A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Experiments

The Gummy Experiment Part Two

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Today we had time to pull out our gummi experiment

It was interesting.
your average gummy bear is 1 x 2 cm.

  • in milk 2 x3 felt solid
  • in plain water and sugar water  2.5 x 4 
  • in lemon juice 2 x 3 felt mushy AND the colour was faded
  • in splenda water x x 3 but much bigger (bulkier)
  • in salt water he was 16 mm x 8 mm
  • olive oil and corn syrup didn’t change the size but change the texture and shape.  the lad said “mom, they are HARD” and the olive oil one had a misshaped head.
  • Vinegar was fascinating.  we didn’t try to measure it because he was all mushy.. “feels like Pee!”   It was “GROSS”     Much and many exclamations about it.  “disgusting!”   and the colour was a very pale yellow.
  • Jam – feels like a gummy, was very sticky so difficult to measure .. we think he was 2.5 x 2 cm
  • cranberry juice – “he got darker”  measured 2.5 x 3 and was bigger.
when we cut them it was intriguing
We could not (without effort) cut the oil and corn syrup ones.
the vinegar one fell apart on us
everything else sliced and stood evenly.
Then we put our tongues on them.
Jam and cranberry and lemon juice tasted like what they were put into.
The splenda, sugar and plain water just tasted more gummy… with more sugar in it (for the sweet water ones)
the salt one… EW.. BLECH MOMMY!!!!
The lemonade one tasted like a sweet gummy that was odd… this one had the lad confused until I gave him three options of what it could be…and then he said “OH>> lemonade!!!”

We did not try the corn syrup, olive oil, vinegar or milk ones.  

This is a GOOD experiment to do with a budding scientist. 🙂

Science, math, and more…

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Tonight we looked up, but didn’t find, our monarch numbered NAW 325
looked him up in the database but didn’t locate  him on there.  
Had a decent day today. 
the lad worked on reflex math this morning.   We did an experiment using gummi bears and various liquidy things, and also made ice cream cookies.  🙂
 doing tests with gummi bears.   We immersed them in splenda water, plain water, milk, lemonade, sugar water, salt water, lemon juice, vinegar, olive oil, cranberry juice, jam and corn syrup.   We watched them throughout the day.  The lad was quite intrigued by the vinegar washing out the colour, the corn syrup one seeming to slow disappear, the salt one getting smaller, most of the others grew but with various side affects.   We will pull them out tomorrow and see what changes we observe.
On to the ice cream sandwiches.  First we made chocolate chip cookies.  No, we didn’t make them from scratch…cookie dough was on sale!  🙂
 These are good mommy!
 Don’t they look good?
Mmmm… they ARE Good.  🙂

Part of the afternoon was spent in catching two moths and one spider.  The spider was a teeny tiny one we found in the rhubarb patch.

OOH OOH.. and before I forget.  Our robin who is nesting outside the upstairs bathroom window has TWO eggs in her nest now!  🙂

Germs and Micro-organisms

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we are conducting two experiments, one of which we finished today

1. Bread  – one wet and in the heat. —- this is turning brown with white specks
               – one wet and in the fridge —- nothing is happening to this one

2. Agar
a. we took sampling from our toes
     – the lad’s toes grew icky stuff BUT the sample he took from my toes grew worse.
      – the lad’s toes grew yellow and white mold, mommy’s toes grew black fuzzy mold, white mold, yellow mold and orange mold.
     – the lad’s conclusion: is Mommy has to wash her toes more often and wear shoes when she goes outside.

b. Spit and antibiotic
     – spit grew germs!   The  antibiotic didn’t grow anything.

c. Two that he rubbed his hands all over.
     – they had germs on them
      – his conclusion: hands need to be washed lots of time

d. Washed hands decently well
     – even if you wash your hands you can still have germs on your hands

e. Mouth swab and toothpaste
    – mouths have germs!!!!   Toothpaste doesn’t – except in one spot mommy!   That had a little bit of germs mommy!!   (that might have been contamination)

It was actually quite fascinating seeing the germs grow.
some were black and fuzzy.
some was orange.
much was yellow
and a little bit was a fuzzy white mold that turned yellow when exposed to air

Electricity

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We joined the E-science camp from Supercharged Science for the summer.

We haven’t done a whole lot with it since it takes a bit of time. BUT this week and next we plan to do some things with it. make it worth our while.

