Category: Experiment

Plant and Animal Cells - edible experiment

2/26/2015

Last week my lad and I were doing a unit on cells with Visual Learning Systems. A full review is coming up soon, but I thought doing a post on what we did was a good way to show off some of what we are learning.

Plant and animal cells have similarities and differences so we thought we'd do one of each.

The animal cell

click image to go to source

The plant cell

click image to go to source

The cells we made were to be completely edible, well I must say that made for an interesting experiment all on it's own.

The recipe called for clear gelatin but it was WAY more expensive than yellow so we went with yellow. :)    We had fun trying to figure out how to add the floating bits that are part of the cytoplasm. We tried adding fuzz bombs...you know those candies that pop in your mouth and make your head feel weird.   That was cool to watch but a no go. The lad hit upon the idea of crushing up some candies and seeing if that would work... crushed mallow balls worked best!   Various powdery ones were a bust as well.

An ear made a good nucleus, and we tried a lollipop for the other but it melted on us. :( Twizzlers cut up well for making the long strands and jelly beans were a happy and easy addition.    It was funky afterwards... licorice turn pasty in jello (ick). Jelly beans lose their sugar coating and the inside become waxy slime (double ick).   Chocolate bits STAY chocolate unless they are small and then they make great puddles of chocolate flavoured lime jello. :) (actually tasted great).   The ear stayed an ear except for the outside edges.   The teeth made "sweet sugar" pickets and the lifesavers (gummy style) thinned drastically.

It was FASCINATING.

I do advise making your own edible cells and see what happens with the candies that you use. They may horrify and amaze you. :) You made end up like us a going NOPE not eating that!!!! (son's reaction)... and just scooping off the top layer is jello and being good with it (my reaction). :)

Chromatography

3/9/2014

So I was on this site the other day, Buddy and Buggy, and I saw a post called Chromatography and butterflies (or something like that). i thought, hmm.. that just sounds fun so I asked the lad what he thought. He was game to try it and so off we set.

Step One: grab some coffee filters, and markers. Write the name of the colour marker on the base of the coffee filter. you'll this a helpful thing to do.
Grab some cups and put some water in them. Not over much... about 1/3 way full seemed to work best.

Draw on the coffee filters, fold them in half and half again so you get a point at the bottom. Open them up and place them in the cups so the tip barely touches the water. Walk away for about 5 minutes.

When you return the water level should have risen up a bit. You'll see some neat colour variations.

Pull them out and set them on newspaper to dry. Marvel at the colours you see thus far. As you can see, a couple of the sank down in to the water and got washed out a bit. Don't do this unless you want to make your child sad.

Once they are dry, decide what you want to do with them. Bat them around in the air pretending to be a kitten worked well in our household, but you might want to get crafty with them as well. :) it's all good... once the learning is done it's just time for fun right?

Ancient of Days and science

2/5/2014

That's what my boy is working on right now, writing out the aramic for "ancient of days". The lad is enjoying this study which surprises me... as it's just me reading stuff to him about different names of Christ. Yet he listens intently and asks questions which I think is cool. :)

We received a review item in the mail yesterday. Amazing Science, we watched two episodes today and did one experiment.

The lad was suitably impressed as he learned about surface tension. :)

We did some book work and reading and we had a good day of homeschooling. It was good to get somethings done. :)

Results of our Fruit Fly Experiment

11/20/2013

Here's the experiment sitting before we went on holidays. This is the results post from our fruit fly experiment.

Plain vinegar attracted but ONE lonely fruit fly. Not particularly effective.

The apples floating in water attracted a few, but turned mouldy which seemed to be a turn off for the fruit flies. Captured 8.

Apple cider vinegar attracted in excess of 20 but less than 40.

Balsamic Vinegar attracted over 40 fruit flies and continues to do so. It is highly effective in attracting fruit flies.

The lad is enjoying the fruit fly explosion. It gives him flies to feed his spiders. He's also been telling a number of people to use "balsic vinegar" to catch their fruit flies if they ever have an explosion too.

Fruit Fly Explosion!!!!!!!!!!!!

11/4/2013

Today the lad used a household problem to do science.

As you can tell from the title we have a fruit fly explosion in our house. The little annoyances are EVERYWHERE.

