Tie dyed milk, 2nd edition

This is a fun, easy, extremely kid-friendly science experiment to do at home! We did this one a few years ago but hadn't revisited it since then. We recently had a string of school delays/closures because of winter weather, which was the perfect time to try it again! 

All you need is a shallow container, milk (the higher the fat content, the better), food coloring, a few drops of dish detergent, and toothpicks (the tines of a fork will also work).  

Pour the milk into the container, then add drops of food coloring.  

Dip the toothpick or fork into dish detergent, then dip it into the food coloring and see what happens! (Information on the science behind this experiment can be found here. It was still a little over Oliver's head, but a lot of fun to do!)

Theodore had fun blowing on the milk at first. :-) 

The first time we did this experiment, we used 2% milk (I think?). This time, we used half-and-half, to see if it would be any different, and it was! I remember the first time, after the kids stopped poking the toothpick in the milk, the food coloring would pretty much stop moving around and changing. But this time, using milk with a much higher fat content, the colors would continue to shift and swirl around by themselves for 10-15 seconds. Very neat!! 

Coloring celery

This is a fun, very kid-friendly science experiment that we've done before (you can our previous one here). It's the watch-how-plants-"drink"-water experiment. All you need is a vase, water, food coloring, and either celery, or a couple of carnations.

Since we had done this experiment before and Oliver remembered what was going to happen (the tips of the celery leaves would turn the color of the food coloring), we decided to take it a further step and add another color after the first day. 

We started out with red. After only 2 hours, we could already see the tips of the leaves changing color!

This was about 10 hours later:

And this is what we had 24 hours later:

Then we added blue! After about 8 hours, this is what we had:

And 24 hours later, this was the final result. It was really cool!

A tale of two birthdays

If it's October, then that means it's the birthday month at our house! :-)  Miss Buttercup turned 5 (FIVE!) two weeks ago, and Oliver turned 7 (SEVEN!!) on Saturday. They are getting so big!!

We were crazy this year and had two separate birthday parties . . . at home . . . on consecutive weekends. Oy. Buttercup's party didn't have a real theme, since she couldn't decide on one, but we did have a big princess bouncy castle. :-) 

Miss B also wanted her friends to make glittery pumpkins, so we did that, too!

I think one of the biggest hits of the party was when Granddaddy decided to make himself some popcorn . . . which turned into a big bowl of popcorn for the kids, complete with sprinkles and chocolate chips. :-) 

It didn't last long!

 Buttercup also wanted to play a game where the kids stuffed marshmallows in their cheeks and tried to talk to each other, but everyone was happy jumping in the bouncy house, so we decided not to do it. Oliver still wanted to try, though. :-) 

Then we had cake! And that was it. Happy birthday, Buttercup!

The following weekend, we had Oliver's party. He wanted a MacGyver party, so he and I came up with an idea for an obstacle course that would (in our heads) mimic a MacGyver-type mission. (Trust me, it was much more awesome in our heads!!)

I made these super cute fang cookies for his party: 

While I was taking pictures of the cookies, Theodore came into the kitchen and said, "Cheese!", so I snapped his picture. However, neither of us were expecting the flash to come on! So the first picture looks like this:

And the next picture looks like this, because he wanted me to take his picture again, but also didn't want to be blinded by the flash. Ha ha ha!!! I love that silly little boy!!!

Anyway, back to the party. The morning of, Oliver helped Dennis and me set up the obstacle course. Needless to say, he loved using the mallet. :-)

Thankfully, there are no pictures of the kids (and me) doing the obstacle course, ha ha! I think they had fun though. I know Oliver did! He really enjoyed it. The objective was to get the map from the bad guy headquarters, and involved 1) attaching a grenade to a trip wire with putty, 2) making a "smoke bomb" (baking soda + vinegar), 3) dodging Nerf bullets shot at them by the bad guy (Dennis), and 4) maneuvering through a laser maze. 

The obstacle course took a couple of days to figure out, 1 hour to set up, and the kids were all done in 14 minutes! Ha ha! Thankfully,my friend and I had some science experiments ready to entertain the kiddos until it was time for food. 

Theodore liked playing with the baking soda on the driveway!  

Finally, it was time for cake! Oliver wanted a bomb cake, so that's what he got. :-)

Happy birthday, Oliver! We are so blessed to have both of these kids in our lives!!

Bubble bomb

Here's a fun science experiment we did the other day. Like the balloon experiment we did, this one also uses baking soda and vinegar, but this time we got to make an explosion! (Here's the website where I found it).

You'll need:

water (for testing the bag)

zipper sandwich bag

paper towel

1 1/2 tbsp baking soda

1/2 cup vinegar

1/4 cup water

You'll need to make sure your sandwich bag doesn't leak, so first, pour some water into the sandwich bag, then zip it closed and turn it upside down. If it leaks, find a new bag. (Strangely enough, Buttercup seemed to find this part more interesting than the actual experiment, ha ha.)

Then, tear your paper towel into a square 5 inches by 5 inches. Pour the baking soda into the middle of the paper towel. (This will be your "time-release" packet.)

Then fold each side over like this:

Then fold the ends down like this:  

Then, pour 1/4 cup warm water and 1/2 cup vinegar into the sandwich bag. Then you'll need to slip the folded-up paper towel into the bag and quickly zip it closed before the contents start foaming too much. 

Then stand back and watch what happens!

Slowly getting bigger:

And bigger:

 Pop! 

 Poor Buttercup didn't like this experiment too much because she wasn't paying attention the first time and the explosion scared her. Oliver liked it though, and we did it 3 more times to see how big of a mess we could make. Lots of fun! :-)

Squishy egg

This is a fun, super easy experiment we did last week. (I found it on the Clorox website.)  We used vinegar to dissolve the shell on an egg, which left us with a squishy, naked egg! It was really neat. (Here's a website that explains the reactions and why it happens.)

You'll need:

an egg

vinegar

a container deep enough to cover the egg with vinegar

2 days

First, place the egg in a container, and pour vinegar in until the egg is completely covered. This is what the egg looked like right after we poured the vinegar into the glass -- the bubbles started forming immediately.

 Put the container in the refrigerator, and leave it there for 2 days. Change the vinegar after 1 day. 


This is what the egg looked like after about 36 hours:  

 This is what the egg looked like after 48 hours:

It was really cool! The shell had dissolved completely. The egg really was squishy, and the kids were able to hold it and bounce it (very gently!) on the countertop. 

Then the 3 year old squeezed it a little too hard and that was the end of the egg. :-)  But it was super fun and really interesting!