Comments (13)

By Mom Unplugged, September 29, 2008 3:53 am

This week’s Unplugged Project theme was fruit. We tried a really cool fruit project that was less than successful. I would have posted about our failure, except that I KNOW it can succeed since I did it successfully as a child. It needs a bit more fiddling (so we’ll keep working and post when it is perfected).

Instead I’ll post about a fruit science project from our book 730 Easy Science Experiments: With Everyday Materials. My oldest daughter found this in the book last week and for some reason was desperate to do it: polishing pennies. (I reviewed this book here if you want to know more.)

The idea is to show how lemon juice (very acidic) can clean the oxidization off a grungy old penny. If you live outside the US, any copper coin will work for this.

We ratcheted this one up. I had always heard that Coca Cola was acidic enough to strip enamel off teeth and polish stainless steel sinks, so a comparison test seemed in order. I had a Coke in the fridge from leftover guests so we gave it a go.

I was hoping that the Coke might perform up to the standard of the lemon juice and prove once and for all that it is BAD for your teeth.

Here are the ingredients:

Squeeze the lemon (pretty fun):

Put some lemon juice (and some Coke-if you choose to try the comparison experiment) into separate bowls and drop pennies into each bowl:

Leave them for 15 or 20 minutes then remove and compare:

We probably should have kept a “control penny” for comparison (actually, you can see the originals in the “ingredients” photo) but trust me, the lemon juice pennies were like new! The Coke pennies only slightly shinier. So much for my anti-Coke campaign.

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What did you do this week for fruit? If you joined in this week’s fruit project, then please leave a link to your project in Mr. Linky below. If you want to learn how to join in the Unplugged Project, then please read more here.

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Next week’s Unplugged Project theme will be:

White

Enjoy!

Comments (11)

By Mom Unplugged, September 22, 2008 10:45 pm

I must admit, my heart sank when my sister gave my kids the book 730 Easy Science Experiments: With Everyday Materials by E. Richard Churchill, Louis V. Loesching, and Muriel Mandell.

This confession will certainly earn me yet another “Mom of the Year Award,” but here it is:

Was my first thought: “730?? Oh hooray! Think of all the wonderful projects and what we will learn together!!” Noooo…. My first thought was: “730?? Who is going to have to do those 730 science experiments with them?? Oh no!”

My childless sister seemed to pick up on my silent consternation and left with a sadistic smile (or so I thought) and the parting words of: “Have fun!”

Well actually, we are having fun. The book sat on a shelf for a while until my 8 year-old daughter recently rediscovered it.

On Sunday, when I was planning a “Fun With Mom Day,” she showed me some experiments that she wanted to do. Since we were going to have Fun With Mom no matter what, I was willing to assist in any and all experiments. We did several. The one I will share with you today involved the motion of molecules.

This sounds fancy, but actually, like most of the experiments in this very thorough (did I tell you already that there are 730 experiments?) volume, this experiment involved only items we had on hand here in the house.

You need food coloring, two clear glasses, and hot and cold water. Put hot water in one glass (I used very hot tap water) and cold water in the other (I used super-cooled water from our refrigerator water dispenser).

Put just one drop of food coloring in each glass and watch what happens. The molecules are moving faster in hot water so the food coloring blends with the water very, very quickly. In the slower-moving cold water glass, the food coloring barely moves at all. In fact it makes some beautiful slow-motion droplet shapes that reminded me of a lava lamp.

This glass was the hot water:

And this one was cold (see the “lava lamp?”):

This was just one of 730 experiments. That means I have another 729 to inflict on you all!!

Seriously, I do like this book. As I mentioned earlier, the ingredients are mostly household items, or are easily obtainable: no enriched uranium needed here.

The experiments vary in complexity from ridiculously simple yet not boring for young ones (Straw Wheels - moving a heavy book more easily using drinking straws as rollers - p.23) to more complicated yet still easily doable (Seeing Sound Waves p.110 or Balloon Barometer p.249).

The chapters are interesting and fun: Clutching at Straws; Paper Capers; More Than Lemonade; Dairy Dozen; Adventures With a String; Soap Suds; Slow Start-Fast Finish; Keeping Your Balance; How to Have All the Moves; The Sound of Science; Feeling Stressed? Try Some Surface Tension; Science Can Give You a Warm Feeling; Blown Away; Being Earth Conscious; World Travellers; Leafy Lessons; Dirty Words: Soil, Sand, Humus, and Mud; Gravity and Magnetism: Attractive Forces; Don’t Fiddle With Old Fossils; Weather; Whirling Winds and Gentle Breezes; Water, Water, Everywhere; Building a Weather Station; Air, H2O, and Other Things; Here’s Superman, But Where’s Clark?; Salty Solutions and Sweet Success

Each experiment has a “What to do,” a “What Happens,” and most importantly, a “Why” section.