We tracked down the problem to a bag of potatoes that had gone bad, the potatoes left, the fruit flies think they'll continue to stick around.

Lad.. what do you think we aught to do with them.

TRAP THEM MOM!

So we did some research and discovered there are some different methods to use. Some we rejected as 1. we have no milk in the house, and 2. we're leaving on holidays soon and so can't safely dispose of anything gone rancid.

Sources:
Four traps.
Dead Easy.
Get rid of fruit flies.

The lad needed to do some thinking, what does he do, what does he reject, how can he modify?

Instructions called for a funnel OR a drop of dish soap. The funnel was chosen as the more cost efficient way to manage as they can be reused and we don't want to waste soap (the lad's thinking). The funnel idea proved problematic until the lad got the brainstorm of folding the coffee filter over and using elastics to hold them in place.

We chose some different ingredients. balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, white vinegar and water with apples in it. We originally thought of just using fruit but the lad asked "how will they die then mom?" Good question. So we decided that tossing a bit of water in with the apples might be a good idea.

The original thought by the lad was to scatter then throughout the house, but then dad asked "how will that compare how they all work?"

Oh... what should I do then dad?

Put them all in one spot, that will tell you which ones they like the best.

Okay... so all in a row they sit on our counter. :)

So far the balsamic and white vinegars are garnering the most attention, though the apple cider vinegar has had one actually GO IN the jar. WOOT WOOT! Will our tiny foes soon be at an end???

So how have your children helped solve household issues???
How have you turned them into learning adventures?

The Making of a Pooter

7/17/2013

The other day I posted about my lad's interest in a pooter and could we make one. Today I promised him we would make one, but he had to do the leg work to find the necessary materials.

He did so. :)

We had looked at a variety of sites, and decided to cobble together our own idea of how to make one. We used tubing from an old aquarium, a mason jar with a wide mouth lid, ring, some screening from an old mosquito hat and kleenex plugs up an end to keep bugs in once they are trapped and we are looking to transport them. Hubby helped with the drilling of the holes. I learned the HOT water is a very helpful aid in putting the tubing into the holes.

I wanted to attach the screening with glue but the lad was quite insistent that tape would do the trick. And it works, I just wanted something a bit more permanent. BUT lack of permanency may be a good thing as well, time will tell.

One of the things we were consistently warned about is the need to make sure you are sucking through the correct pipe! If you don't, you may end up with a bug down your throat. Not what one wishes to have happen. :)

he has some dirt stuff in the tubing. We worked it out and he did a hard blast to get the rest out.

Here the lad has a leaf hopper in the jar. :) He had a bunch of ants already that he sucked up. One thing to be aware of when catching ants on a dug up dirt hill.... when you suck up the ants you will also suck up some dirt and that might clog the tubing.

One of the advantages of using a large diameter tubing then what they called for in the various pages we looked at, is that we can catch somewhat larger insects. It is a rather cool invention and we're very happy to have learned about it. it will be coming on vacation with us.

Ants are VERY quick and hard to catch. BUT when they are crawling on you it is easy to scoop them up with the pooter.

Some of the helpful links we discovered.

Pooters, the Insect catcher.
Bugs Ed.
Bug Club.

this post was shared at Share It Saturday.

Cool MOM! This is just COOL!

5/7/2013

NEAT!
Was the expression I just heard from one seven year old lad.

He's having fun experimenting with chalk, water and microwaves today.

So let's today follow the thought processes of one child, age seven, learning to think through what he wants to do.

He started with just chalk and a microwave. it took 10 minutes before the chalk got hot, but when it got hot it got VERY hot quite quickly.

But it didn't do what he hoped for. He wants the chalk to melt.

So together with Dad he figured out how microwaves work. So how to add water....that was the question.

Do you dip it in water?
Let's try that. Nah...that doesn't work.

Do you sink it on a plate of water?
Well it works a bit, but not very good.

checking to see how it is coming along

Do you put it entirely in water in a cup?
Well that works great! WOW MOM!!! look at this, MOM come quick!

BUT problem, whenever it bubbles it spills over and cleaning up the mess is a problem.
So now what?

MOM! Can I use this? (a glass jar)
Sure
Oh...it's too big.

different coloured chalk provided layers. The lad found this fascinating.

What Can I use that I can keep?

Mom interjects this comment: what can you use now, but then later clean, so you can store your melted chalk in something different later (like your jar)?

