Science Sunday: For real Water and Air Pressure

 

 

So, obviously I never got that post fixed last week.  First I was wrongly reported as having malware, so I had to work on that.  Then I had two very hyper little girls who wanted lots of attention.  LOTS of it.

THE QUESTION: Why does the water stay in the straw when you put your finger on it?

 

THEORIES: There’s something stopping it from getting out.  We don’t know what.

First I had them figure out what I was doing differently than them that kept the water in the straw.  They tried several different ways of holding the straw to duplicate my keeping the water in, but didn’t figure it out until I showed them what I did very slowly.  Then I heard:

 

“OH!  It’s just like the Thumb pot at Williamsburg!”

Talk about making a Mom proud.  They’d drawn the connection between this and the gardening tool they’d seen one time.  It also work based on air pressure holding in the water until you take your thumb off the top.

 

This one is from Farm to Market.

 

 

But, they still hadn’t completely figured out what was keeping the water in while my thumb was on the straw, so on to the next part.

 

Next we did the water and air pressure holding the index card on even though the cup is upside down.  A similar principle holds the paper up as holds the water in.  I asked leading questions:

What’s under the cup.

If there is no liquid in the cup, what is still in the cup?

After a while they realized there was air in the cup, and there was air pushing on the paper and air pushing on the water in the straw.

 

See, if I put my thumb on top of the straw, there is no place for the air to move into where the water is, it creates a vacuum, and the water cannot move out.  The same theory works with the cup and the water.  If the water is to the top of the cup, there is nowhere for the paper to go because the air pushes it up while the water is pushing it down.  Of course eventually the water soaks through and the paper falls, but for a short time it’s “Amazing Mommy!”

 

So, that was my quick science experiment we had because I was trying to cool down my son’s tea.

 

Let’s see what others did this week:

No Doubt Learning shared about their solar week.  I’m wondering what the results of her evaporation experiment would be here in Texas during the summer.

 

I don’t think I’m brave enough to try the light bulb experiment All Things Beautiful did in her microwave.  I have a bad track record with fires……..

 

The Usual Mayhem shared the science behind a brain freeze and some suggested cures they tried.  I figured at least one of us is going to get one this summer, I also found out I’m 90% more likely to get one because I get migraines, well BOO.

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Science Sunday: Why are our bones strong?

After much talking and debating among my three children they decided to go with Land Animals for our next science to study.  But, Superman really wanted to learn about skeletons, I think that’s the only reason he was looking at the Anatomy notebook because it had a skeleton on the front.  Seriously.

 

I made him a deal, what if before we start learning about land animals, we learn about skeletons?  He was okay with that.

 

I had picked up the “Magic School Bus Explores the Human Body Science Kit,” thinking it looked really cool.  I’d seen Enchanted Homeschooling talk about some of their kits a couple of times and it looked very intriguing.

 

I was right.  This could make a great month long unit on anatomy all by itself.  I’m going to save most of it for when we study anatomy, but until then………

 

For the first experiment you need: glass jar, vinegar, chicken bone

 

1.  Get a rotisserie chicken for dinner, and enjoy it.  Then don’t let your husband throw away the bones.

2.  Explore the bones.  This is a great chance to try descriptive terms.  Slimy, dense, hard, rubbery.

 

3.  Discuss the cartilage at the end of the bone.  Also point out a few ligaments and tendons that are still attached.  Think to yourself, this is kind of gross.

 

4.  Predict what will happen to the bone while it’s in the vinegar.  My kids had no clue what would happen, so they went for SUPER silly!  Princess said “A Princess will come out of the bone and make flowers!”  Ummmmmm, not so much.

5.  Obsessively check on the bone for the next day or so.  Pout when you’re not allowed to touch it.

 

6.  Take the bone out.  Discover that you can bend it.  Talk about how the vinegar took the calcium out of the bone.  Calcium is what makes our bones hard and strong.  This is why we drink milk.

 

7.  Observe the dissolved calcium in the jar.  Think to yourself, that’s kinda gross.

 

And that’s our first part of skeleton studies.  I’ve been busy getting ready for the kids to go to grandparents while Jeff and I celebrate our 10 year anniversary this week.  I was going to do more, but I had other things on my mind………  A lot of cleaning.

 

Let’s see what others did this week:

Spell Out Loud did a great preschool evaporation activity.

 

The Usual Mayhem has a post for the strong of stomach about mold and fungus (with added bit at the end about the useful parts of fungus and mold……).

Almost Unschoolers has glow in the dark fake snow.  Now to hunt down a UV source……..

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Science Sunday: Shrimp

 

 

A few months ago I shared how we dissected a shrimp, however the shrimp we got from our grocery store was already beheaded.  We got ones with shells on, so they saw the tails and legs and such stuff, but they really wanted to know what the head looked like, up close and personal.

 

I joked about going out for sushi and making my brother order fried shrimp heads again (he did it on a dare once, it was AWESOME), but Jeff didn’t think that was the best plan, for many perfectly valid reasons.

 

 

Then, when we were in Virginia we ate at this perfectly horrible Chinese/Japanese buffet.

