Gravity, motion, speed and distance!

It's funny how sometimes a simple play idea started by the kids can end up in a very cool science investigation.  That's exactly what happened here... while my parents and I were outside enjoying a coffee, the kids amused themselves.  This is where their little thinking minds took them...

It started off with some old pipes my dad had in the backyard.  The kids started randomly playing with them.  Then they found the macadamia nuts that had fallen off the tree and onto the ground.  Put the two together and this is what they found...!

They rolled the macadamia nuts through the pipe slow and fast - testing how hard they needed to roll it so that it didn't get stuck in the middle of the pipe... Look how busy they both are!

Then they leaned the pipes against the garden bed.  They rolled the macadamia nut through the pipe... Then E excitedly exclaimed to N - "Look! I don't have to roll it I can just put it there and it rolls itself!"  They were so excited they stayed on this for a very long time.

They tried to see if the macadamia nut could move magically through a bend. 10 points for persistence! Obviously it didn't work but I love how they are thinking!

And back to a flat pipe - this time it was a game of which macadamia nut rolled the furthest?

And what happens if they put the pipe vertically?

 

And another creative thought - what happens if I blow on the nut, will it make it go faster? LOL LOVE!!!

Who would have thought one little play idea could result in such a cool investigation? So many things were covered - distance, speed, gravity and motion! 

The best bit about this experiment - the language.  When asked what they were doing, N excitedly told us, "First, you need to get the pipe. Then you need to get a nut and roll it through! It's fun, mummy!" Whoa! A recount from a 2 and a half year old - they learn these in Kindergarten!! (So proud! :))

Exploding Lunch Bag

For those of you who know my kids well, they frequently (always) get into the kitchen, take out different equipment or ingredients and ask (demand) if they can make something.  Last week it was a banana and honey smoothie in the blender - end result was this smoothie for 2... or perhaps for 15!

This week it was the bicarb of soda.  They wanted to make a volcano again... You can imagine my delight when - just five minutes before lunch is ready, I'm finishing the cooking and setting the plates - I hear (on repeat) "I want to make a volcano.. I want to make a volcano.. Muuuumm, I want to make a volcano!" Perfect timing, kids! Thanks!

 It's been a while since we've worked with bicarb so I thought why not?

 

All you need for this one is:
One small zip lock bag
Bicarb of soda
Warm water
Vinegar
Measuring cup
Vinegar

You will need to do this outside - it gets a little messy... and if it's not a good day outside then do it in the kitchen sink or the bath!

Pour 1/4 Cup of warm water into a bag.

Add 1/2 a cup of vinegar into the bag.

Lay the tissue out flat.  Put in 3 teaspoons of bicarb of soda into the middle of the tissue.

Wrap the tissue around the bicarb of soda - only do this lightly - it will help buy you time when you combine the bicarb to the water/vinegar mixture.

Now really quickly zip up the bag and watch what happens!  These pictures were taken the first time we tried the experiment - it didn't work as well as we had hoped but it sure was fun!

 

 

The mixture started fizzing up ...

 

 

The bag started expanding...

 

And expanding - until it got really firm to touch...

 

The kids were so excited but really scared so they kept on running away, waiting for it to explode...

 

Then they ran back to it to see if it did explode...

Until finally we realized the bag had popped - just not how we thought it would! A small hole in the bag- created either by a blade of grass or the fact that the bag had expanded so much that it had ripped the bag.

We did try this experiment again - this time I shook the bag quickly after adding the tissue and bicarb  to the water/vinegar mixture and threw it on the ground (not the grass).  It exploded much more quickly and the boys were absolutely going crazy at what happened - they loved it! If I had more camera battery I could have shown you their faces - they loved it!

Nothing like a little Chemistry to please the senses! What happens inside the bag?  The baking soda and the vinegar eventually mix and when they do mix, you create an acid base reaction and the two chemicals work together to create a gas, (carbon dioxide - the stuff we breathe out). It turns out gasses need a lot of room and the carbon dioxide starts to fill the bag, and keeps filling the bag until the bag can no longer hold it any more and, POP!

Thanks, Science Bob for this cool experiment!

Caution: Men At Work!

The thing about kids is you never know what is going to happen until you actually try it. Take this investigation, for example... I thought it could either go really well, and the kids would get really into it, or it could go really bad and they would have no idea and it will all be a waste of time. Sometimes you've just got to bite the bullet and give it a go.  In this case - it went both ways... what I wanted them to do was similar to what they did, but their version of it was just as fun!

So my thought process was this. The other week we did the "Build A Bridge" experiment.  It went really well with E, but not so well with N. He was a little young to understand the concept of "Design and Make". That being said, it has renewed his interest in bridges and always talks about them now. So I wanted to do another investigation that involved bridges.