You’ll be seeing more experiments from us I am sure. Remember, we still have 729 of them to show you!

Comments (14)

By Mom Unplugged, September 21, 2008 8:57 pm

Last week for our sand Unplugged Project, I had an idea for making permanent sand castles which I had seen as a proofreading exercise in my daughter’s spelling workbook! (Spelling Workout, Level D, Modern Curriculum Press, p. 12)

Hey, you never know where you might find inspiration, right? My kids vetoed me last week for this particular sand project, and chose to do something else instead, but I figured we’d get to try it for this week’s theme of hard. Plus, since it was recently my sister’s birthday and she loves Hawaii, we made sand sculptures for her.

We followed the instructions in the spelling book. We needed sand, cornstarch, and water. The recipe called for 2 cups sand, and 1 cup each of cornstarch and water. We doubled it.

Sand was easy. We went out to our big sand pile and scooped up 4 cups of sand and put it in a big cooking pot. We then poured in 2 cups of cornstarch:

And 2 cups of water:

And stirred over low heat.

We stirred for a while. It was very runny, but looked yummy, like melted chocolate ice cream.

After about 10 minutes we got bored and left it alone for another 5 minutes or so. When we rechecked it, it had transformed into a solid, stiff lump! I had to trade in my plastic spoon for a sturdy metal one or it would have snapped in two! It was so stiff that in this photo, the spoon is standing up on its own:

I had prepared the kitchen table with our craft tablecloth as well as a plastic garbage bag for easier clean-up. We dumped the mixture out on the garbage bag to cool.

It cooled quickly and soon we were all playing with the warm, squishy, sand playdough. It felt really nice.

Eventually, it started to dry and get a bit crumbly so I put out a bowl of water to sprinkle on it. A spray bottle of water turned out to be even better, and more entertaining.

We shaped it and poked it with sharp pencils, toothpicks, even a funnel.

Afterwards we put our creations on plates to dry. Here are the results:

The next day, we unfortunately discovered that my 2 year-old’s hand print and the starfish were breaking apart. The two sand castles however, were fine. I would recommend this project only for larger, 3-D sculptures, but the thinner, flat ones were disappointing. But…in case you were wondering, the pot cleaned up fine!

PS: In reviewing last week’s projects, I saw that Meg had made something similar as part of her sand project, but used sand and glue instead of cornstarch. She used molds to make starfish and they turned out really well! Consider experimenting with molds for extra fun if you try this. Karen B. also made “sand clay” similar to our recipe and added salt to hers to slow spoiling.

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Did you join in this week’s Unplugged Project themed hard? If so, then please add a link to your project in Mr. Linky below. If you didn’t join us this week, then feel free to browse the links below and read about how to join in for next week!

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Next week’s Unplugged Project theme will be:

Fruit

Enjoy!

Comments (17)

By Mom Unplugged, September 15, 2008 6:58 am

This week’s Unplugged Project theme of sand was inspired by the giant pile of sand that we have near our swing set. We had it brought it in to spread around the swing set area to soften the crash zone and also to control weeds.

I thought my children would have a lovely time spreading the sand nicely throughout the area. Wrong. My children have a lovely time playing on the pile of sand and don’t want it spread out! Oh well, for now we will leave it as is. It is providing hours of cheap entertainment.

I had all kinds of cool sand ideas, but my kids had their own idea so I just let them go with it: mixing. One of their favorite activities is standing at the kitchen sink while I cook and taking bits of the ingredients (flour, vinegar, spices, salt, whatever is out) and mixing it all in a bowl accompanied by plenty of “oohs”, “aahs”, and shouts of “gross!”

First we scooped some sand into containers and brought it in.

I wisely laid out my vinyl “craft” tablecloth that we use for messy projects. The children then gathered some dry ingredients: sugar, salt, flour, parsley flakes (that I never use and for some reason I have an ancient, industrial sized container of them), cumin (for the lovely smell), and celery salt (because again, I have too much of it!).

In the back of the pantry we also found some red lentils for color. The children wanted to grind them up with a mortar and pestle, but it turns out that lentils are VERY hard so they used them whole.

I passed out an assortment of spoons, small ladles, a honey stirrer, and a tuna can strainer for sifting. Of course hands were the most fun to use.

The kids sat quietly and mixed and played with it for at least an hour, maybe more. They had a ball, I relaxed, and the kitchen took on a lovely cumin scent!

Next my oldest daughter had the idea of making sand pictures with glue. The kids put Elmer’s glue on construction paper to make a design:

Then they sprinkled their sand mixture on the paper making sure to cover all the glue:

Next was the fun part - dumping the sand off the paper to see how the picture turned out (lots of oohs and aahs)!

The kids also experimented with tissue paper, lentils and sugar.