 

Horrible, they messed up jello so badly I couldn’t eat it.

 

But, they had shrimp with their heads on.  So, right there in the restaurant we had a science lesson.

First thing we noticed is how HUGE the eyes are.  I personally think they’re kind of freaky.

 

 

Next we noticed the length of the antennae.  They’re about as long as the shrimp itself.

 

This required a lot of playing and fiddling around to see how much it could be moved.

 

And then some general exploration of how it moves and the different parts of it.

 

Of course eventually it was eaten.

 

I guess that day we played with our food.

 

Let’s see what others did this week:

Finding the Teachable Moments shared about their Fire Safety week, a great pre-school/early elementary unit (you have to see what her husband brought home from work!).

 

Homeschool Mo did a couple of things this week, but I really loved her illustration for the earth circling the sun using a pie pan.

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Science Sunday: starfish

 

 

You remember how ages and ages ago I asked for recommendations about starfish, and then I lost my camera with the pictures of what we did?

 

Well I found it.  Or more accurately, when I made the kids clean out the dog’s toy box of all of their stuff they found it.  My guess, I had them clean and they put it all in the dog’s toy box.

 

Needless to say I was not a happy Mommy.

 

First we looked as the starfish my Mother-in-Law had given us from a trip she took and picked up for them.  I’ve been holding on to these for quite some time.  We noticed the little bumpy things on the bottom and talked about how those are little suction cups that let the starfish move around.

 

After we poked around and looked at them under a magnifying glass, I said we were going to try and see what it was like.  Then one at a time I ushered my unsuspecting kids into the bathroom and they got to play with the plunger in the toilet.

After I was suitably disgusted by their fascination (and they now think of the least excuse why the bathroom needs the plunger, racing downstairs to get it), and they managed to not cover my bathroom floor with water.  We continued on to the next part.

 

Then we cut out a starfish from sandpaper and recorded our observations of what it felt like to try and move like a starfish.  We did a similar craft before, a couple of years ago for our ocean animals book.

 

I’d like to thank: Fantastic Five, Alex Nguyen Portraits, Books 4 Learning, and Enchanted Homeschooling Mom for all coming up with some fun ideas to do.  Between all of their ideas, links, and suggestions I could have spent a couple of weeks on starfish, unfortunately my kids interest level was not as high as mine.

 

Does anyone else ever run into the problem of being more interested in a topic than their kids are?

Let’s see what others did this week:

Fantastic Five combined science and art for a fun astronomy lesson.

I loved the idea of using a rolling pin for a pulley from Quirky Momma.

 

Next Gen Homeschooler did a great job of trying to earthquake proof buildings.

 

Dottie’s Homeschool Universe shared about rocks and how they’re formed.

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Don’t forget to have a link back here somewhere on your front page.

 

Oh, and one last request: If you have any posts, old or new, about land animals I’d love to see them linked up.  We’re going to be studying land animals next and my land animals pinterest board is rather sparse.

Science Sunday: Shrimp

I just heard about a linky sponsored by Apologia Science, so I'm gonna link this up to Homeschool Science Show and Tell!

I’m kinda thinking I need a “grocery science” category, because as I was finishing up our science experiment for the week I realized a large majority of our science experiments come from there.

Case in point.  This week we were reading about different crustaceans, and I thought excellent let’s check out the lobsters at the store.

We had a lot of fun observing the different parts and remembering why the water is cold (keeps the lobsters complacent and from needing to eat).

I asked if we could touch the lobsters, but they’re not allowed to touch except with gloves on, and I was rather expecting that answer, but figured I’d give it a shot.



That night after dinner we explored the 6 shrimp I got after looking at the lobsters.  I considered getting some crab too (what a great excuse to get crab, right?), but the crab is already cut in half and doesn’t have the exoskeleton on it.  Kinda takes away some of the science lesson, and thus my excuse to get crab.




We went through and looked at their swimmerets, and discussed their exoskeleton, which is tough and brittle.  Then we looked at the tail, talked about it for awhile.





Jeff joined in the lesson at this point, and after having pulled the tail off one, pointed out the long thin brown thing you can see in the picture (thank goodness for zoom).  That is the shrimp’s lower intestine.  Then we talked about how the butcher (or someone else) had already taken the head off and removed most of the organs.

Let me tell you that was the most fascinating thing EVER to them.


Afterwards they filled out the lapbook portion about shrimp and drew pictures.  Oh, and they all stole Jeff’s shrimp.  Back when we were on our Christmas trip they all tried shrimp and swore they didn’t like it.  On Wednesday when I only got a little they all decided they loved it and stole all of poor Jeff’s shrimp.

Here’s a few fun ideas from this past weeks link-ups:

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational has a fun way to learn about spiders (I know my boys would love this).

All Things Beautiful did an experiment with the connection between taste and smell (FYI one of my boys has those same jammies).

Learning Ideas K-8 has a fun anemometer, homemade wind speed measurer.  I didn’t know you could make one at home.

And one last one:

The Learning Hypothesis gave us a link to the science behind play dough.