M4 - May Week 2

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Mom says the last two weeks could've been a science study on "Sinking," but hopefully we will get back to floating this week.

On a good note, we've done lots of talking and reading about animals, since I am totally into that these days. But as far as the structured stuff - Daddy says Mom is the only one getting educated by doing all the prep work.

Anyways, here are a few science things we did.

Motion

Vibration

We did a vibration experiment in conjunction with our Ear stuff to get an idea of how the ear drum works...

Take an empty tin can (we used a metal cup), cover the top with plastic wrap, and keep the plastic taut with a rubber band.

Put a tiny bit of salt on top.  I wanted to use LOTS of salt - but Mom wouldn't let me.

Have one person hold the can perfectly still while the other taps the base of it with a ruler.  Even though the can doesn't move, the salt will jump!

You can also make really cool noises with your ruler and the can.  But then you gotta talk about sound waves, which gets pretty complicated.

Matter

Explosion

We tried to make an explosion (the Bubble Bomb described here), but this one can be added to our list of "the lesson learned wasn't the lesson we were trying to learn" experiments.

First we watched this Explosion video to get into the right frame of mind and establish a healthy respect for explosions.

Here's what we did.  I carefully measured 1.5 Tablespoons baking powder (should be soda) in a little square of paper towel.  I folded it up; then we put it into a sandwich ziploc bag.  I mixed up 1/4 cup water with 1/2 cup vinegar in a separate container.

We carefully carried everything outside, where I proceeded to pour half the liquid out onto the ground before Mom yelled at me to stop!

Then she poured what was left of the vinegar/water into the ziploc bag and sealed it.  We dropped it on the ground and ran for cover.  The bag was supposed to explode and spray water everywhere!

Nothing happened.

That's not true.  The bag blew up like a big balloon.  That was really cool!

Then, nothing happened.

I wanted to play with the balloon.  Mom wouldn't let me.  She made me keep waiting.  But Flamey got to play with it.

Finally Mom checked it out and said there was a little hole in the bag that the gas was escaping through.

What went wrong?  Mom says maybe it was because I dumped out half the liquid before she could pour it in the bag.  I say maybe it was because she made me use baking powder instead of baking soda.

So we DID get a nice zippy balloon, but no explosion.

Mitosis

Monkeys

We watched lots of videos about monkeys!  Cute ones like baby monkeys taking a bath, or the tiger/monkey fight.  I LOVE animal videos!

After watching some jungle videos (our favorite Animal Boogie one, and a Monkey See Monkey Do one), we talked about where monkeys live.  I had to look through a bunch of pictures and say where I thought they might live.  I picked them all right!

Then I played that I was a monkey mama!  I carried my baby monkey around on my back, just like a real monkey mama might.

 And Me

Ears/Hearing

I know all about ears already, of course.  We looked at pictures of the outer ear, ear canal, middle ear, and inner ear.  Very weird...  We read this book:  Hear this! by Sally Hewitt.

Then Mom had me draw some ears to put on my mini-me cutout (a body-tracing we did a previous week).  I wanted to make teeny-tiny ears, so that's what I did.  I cut them out with a teeny bit of help, and then Mom glued them on.  Then I wanted to add a horn, so that's what I did.

Then I got blindfolded, and Mom made a bunch of sounds.  I had to tell her what they were.  Here are some we tried:

• A ball bouncing
• Crunching an apple
• Piano playing
• Drum beats

That's all for today, folks.  Stay tuned for a really cool science-related giveaway coming up on our Learning Spaces post this Thursday!