Making butter

We have a National Geographic Kids book with lots of easy science experiments, and Oliver wanted to try one the other day. We picked the one that showed how to make butter from heavy cream, since it was one of the easiest and we already had half and half in the fridge!

Pour some cream into a container with a tight-fitting lid. Make sure you leave enough room for the cream to be shaken well.

Then start shaking! Shake, shake, shake. The book said to shake vigorously and continuously for 10 minutes. Needless to say, my kids didn't last that long. ;-)

After a minute or so, I took over and shook the containers for another 3 or 4 minutes. Even after that short time, we could already start to see some butter on the top of the cream!

By that point, Mr. Theodore had reached the end of his patience, so I scooped the butter out. We didn't end up with much, but it was just enough for a fun experiment and two grilled cheese sandwiches. :-)