Weekly Unplugged Project- Science

Both of the "experiments" we did today today for The Weekly Unplugged Project came from this book: Simple Science Experiments With Everyday Materials

For the first one we took 1 tsp of baking soda and 1oz of water and dissolved it in the bottom of an empty water bottle. Then he poured in the 2 oz of vinegar and I QUICKLY slipped the balloon over the top of the bottle. And...tada the balloon inflated. (because of carbon dioxide you create)

The next project was called Magic Colors. This took some time. He painted the front of two circles blue and the back of one yellow and the back of the other red. (I held them when he painted the backs.) Then we hung them up to dry and then we waited and waited and waited...When they were mostly dry I poked holes (two on each side) and threaded some string through them. Then you are supposed to twirl it a around and then release it and your eyes are supposed to see the color purple for the red/blue one and green for the yellow/blue one. At first it didn't work because our circles were too big. So we cut down the circles and tada! It worked! Make sure to look right at the circle.

Penny Boat Race

Last night I took the kids to Science Night as the 9 year olds school. I've took them the past couple years and it's always pretty fun. The 4 year olds favorite activity was "Penny Boat Race". Of course this is nothing new and its been on to-do list for awhile. I promisded him we could do it all day today if he wanted and he did do it for a looooong time today. Like, hours, seriously. I started out by making two ships and he made one. Then I made a chart to see how many of each coin ended up sinking the boats. I was very proud of his counting to some very large numbers! :)

The Rainbow Connection

I originally read about this activity at My Montessori Journey. Then I began seeing it everywhere! Like at Ten Kids and a Dog and Adventures of a Flake!

I had a problem with the first Styrofoam/foam stuff I used. It was the crumbly soft kind and when I tried to tape it down so it would not stay put! Luckily we had a small Styrofoam ball left over from The Bluebird of Happiness project that I cut in half and taped down. (I wish I would have thought to use play dough like Joann at Ten kids and a Dog!) Eventually I added some cotton balls to make it look like clouds.

So, after getting that worked out I had Indy stick one end of a pipe cleaner in one side then thread on at least 6 beads the same color of the pipe cleaner then stick it in the other side. After he was done I transfered the whole thing to blue paper so we could keep it and admire it forever. ;)

This was another Rainbow project we did last week. It's called "Catch a Rainbow". You can get the details here.



Science Rules.