Son: after looking around the kitchen. MOM! Can I use this? (bigger measuring cup). Sure.

So... he's having fun and he's learning, and it's all good. :)

face paint! Look MOM! I'm a pig warrior! (he likes the pigs from the angry birds game)

HOPE Days and Science

3/15/2013

This morning we to HOPE days as a family. This is our cooperative teaching time with our homeschool group HOPE.

I am teaching a class on rabbits and other small animals as well as assisting in a Drama Class. My son is attending a gardening class and a trip involving six countries.   It's a good experience all round.

Anyways, when we got home the lad wanted to play with some of his toys but I kept falling asleep on him due to a short sleep night, so I suggested instead that we do an experiment.   We are using Supercharged Science as our science at the moment and for a while I've been wanting to the hovercraft experiment.

Being the scientists that we are we switched it up a bit.

Aurora experiment called for paper cups, CD discs, juice lids, balloons and hot glue.   We chose that the lad would use a CD disc and I would use a plastic protection ring. We wanted to know if there would be a difference in how they worked.   The directions Aurora gave didn't work for us, due we think to the difference in juice lids. We found what worked best was popping open the lid.

my plastic disc and the popped up lid

The lad chose to conduct some of his own experiments as well. He tried hard to use the pop lid to make a rocket but couldn't figure out how to do it. The balloon just couldn't release air fast enough for him through the lid regardless of what he tried. Though he did succeed in making a cat food rocket. Sprayed cat food all over the kitchen and it was just a hoot (at least to the lad, I was somewhat unimpressed with having cat food fall on my head). :)

see the hovercraft in action. I tried to get the lads but well.....he doesn't like his face showing on-line and I just couldn't get one without his face. (too happy that it worked he was).

A Day in the Life....

3/6/2013

I've been reading lately about struggling homeschool moms (for the most part). Some are dads, but most are moms.   Struggling with children not wanting to learn, struggling managing their time, their households, their...well...most anything.   Raising and educating a family keeps a body busy.   When I read things like this I need to make sure I keep my focus where it aught to be....doing what works for OUR family. Not getting caught up in the "keep up with xyz family".   They are their own family, this one is MINE.

So today we started off the day doing dishes... I know... totally exciting isn't it? I had a lad wanting very much to play the new levels of bad piggies. What?   Let my boy play Bad Piggies rather than do "real homeschool?"   Bad Piggies IS real homeschool. It's problem solving, working out engineering problems, paying attention to details and all sorts of things.    He has to work hard to figure out some of those levels and he's better at it than I am.   He was feeling a ... what's the word I want...unsure if he had his focus in the right spot and came in asking "mom, is it okay if I play Bad Piggies? Am I learning things?"   I told him yes, you are...but what do YOU think you are learning?

His response
1. I have to keep trying and trying mom.
2. I have to figure out why it's not working and sometimes I just don't know. I have to ask Dad for help!   Some of those levels are VERY hard mom.

For a seven year old, I thought those good answers.

Dishes done, we had breakfast, and looked at the paper

From the News

Part of the headline had this "the N-word".

I said to the lad...The N word? Do you know any N words?
Does Angry birds or Bad Piggies have any N words?

Led to a whole discussion on N-words which is good practice for a beginnging reader....this lead to him wanting to know what the N-word in the paper was and we talked about how one councillor used a word beginning with N that made people get all upset with her. I said that sometimes too people make too big of a deal over something and need to just let it go.

Normal things

We read and discussed a story in his primer that we are reading. Todays story was about a man who trusted a friend to tell the truth and what happened when the friend (who said he was ever so brave) was proven to not be ever so brave and what the result of that was.

TWO lessons done with our music program Adventus. My but the lad enjoys this on-line music course. :) I don't get arguments about doing it and he'll often ask to do another lesson. So happy I get to review this program for the Schoolhouse Review Crew. The lad has so much fun with it though today he was disappointed...they took away the story time...and that was just another bust a gut laughing time for him. :) Maybe they will bring it back....

After this we did our Essentials in Writing Lessons. This lesson caused some momentary confusion in the lad because he was rushing his learning. Once he slowed down it went quite smoothly. He had to do some thinking which, of course, is generally a good thing to do.

