What ARE These Things?

The insect I know. It’s the larval form of a ladybug. But what is the spotted hard-shelled immobile creature? What on earth is that miniature albino zucchini that’s attached to the body of the cute green caterpillar? Here’s another view of it. Ignore my ragged cuticles and dirty, uncut fingernails. We found lots of elm [...]

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Our Newest Temporary Pets

Meet Curly and Flicker

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Mystery Creatures

Anybody have any idea what these things are? They’ve started appearing in our tadpole aquarium. Jay thinks that they’re snail poo. They’re translucent, non-mobile crescents that attach to the glass sides of the tank. They have little dots on them, which we didn’t look at under magnification. Out of the water they look like whitish [...]

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Owl Pellet

Dissecting this owl pellet was the highlight of the morning. At least for Jay. Tee was more interested in the book he was reading. I’m pretty sure that the skeleton was of a mouse, not a rat, based on the size of it, but it still had very impressive incisors. Jay squealed with excitement at [...]

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Wonderful Wetlands

Look! Isn’t that a beautiful little bird? She/he’s eating right out of my hand! It’s my Mother Earth dream! I’m so close to nature that all of the little animals come right up to my skirts to eat the fresh bread crumbs I’ve collected in my apron for them. Here’s another one! I even know [...]

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Paper Chromatography

Cut a strip of coffee filter Mark a dot on it with water soluble marker Fill a glass with water just high enough to wet the end of the strip of paper when it dangles into the glass Attach the strip to a pencil so that the pencil will bridge the mouth of the glass [...]

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Density Experiments

This is a lovely example of fluids with different densities. Corn syrup at the bottom, water in the middle, and oil on the top. We also made a “wave in a bottle” with blue water and oil, and experimented with water by changing it’s temperature and adding salt. We were able to show that hot [...]

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Make Your Own Gingerale

You’ll need: 1 clean and empty 2 L pop bottle with lid 1 cup sugar 1½ TBS finely grated fresh ginger ¼  tsp yeast   Using a funnel, put the sugar in the pop bottle. Add the yeast, shake to mix. Add the ginger, then fill with water, leaving about one inch of head room. [...]

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Insulation Experiment

Bare Hand In Ice Water With Blubber The blubber was Crisco. I was trying to show the kids how a layer of blubber keeps arctic mammals warm in icy water. Then I forced Tee to look up the word insulation in the dictionary, and we did an experiment with glasses of boiling water, to see [...]

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Crystal Snowflake Update

This is the most crystallized of them all. I don’t think we put enough Borax into solution. As for the sugar crystals, nothing is happening at all, and we put a TON of sugar into the water. Might be time to do a little internet research.

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Saturday Science

The  snowflakes are beginning to crystallize, and I’m thinking that the choice of pipecleaner color wasn’t the most inspired. They don’t look beautiful and Christmassy so much as “eerie starfish in specimen jars”-like. The kids love them though. All of the talk about crystals has spawned a veritable crystal factory on my kitchen counter. Tomorrow [...]

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Flubber Fun

Inspired by Angie, we did the Borax snowflake project, and then, while the Borax was out, I remembered about Flubber. A tad messy, but well worth it, because I was rewarded with squeals of excitement and even a “You’re the best mother ever!” I laughed, and reminded Tee that he doesn’t think I’m so great [...]

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Water Microscope

Cut a hole in the side of a plastic container. Cover top with plastic wrap, and secure with an elastic. Put water on top of the plastic. Stick things (fingers, newspaper, dice etc) in the hole, and look through the top. Not a huge order of magnification, but enough to notice.

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Cartesian Divers

Still on the science kick. Today it was the not-so-well-known Cartesian Divers experiment. Well, not so well known to me anyway. Something to do with density, and air pressure, easy enough to do but hard to explain. Tee found it absolutely riveting. He wrote a whole paragraph explaining the experiment in detail, drew a labeled [...]

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Egg Experiment….Do Not Eat!

Another classic. The Rubber Egg Experiment. Put a raw egg in a glass of ½ vinegar/½ water. Wait at least 48 hours. Watch the egg develop bubbles on it’s surface. Watch the bubbles lift the egg to the surface of the liquid. Talk some more about gas vs liquid vs solid. Maybe talk about hot [...]

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Kitchen Chemistry

Homeschool science is fun in the early years. At least, I think so. There are so many great books in the kids section of the library, and so many great sites on the internet. I have stacks of books sitting around the house all earmarked and sticky-tabbed at pages for fun experiments and projects. Today’s science [...]

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