Growing Everyday

Beka’s teacher sent home a printout on Friday describing an activity called Bugfest that was happening at one of the Indy parks over the weekend. Of course, my children were eager to be a part of anything having to do with bugs. Now, Andrew and I thought this would be a smallish event. We were completely and utterly wrong. There were parents and kids everywhere. First, we went to the check-in where both kids were handed a card to keep track of the stations they visited. There were probably 15-20 stations to visit all dealing in some way with bugs. We were able to see monarch caterpillars and monarch butterflies, bees and beekeepers, an entomologist, and worms. The kids really enjoyed watch the fly fisherman make their own flies. Then we come to the "grossome" part of the day. The Bugfest included a bug cafe where the children and Andrew tried bacon/cheddar crickets, salt/vinegar crickets, sour cream crickets, and chocolate covered crickets. They also had these silkworm things that you could eat. Apparently, those tasted the worst.

[photopress:2009_01_02_Egg_in_vinegar.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

Christmas break gets long and boring without some exciting projects to do. So I found this experiment online and it turned out really great. Do you know what happens to an egg when you leave it in vinegar for 24 hours? I didn’t before but I do now. The egg loses its shell when it is left in the vinegar. It ends up looking like this.

[photopress:2009_01_02_Egg_after.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

Now supposedly, if you leave the egg just sitting out on the counter for another 24 hours the shell will return. Unfortunately, I don’t know this for a fact because the kids were playing with the egg and broke it. But they did clean the mess up themselves and this gives us an excuse to try the experiment again.

[photopress:2008_12_06_Beka_preparing_for_experiment.jpg,thumb,pp_image][photopress:2008_12_06_Jared_preparing_for_experiment.jpg,thumb,pp_image][photopress:2008_12_06_MOm__Beka__and_Jared_mixing_the_containers_for_experiment.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

The other day, Beka and Jared were curious as to why we put salt on roads and sidewalks in the winter. After Andrew and I explained the basics, we did an experiment to prove it. We took 5 containers. We had a containers with salt water, vinegar, sugar water, baking soda water, and water. We left the containers outside overnight. In the morning, the kids could not wait to see the results. As you can see from the pictures, they are still in their pj’s.

[photopress:2008_12_07_examining_hte_results.jpg,thumb,pp_image][photopress:2008_12_07_examining_the_results_2.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

All of the containers froze except for the one containing salt water. We had lots of fun hypothesizing what would happen though. I had no idea what the vinegar would do.

In my humble opinion, my children are not subjected to enough science in school. So I take this as an opportunity to do all those fun science experiments with them. I went out and bought raisins and bottles of 7up. Before we started, I made Beka and Jared hypothesize what would happen. Jared siad it would explode and Beka siad the raisins would get stuck and then float. The kids then put the raisins in the bottles to see what would happen. First, the bottles bubbled so much that they overflowed. Then the raisins would sink and rise; sink and rise. So both predictions turned out to be correct. Beka and Jared then went on to add all the raisins to the bottles and watched the fluid level rise and then they had to taste the concoction. Both deemed the drink good. I wasn’t willing to taste it.

[photopress:2008_08_27_Jared_raisin_7up_science_experiment.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:2008_08_27_Beka_during_raisin_7up_scince_experiment.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

In this post, I mentioned Beka had been at practice for cheerleading. That meant Andrew and Jared were home alone to entertain themselves. The first night we were gone I came home to this:

[photopress:2008_08_05_the_bones.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

Apparently, while we were gone Andrew and Jared had gone exploring in the woods and found a pile of bones from some animal. Andrew thinks it was a opossum. Jared asked Daddy if they could bring them back to study. So they brought the bones home and boiled them. I have to add they smelled nasty! The next day, while Daddy was gone of course, the kids explored them, touched them, and finally were done with them.

[photopress:2008_08_06_playing_with_the_bones.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:2008_08_04_the_frog.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

I was outside trying to clean up toys that had been left out when I noticed a frog in the yard. I yelled for Beka and Jared, found a container for it, and set about to capture the frog. Fortunately, he wasn’t a very fast frog. And he might have actually been a toad, but whatever. We caught it and had fun playing with it before we set it free and the pond.

[photopress:2008_08_04_Beka_with_frog.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:2008_08_04_Jared_with_frog.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

We spent the afternoon outside painting on the easel and making pictures with solar paper. Andrew had bought the solar paper this fall on one of his business trips. We just finally got around to using it. You place different items on the paper in the sun. Then once the paper is white in place it in water to stop the reaction. The solar paper places shadows where the items were on the paper. The kids were impressed at the shapes they made on the papers. Oh, I almost forgot…I also brought out the CD player for some music.

[photopress:2008_07_29_Jared_with_the_solar_papers.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:2008_07_29_Jared_bustin_a_move.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:2008_07_29_Beka_painting_outside.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:2008_07_29_Beka_cheesy_with_solar_paper.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:2008_07_03_colors.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

A friend let us borrow so eye droppers and color mixing equipment. The ice cube trays were my idea. The kids had a blast seeing how many colors they could mix together before it turned balck or brown. They ended up filling the ice cube trays twice before they decided they were finished with the project. I really enjoy watching them experiment and the conversations that come out of it.

[photopress:2008_07_03_Beka_mixing_colors_3.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:2008_07_03_Jared_mixing_colors_3.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:2008_07_03_Beka_and_Jared_mixing_colors.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:2008_05_15_Beka_silly_dance_contest.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:2008_05_15_Beka_singing.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:2008_05_15_Beka_as_the_speaker.jpg,thumb,pp_image]
[photopress:2008_05_15_Beka_prim_and_proper.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

All the kindergarten classes hosted a Spring Sing for their families. They sang songs about what they had learn in school such as the ABC’s, numbers, and months. They also sang about metamorphosis and slipery fish. Beka had a speaking part, "Did you know that frogs and butterflies go through metamorphosis?" Jared even sat nicely through the whole thing.

[photopress:2008_05_08_tornado_in_a_bottle.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

Beka and Jared have been asking where tornadoes, whirlpools and hurricanes come from. And you can only tell them the science so many times before you get tired of hearing yourself repeat it over and over. So, we made a tornado in a bottle. Okay, Andrew made the tornado and kept spinning it over and over for the kids. I honestly don’t know who enjoyed it more. And they keep playing with it at night.