Volcano!

My hubby ran across this volcano kit when looking around a little chain store called 5 Below. Not sure how big this chain is, I've only seen them around Columbus. Everything they sell is $5 or less. The kit came with a tiny volcano, baking soda, a dye pack, a pair of safety goggles, a tiny funnel, a set of plastic gloves, and a little back drop.

The girls opened it up the other day and had a lot of fun putting it together. It was still on the table when John got home from work. Thats when the real fun began. John and the kids proceeded to turn many items in the house into 'volcanos' and used up a cleaning size box of baking soda and  a gallon or so of vinegar. Oh, a little fyi here: if you run out of white vinegar while making a volcano, apple cider vinegar works just as well. Here are some pictures...

The volcano with the backdrop. The backdrop not to be confused with out table top which looks like a Capitan America comic book

Anara really liked the goggles. This was when she was fairly sick. I swear I have never met anyone that can stay as upbeat as this kid when they are sick.

Team work

Dad gets home and after a few runs with the volcano, a small vase is substituted in. The kit volcano was really small and kind of a challenge to work with. And there was a comment that went something like, "I wonder how big of a container I could make this work in? Babe, do we have any 2 litters?"

A larger container is found to house the volcano. Notice the 2 large bottles of vinegar on the table. Cameron joined in at this point and was really taken aback when what was inside started bubbling out.

Can you make out the huge grin on my little guy's face? After an initial freeze, he let out a squeal,  and went nuts over the little explosion that happened. I usually save things like this for his nap time, but I think I may have to change my attitude on that.

If you want to make your own volcano all you need is baking soda, vinegar, and a container shaped like an up side down funnel. Place it in a dish or something to catch all the liquid as it comes out of your 'volcano.' You can mix a little red food dye into the vinegar for the lava look. We found it easiest to place the baking soda into the volcano and then pour in the vinegar.

Moon Phases With Cookies

Science is my favorite subject, but it generally requires a mommy that is not on bed rest to execute properly. So, our science projects these days have been few and far between and have all been very simple and easy to do. My plan is to put science on a back burner until summer. Then, after the new baby comes and I can get out of bed, we will being tackling this year's science. However, this is a project that  can be handled from my easy chair and done mostly without my help.

It's a given that if bribed with sweets, you can get kids to do just about anything. So, this is a science lesson that has been done many, many times by many, many teachers both at home and in traditional school settings. My kids are gluten free, so they only see these kind of cookies maybe once every year or two.

We started our lesson by going over the phases of the moon. There are several sites online you can do this with. We used this one by gwit.org. I couldn't get the intro video to work, but the site has several other interesting facts and little demos about the moon. It even has a spot to type in your weight to see what you weigh on the moon.

I started by drawing 8 circles in a circular pattern then labeled the small circles with the 8 phases of the moon shown on the site. I used the lid to a gatorade bottle to draw the circles. Gluten free sandwich cookies are generally a little smaller than their original counterparts, but the gatorade bottle lid was the perfect size for us. The girls used a case knife to pry open the cookies and then scrape and spred the cream in the desired positions. They looked at the chart on the above site to see the order and how much of the moon was showing in each phase. Then, they put the cookies in order. After they were done, they got to eat the cookies. Finally, they used their papers to draw in the moon phases.

Invisible Ink

For social studies this year we are studying U.S. History. John was a double major in college and one of those majors was history, so this is a subject we don't have a curriculum we follow. Part of what we are doing this year is watching Liberty's Kids (Click here to find out more about Liberty's Kids). We rented these videos a few years ago from the public library and this year we found them on Netflix. Today's episode was entitled 'Postmaster General Franklin' and we did a little project to go along with it. Invisible Ink!

With simply baking soda and water it is easy to make invisible ink. We used about 2 spoonfuls of each, but then poured off a little of the water. The girls used cotton swabs to draw with the solution on printer paper.

Next let the paper dry.

There are a few different ways to make the invisible ink become visible, a heat source such as a light bulb or candle, grape juice, or lemon juice. The show used a candle as a heat source. I wanted to  stick with using a heat source, but a light bulb instead of a candle. I just imagined our whole house going up in flames at the thought of the kids holding paper over a candle. Using a light bulb, you still have to be careful. The paper can still catch on fire. This was the plan, however, all of our light bulbs are the low heat, energy efficient variety. They just don't emit enough heat for this project, so we went with lemon juice. Anara used her fingers to spread the juice on the papers. By the time Nia got back to the table, Cameron had already finished her paper for her.

Here are the results, which were only a little easier to make out in person than by this picture. They must have used a better medium or tools in Franklin's day or the messages would have had to of been really short. These didn't turn out great, but the kids got an idea what it would have been like to use invisible ink. It's a challenge writing something when you can't see what you are writing.