What you need:

• 3 or 4 pieces of Cardboard or thick paper - each one folded a different way.  One was just a flat strip of cardboard. One was a corrugated piece (zigzag).  One was an arch (you can see a better example of the arched bridge we used in  another picture.  The final one was a girder shape (picture of the girder shape is next to this picture).   

 

• 2 cups the same size
• Plastic counters to act as "cars" ... We started off using beads (with flat bottoms), then changed to slices of carrots

First I showed the kids how the two cups were the pylons for the bridge.  I asked them to use the cardboard pieces to build a bridge that holds lots of cars.

Here's how it went...

 

They used each piece of cardboard separately first, then placed the beads on their bridge to see if it would hold.

 

The more beads or carrots their bridge held, the more excited they got. 
However, the more beads their bridge held the more likely they all fell off so we had to change our "cars".  We decided to use chopped up carrot pieces instead!

(I like to think of this as a creative cheat! hahaha)!

The sticky tape came out and pretty soon they were both creating their own bridges using a few of the different examples I had given. They both worked out that the bridge was sturdier if they put on lots of layers of cardboard rather than just one. 

 

By the end of it, the kids had built lots of bridges but then became hungry... and suddenly the carrots disappeared ;)

How is this science? The strength of something isn't just about what it is made up of - the shape is important too.  Folding flimsy card into a beam makes it rigid and strong.

The corrugated bridge is made up of triangle shapes which are the best at holding heavy loads.  A triangle is really strong as it directs weight straight to the ground.

Thank you, Mini Scientist In The Kitchen (Lisa Burke) for this wonderful idea!

Build A Bridge And Get Over It!

One of my favourite parts to the Science Syllabus is the "Design and Make" component.  It is a chance for kids to use their creativity, problem solving and reasoning skills.  I always LOVED watching the kids get creative in the classroom - there was always so much discussion and so many busy little people.  I ignored the messy classroom and instead embraced the creative chaos!

I wanted to introduce my kids to the concept of designing and making.  I began by giving them a couple of things that I thought would help them complete the task.  These included:

• A lid that came off a "city scene" box that my kids had.  It had a picture of grass and two lakes.  You can use anything to set the scene - you could even cut up some paper to make it look like water, or you could use some tape to make a busy road
• Paddle pop sticks
• Playdough
• Toilet paper rolls
• Tools (I thought the tools would capture their interest - and it did!!)
• Cardboard
• Pencils
• Small cars/trucks

Note: You do not need to use anything in this list - just pick up things from around your house that you think will work - it's surprising how creative your kids will get!

I then set the scene...

This little truck wants to go over the lakes... Look how the truck drives around the lakes - it's taking so much time! Look! It's getting stuck because there is not enough room to move!  The truck wants to go across the water - how can we get it across the water?

E: A boat! Or a bridge!

He was right onto it!

Usually when we facilitate a design and make session, the kids are asked to "design" by drawing a plan of what they are going to do before they actually build it. Because this is the first time my kids have done this, I decided to swap it around and get their creative juices flowing first by "doing" then drawing what they did.  This is how it went...

At first they were a little lost - they poured all of the paddle pop sticks onto the water and E proudly said that that was their bridge. Rather than take them all off and show them another way, I got the truck and showed them that the truck still couldn't get over the water because all of the paddle pop sticks were moving around and it was too bumpy for the truck.

I asked them to think of another way to build a bridge that wasn't so bumpy and...

Great idea! But the truck finds it really hard to climb up the edges of the bridge. What do we need to help the truck to get up?

 

Awesome idea!! Paddle pop sticks sloped onto the container and some play dough to hold the "ramp" together. E took it upon himself to test the bridge and check if it was easier to travel up... It was! I love love love everything that happened there - problem solving, making, testing, re-making, retesting, fixing, thinking, questioning... This activity has it all! 

Extra challenge for E - can you make another bridge using different materials?

 

This is what he came up with ...

 

4 toilet paper rolls with cardboard on top. Initially there was only 3 toilet rolls (N was busy with the 4th toilet roll I had initially put out) so he made me get another one so there was an even amount on both sides!

Pretty creative! And so much fun! I love the look on their faces when they are engaged in these activities!

 

You might notice that E was the only one doing this experiment. At almost 4 years old this experiment was more suited to E than N who is 2 and a half. Having said that, N came up with his own little experiment - throwing a big blob of play dough through a toilet paper roll and seeing how far the play dough flew through the air and onto the floor... Hours of fun and lots of giggles! It kept him amused for ages! Love that :)

 

The beauty of the design and make process is that the list of things to design and make is endless - building a bridge is just one idea. Maybe you would like to design and make a shelter for a pet? The houses in the story The Three Little Pigs? An obstical course for a younger sibling? An obstical course for a dog? A car? A park?....should I keep going? 😉

Volcano!