Lunch and then upstairs to do some book work. Things kinda broke down here. The lad and I worked through telling time several times over the past while but he's having some difficulty retaining this information. So I have a clock poster from the dollarama that I just wrote on all the five minute increments. Then a lightbulb went off. :) AH>> "okay.. I understand mom. BUT MOM>>> Why can't people always just say 3:15 and not a quarter past 3? Why can't they just do it all the same?!??!" He's much aggrieved by this.

How would YOU answer this??

Canada Study - First Nations

Doing this activity resulted in the lad saying "mom, this was good homeschooling today".

The lad loves angry birds, I love teaching him. It doesn't matter to me if I use angry birds to instill a love of learning in him. So our dogs are really yellow angry birds pulling a sled. Does he know that dogs helped the Inuit get around more quickly than walking? YEP! We built fish (For the birds to tease the pigs with)...but the main diet of the Inuit consisted of fish, whale and such like. Does the lad know this? For sure! :) Same with the igloo, the cache, and such...angry bird theme-ing it just helps the knowledge be retained and he has retained alot. It's very cool to see some of this stuff sink into his brain.

We are doing Canada much slower than I anticipated..but that's okay... we have a whole life ahead of us. :)

Tomorrow we paint! :)

Bannock - recipe

Came across (in our Inuit studies) this recipe for Bannock. So we made it for supper.

Ingredients

4 cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
5 teaspoons baking powder
1½ cups water

Directions

Mix ingredients together to form a stiff dough.
Sprinkle flour on a clean work surface. With very clean hands, knead the dough. Dust hands and dough with flour if the dough is sticky.
Form in a round loaf about 1 inch high. Bake on a greased baking sheet at 350° F for 30 minutes.
Serve warm with butter and jam or honey.

We served it with Honey. The lad very much enjoyed it. It was fairly decent, not as good as the fried bread though....not sure which we'll make for the project fair.....

Before I forget, the lad's crystals continue to grow
This was a dollar store purchase...thus far...worth the $1.25 spent on it. :)

We added to the experiment a bit. The rocks on the right hand side, tray, green stuff came with the kit. The popsicle stick and the large rock came from the lad. He wanted to know if the rocks used made any difference and what would happen if you left the popsicle stick in it.

What do you think??

Fireworks In A Jar

2/25/2013

It's fun to do science experiments.

This past week we did this one. It's called Fireworks in a Jar. It came from "I can Teach My Child". I can't remember if it was a freebie or a purchase.

Materials needed

Clear jar/cup/glass
oil
water
food colouring
plastic fork or stirring implement of some sort

the angry bird pig driving his homemade car is completely optional. he popped out of the car since he doesn't like having his picture taken if he's not busy working.

Directions

Pour warm water in a jar. about 3/4 full
In a separate bowl mix a few tablespoons (about 3-4) and several drops of food colouring.. same colour or different colour it's up to you.
Use your stirring implement to gently mix the oil and food colouring together

4. Gently pour the oil mixture into the glass of water.
5. Sit back and watch what happens.

Mom, can we do it again? Junior (the angry bird pig seen above) wants to see it done in pig colours. Can I do it again?

As you can see, junior is quite pleased at the results. :)

The knowledge behind the experimenting

I asked the lad: what do you think is going on here?
"the food colouring doesn't like the oil so it's going into the water"
Why do you think that is?
"because we already know that it mixes with water mom. The oil tries to keep it but the food colouring doesn't like to stay with it."

Then I agreed with and explained
Yes, the food colouring dissolves in water not in oil.
The reason it doesn't like the oil is that the oil is less dense than water so it will float on the top. The coloured drops of food colouring are heavier (so more dense) than the oil so they will begin to sink due to the differences in density.

<<Previous

Plant and Animal Cells - edible experiment

Chromatography

Ancient of Days and science

Results of our Fruit Fly Experiment

Fruit Fly Explosion!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Making of a Pooter

Cool MOM! This is just COOL!

HOPE Days and Science

A Day in the Life....

From the News

Normal things

Canada Study - First Nations

Bannock - recipe

Fireworks In A Jar

Materials needed

Directions

The knowledge behind the experimenting

Who Am I?

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From the News

Normal things

Canada Study - First Nations

Bannock - recipe

Materials needed

Directions

The knowledge behind the experimenting

Who Am I?

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