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!

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...." :)

Dancing Sultanas!

This experiment happened after the success of our first experiment DIY crystals.

It was so quick to do and like most of our experiments we had everything we needed in the kitchen already.  Once again, I found this experiment at my favourite site - learning4kids.net

All you need for Dancing Sultanas is a fizzy drink (lemonade is good because you can see through it easily) and some Sultanas.

All you have to do is drop a couple of sultanas - one at a time - into the glass of lemonade.  After a few seconds the bubbles push the sultanas up and it looks like they are dancing!

The boys laughed every time this happened - and is by far their new favourite party trick - they show this to all of their friends when they come over and are just as excited as the first time they did it.  We added a few dried apricots in there as well (we had sultana and apricot packs) but they were too heavy to dance.

 

Even this experiment provided many wonderful learning opportunities - they questioned why the sultanas were dancing, they were taking turns putting the sultanas in the glass, and E even questioned how the bubbles were in the water.  These experiments are so simple, yet the children are having so much fun! I love it!

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!