was very simple, and came from Smart Toys: For Babies for Birth to Two. Materials I used

• 3 empty paper towel rolls
• Small shipping box (the book recommended a shoe box)
• A mat knife and painting tape

Note that there are no mirrors, so technically this is not a true periscope, but that's okay.  Cut an Three ovals the same width as the paper towel rolls on the top of the box and adjust to fit. Cut smaller ovals around the bottom and push the paper-towel rolls through. In the book, it recommended covering the box with contact paper to make it cute, but I knew that it the toy wouldn't last forever and would be "loved" in the trying ways young children love their toys, so I spent very little time making the box look cute, and focused on its purpose- a device to roll small balls through.

The children have really loved this toy, and tested it with much more than just marbles. Some toys fit, some didn't. Some traveled the tube quickly, others didn't. The book recommended rolling a jingle bell through so that you could hear it traveling, and so I hope to try that when I can get my hands on one.
The hardest part of making the toy was waiting for the paper towel rolls to be empty, and preserving them long enough to have three. Total construction time: about 20 minutes. This activity is best for 1-2 year olds. Have fun!

Moon Craters

Moon craters is another activity I have adapted from Smart Toys: For Babies from Birth to Two. Although my construction of the project varied from the author's plan, I have to admit that cutting small holes on the bottom of egg cartons for the children to poke their fingers through was pure genius. My children love it!
Step One
Cut out the bottom tips of an egg carton, as well as 12 (or 6 if you use a smaller carton) cardboard circles to fit inside.
Step Two
Find 12 different textures around your home for your child to feel. Pictured below are my examples, left to right.

• Crumpled tin foil on the bottom, craft foam on top. (I only did this because I ended up with 13 textures after I had glued them all and I didn't know which one to eliminate. Silly, I know).
• Soft side of leather
• Thick foam (leftover from our crawling track)
• Thin foam
• Shiny cloth
• Sandpaper
• (bottom row)Felt
• Denim scrap
• 3 cotton balls
• Rough cleaning pad
• Skin side of leather
• Rabbit Fur (my daughter's favorite!)

Step Three Trace, cut out, and hot glue the textured pieces to the cardboard circles. Step Four Hot glue the circles into the carton(pictured below). In the book they simply told you to tape them in, but since I had the gun out anyway, I decided this would work equally well. One of my circles has fallen in, however, so if I did it again, I would do both.

Step Five Seal the carton closed. Once again I simply glued it shut. Closing the carton prevents the children from trying to tear the circles out of the carton, and focuses the attention on the "moon craters".

Closing Remarks

I have to laugh because this book referred to the game as a "digital" experience. I am so accustomed to having "digital" refer to computers, but this book is 30 years old, and at that time one would instantly think of your fingers when you hear the word. Indeed, this is a very digital activity, and the little holes are very inviting to little fingers. Also, I want to share a great astronomy unit study page for moon craters that would be applicable to preschool children if you want to take it to the next step. The construction took me roughly two hours to complete, gathering a scrap here and there, and finally sitting down to complete it when I felt I had enough textures. It was worth it. I had all of the materials around the home so I didn't have to buy anything. The children love it! Of course, Michael's rabbit fur he won when he was a boy scout doesn't look as pretty as it once did, but that's another story...

Marshmallow Buildings

The marshmallow buildings project is a little bit advanced for the two-year-old, but I still think he got a lot out of watching his parents, and I know he enjoyed eating our creations! Marshmallows are not the most nutritious snack foods out there, and I have heard of families successfully doing this project with cubed apples, carrots, celery, and if you don't want to eat it, modeling clay.

Basic Shapes

Begin by making traditional shapes like the triangle, square, and pentagon. Show them that the smaller the shape, the more stable it is. The triangle is by far the sturdiest shape. Challenge them to notice how the triangle is used in buildings, playground equipment, bridges, and other structures for support. Challenge them to build structures with the marshmallows and toothpicks and to make them stable.

The cube is fairly stable but is still a little bit wobbly. The tent is fairly stable. By adding a "roof" to the cube, it becomes much more stable.

The square pyramid was used by ancient civilizations, and has stood the test of time. In fact, of the seven ancient wonders of the world, the great pyramid of Giza is the only one that still stands. Discuss reasons why this is so. The strength of the pyramid is certainly a large part of it, although war, conquest, and climate also have a role to play. The seven wonders were

• Great Pyramid of Giza
• Hanging Gardens of Babylon
• Statue of Zeus at Olympia
• Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
• Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
• Colossus of Rhodes
• Lighthouse of Alexandria

This triangle pyramid is called a regular tetrahedron, which means that all four sides are equilateral triangles.

Marshmallow buildings and towers

Building a playground
Now if your child feels ambitious, here is a fun project. If you have built a gingerbread house, this playground equipment would be a fine addition. I got the idea to make this structure from Disney's Family Fun magazine, only they made it with rolled up newspaper connected with a stapler. This structure was big enough for children to sit under, and it looked like a lot of fun.

To make the playground, you will essentially need two septagons (7-sided shape), connected to each other by way of the triangle. The best way to make it is to build half of the fence twice and then connect them together to make a circle.

Then poke a toothpick in each upper marshmallow and connect them together in the center. They will stand on their own, but to add more support, I added a "tent pole" in the middle with a marshmallow base. This made the top go higher instead of lower than the fence. Count all of the triangles! See more marshmallow buildings at this blog.