We’ve gotten good ideas for a number of experiments though and I need to find the time to jot down the information for the ones we want to do before our time runs out!

anyways, today we did Electricity. We did a number of experiments using two batteries, alligator clips, a buzzer, led lights and what not. I tried to make a propellor for the small motor we have but that didn’t work out so well.

The lad had a HOOT.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to him teach his dad some of the things he learned today. They both seemed to enjoy their time together. I really wish I had the foresight to get my camera out. But it was fun listening to him teach, and watching his excitement.

Aurora does these videos that go step by step what the children are to do in each experiment. She encourages them to be safe. And she encourages them to have fun while learning what they need to learn. and it’s OKAY to experiment and not have it all work out. 🙂

He learned to complete a circuit, to test for conductivity (one test was very complicated with a transformer), to make a buzzer work, to learn about open switches and what not. Lots of to learn, very sequential learning.

Is he ready ‘mentally’ for some of what he does? ah…no. but is he experimenting? yes. Is he learning the language? Yes. Is he learning to be safe and to follow instructions? definitely. He is learning the science and experimentation is a good thing? for sure! 🙂

today… air pressure…

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Today we learned a bit about air pressure.

taken from this book:
hands on earth science activities for k-6 by marvin tolman

we took some straws.

we took a potato.
one straw, one potato

we learned what happens when you combine the two and various ways of holding them.

IF you put your thumb over the end of the straw… it works like a spear!

this of course led to further experimentation with jack o lantern making supplies and the leftover potato……


we also watched a rocket video from Supercharged Science. We are part of their summer e-camp. It was “really cool mommy”. Supercharged science does a really good job at even helping kindergarten/grade 1 students understand higher science as well. All that fire made a super impression on the lad. These things helped a lad keep occupied on a day he needed quieter things to amuse himself due a headachy mommy and a sick tummy on a lad.

Experimentation!

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The name of the game today was “let’s experiment” and so we did. 🙂

We’d gotten a number of books out of the library that had to do with science experiments and so we played around with the books.

We started with Everyday Science Experiments in the gym

All we did was work our way through the book. The one on learning about a curve ball was quite interesting to boy and cat. I will post a video if I can get it to upload. 🙂

We listened to our heart beat, leaned hard against a wall and learned that afterwards our arm will go up all on it’s own! We stood really close to a wall and learned how hard it was to lift the outside foot from the wall.

Then we moved on to Everyday Science Experiments in the Kitchen.

In this book we learned that lemon juice can turn dull pennies into shiny pennies.
Before


After

What we found interesting is what we thought was grime on the one penny, turned yellow and flaky after it was in the lemon juice. It wouldn’t come off..it just looked flaky but wasn’t really. The lad was quite intrigued by it, and I was at a loss to explain why.

We had fun learning about surface tension by adding 30 pennies to a small jar of water that was full to the brim. Hardly any water was split and the boy was quite fascinated by this. “look mommy! the water is all floaty! Look mommy it pops up at me!”. 🙂

The one that elucidated the “let’s do that again Mommy” was the balloon experiment. Take one balloon, small water bottle, vinegar and baking soda and you have an intensely curious lad. “MOMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It blowed up the balloon!!!!” “Let’s do that again mommy!”

Later we took a balloon. Added some vanilla to it (the lad poured it in). We blew up the balloon and placed it in a shoebox. After two hours we opened the shoebox. It smelled like vanilla. We put it back in and six hours later the smell was even more potent. Very lovely smell. 🙂 The lad was impressed. Dad thought it rather neat too as we shared it with him.


We did a few other things but I can’t remember them. It was just fun having a blast in the kitchen with the lad. 🙂 Oh.. we made ooblek. The boy didn’t like touching it, so I stirred it around and showed him how it acted both like a liquid and like a solid.

Oh…and he made another volcano. 🙂

After we cleaned up a bit from all the experimenting we did a book “Jonah and the big fish”. It was sticker fun, doing mazes and learning the story of Jonah. How he ran away from God because he didn’t want to do what God said. The lad said “Doesn’t he know that running away from God doesn’t work mommy? God always knows where we are. “

In the late afternoon he went to the London’s children’s museum with Dad while I did some chores around the house and took time to read a book for a moment or two.

It was an excellent day all round.