The finished art (Blue: 8 year-old, White: 6 year-old, and Yellow: 2 year-old):

TIPS:

1) This is a good outdoor project, or indoors with a tablecloth - but be prepared to vacuum after.

2) Since food ingredients are involved, make sure little ones don’t try to eat their creations.

4) If you do use spices: MONITOR HOW MUCH IS USED (or this project could get pricey). Also - avoid anything containing pepper unless you have a lot of Kleenex on hand.

5) If you allow the use of water, be sure it is only a small amount or be prepared for a big muddy mess!

6) If kids dump their sand outside when done, be sure you know where they do this. Ours went into one of my rose beds so I should have a nice crop of lentils sprouting very soon. :(

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Finally, here are some photos of the very favorite sand Unplugged Project around here, jumping off the swings and landing on the sand pile!

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Did you join us for a sand project this week? If you took part in the Unplugged Project this week, please link to your post. If you didn’t do a sand project, then please do not link, but read about how to join in next week!

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Since we recently did soft, the theme for next week’s Unplugged Project will be:

Hard

Have fun!

Comments (22)

By Mom Unplugged, September 7, 2008 6:34 pm

The theme for this week’s Unplugged Project was soft.

I guess we could also have done this one last week for insect, but this week for our soft Unplugged Project, we made moth and butterfly feeders out of soft cotton balls and soft sponges.

I was inspired by our second visit this past summer to the Strong Museum of Play’s Butterfly Garden (in Rochester, NY). By the way, if anyone lives near Rochester, NY, or is visiting the area, that museum is well worth a visit, and don’t miss the butterflies! (For photos, please see my post from our first visit in 2007).

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Let’s start with the moths. I found the instructions here: How Stuff Works: Moth Feeder.

You need cotton balls, string, apple juice and sugar:

Measure 1/2 cup apple juice and pour it into a bowl:

Stir 1 tablespoon sugar into the apple juice until dissolved:

Next, soak the cotton balls in the mixture until saturated, then squeeze out to reduce drips. My two year-old really enjoyed this step. All the children were licking their fingers when done!

Tie the sugary cotton balls onto a string. We tied several on each string.

Hang the strings near outside lights or in front of a window where a light will be on inside, anywhere that might attract moths at night.

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For the butterfly feeder we used the leftover apple juice-sugar mixture from the moth project. We also needed a kitchen sponge, and a plate or dish - preferably red since butterflies are supposed to be attracted to the color red.

The formula for attracting butterflies (or certain moths) seems to be quite varied. Apparently sugar water works fine, but there are all kinds of other ingredients that can enhance the attraction. I even read that human urine has been used successfully to attract them! Generally though, they apparently like fermented bananas or other fruit, sugar water, brown sugar and rum!

We decided to get fancier than plain old sugar water, but we gave the urine idea a miss!

We didn’t have rotten banana on hand, but we did have some over ripe nectarines that I left out in the sun all day to hopefully ferment a bit:

We concocted our own formula of the leftover apple juice and sugar mixture, additional brown sugar, the nectarines, and even a bit of rum that I found in the pantry (although you could certainly leave that out, I think it probably just gives a more fermented odor to the blend).

Soak the sponge in the liquid mixture until saturated, then put it on the plate and add any rotten fruit:

Place the dish outside in a sunny spot. Try to pick someplace near flowers that butterflies enjoy, and put the plate a bit higher than the blooms if you can. We put ours on top of an empty birdbath in the middle of our rather neglected butterfly garden.

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So, how did we do??

Well, we had one moth customer as of bedtime last night:

We hung three feeders up and (not surprisingly really) he was at the one near the brightest light. Keep that in mind if you try this.

The butterflies were more elusive. We didn’t sit and watch all day, but none came while we were checking. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

(RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS IN COMMENTS: I expected the plate to attract lots of wasps, ants and other bugs, but not yet for some reason. I suspect that that might happen more readily in some “buggier” parts of the world. Once the ants do find it though, they’ll probably carry the whole thing off!)

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A few links:

Bird and Other Wildlife Feeders

How to: The Butterfly and Moth Cookbook (cooking FOR them, not cooking them…)

Why are Moths Attracted to Light?

Moth or Butterfly?

The Children’s Garden (an old Unplug Your Kids post about gardening with children, includes information on creating a butterfly garden)

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If you joined in the soft Unplugged Project this week, then please put a link to your post (preferably your actual post, rather than your blog) in Mr. Linky. If you didn’t join us but want to know more about how to join in, then please read more here.

Also, in case you missed it last week, I have decided to disable the Linkys after two weeks in order to prevent spam. You will always be able to follow all the existing links on the Mr. Linky, but there will be no new links added after two weeks.

Finally, the Mr. Linky is only for those who do that week’s project. I do check and when I find a link with no apparent project, I delete it. Sorry, but I really want the links to just be for projects so they are an easy resource for readers.

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The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project will be:

Sand

Have fun!