No science experiment program is complete until there is a Volcano in there!
There are two parts to the experiment- making the volcano and watching the volcano erupt!

The kids started by helping move their little table and chairs out into a sunny spot in the front garden (this was extra exciting for them because they usually play in the backyard - so was a bit special!)

Making the volcano
We needed a small bottle (we used a 600ml water bottle), newspaper shredded into small strips and a paper mache glue mixture.
There are so many different paper mache mixtures out there.  I chose a mixture that was safe for little fingers (I knew we had a 1 year old coming over to help, so didn't want her to get sick if she put it in her mouth).  All I used was a mixture of flour and water - the kids mixed it together to form a runny paste... This in itself was an experience - watching the flour and water mix together to become thicker was a discussion in itself - and once again I found the kids were using the word "dissolve" (without my prompt) - I had forgotten all about it! (They learned that word in our first experiment "DIY Crystals")

We then covered the strips of newspaper in the mixture and covered the bottle.  I had to remind the kids quite often to make sure the newspaper was really wet so it would stick onto the bottle.

 

After a couple of minutes my kids needed a well deserved break (!!!) (as 2 and 3 year olds do...), so they took themselves off and worked on their own little experiment.  E went into the garage, got a rope, tied it to the front gate and was trying to work out how to pull open the gate with the rope - he tried many times but wasn't strong enough so 2 year old N came along to help...

 

Thankfully we had friends over to help finish off the paper mache volcano!!

It took a couple of hours in the sun to dry... Then came the fun of painting it!

 

We mixed different colours together to see which colours mixed together made brown...

 

 

then painted it...

 

Then let the volcano to dry overnight... then came the fun!

 

We put about 10 teaspoons of  bicarbonate of soda into the bottle (my kids are a little obsessed with this stuff now! LOL)... we then poured some vinegar and food colouring into the bottle and...

 

Kaboom!! Look at their little faces!

 

 

It was just so much fun! We did it over and over again and this now became their new favourite science experiment - once again showing it to guests (old and young) with so much excitement - they just loved it. 

 

I had to be really sneaky and actually throw the volcano away because it became a little mouldy on the bottom - the kids keep asking me where it is!! I think we might have to make a new one soon...!

 

Stay tuned for next week's blog - "Electricity through a Potato...." :)

DIY Crystals!

DIY Crystals

I found this experiment on one of my favourite sites - learning4kids.net - I love their ideas and am always using this site as inspiration for play activities.

To be honest, I wasn't sure how much my boys (3.5 year old and 2.5 year old) would get out of this experiment - they had never really been interested in Crystals before, so I wasn't sure how interesting the experiment would be to them. 
Little did I know how much they would get from it - I can't believe that they are constantly asking for "Bicarbonate of soda" and using the word "dissolve" ALL the time!

• First, we filled two glasses with water. 
• The kids then put  a spoonful of bicarb of soda into their cup, taking turns and sharing the spoon.  It was actually incredible how they were willing to share and follow the "first N then E" rule we had.  They continued this until the bicarb didn't dissolve anymore. 

 

 

Each time they put in a teaspoon of Bicarb of Soda, the water would fizzle and the kids would get so excited - they excitedly made the "fizz" sound themselves and had a good giggle every time they heard it.  They noticed how bubbles formed when they put in the bicarb of soda and this made them even more excited.  The kids were counting how many spoons of bicarb were in there. They were saying "now it's your turn, now it's my turn".  They were telling each other to be careful not to spill the bicarb.  When N had a little sneaky taste of the bicarb, E gently told him to stop doing that because it will make him sick.  It was just so cute.  I love how they were interacting!

• We then tied two paperclips on each end of a long string and placed them in the water.  The hard thing about this experiment is that you had to wait to see results... but having said that our crystals started growing about an hour later - they looked like this:

• We waited a week for our crystals to grow.  Our crystals grew mainly over the glasses and on the bottom of the glass in the water. The kids loved looking and touching them every morning - they went from soft and fragile to quite hard.  Our crystals didn't grow over the string - I think if we had wet the string as well they may had grown... I would be interested to know if anyone does this experiment if their crystals grew on the string and how they did it?? :)

 

• Surprisingly, something else we noticed was that the water in one of the cups turned a beautiful aqua blue - obviously was the colour of the wool we used.  E kept asking why the other glass of water hadn't turned blue!

 

 

Because the kids were so excited about the bubbles in the water, I decided to do another quick experiment with them after the crystals - check out my next Blog entry -

Dancing Sultanas!