Sunday, December 27, 2009

LOOK, MOM, I MADE BROCCOLI!!!

Watching The Cat From Outerspace and the kids were oohing and ahhing over the main character's inventions. So, naturally, they both decided it was time to do some inventing of our own.

And, you know, right up there with "Uh-oh!", "Mama, I wanna help" and "Look, Mama, I made breakfast," the phrase, "Let's do some experiments!" just terrifies me to my very core!!!

So, I dug out some activity books hoping to impose just a little bit of control, and the kids found a couple of experiments that Mema and I agreed had only very remote possibilities of resulting in food on the ceiling or lava on the floor. Maybe.

SAIA'S EXPERIMENTS:

So, the first one Saia tried was called Invisible Skin, which essentially involved drenching her hands in vegetable oil and then immersing them in water so that she could see how the oil coating protected her skin from the cold water, kinda like a polar bear's skin protects it from the frigid elements.

Her second one involved putting a couple of different drops of food coloring into a bowl of milk and then adding a drop of detergent to each to watch how it made the color disperse and interact throughout the bowl. It actually looked a little like a
kaleidescope. :)

SANTIAGO'S EXPERIMENT:

Chago, on the other hand, decided that nothing in the books would do and preferred to come up with his own. [And a great fear ran through the house.]

But after a few stern "I don't THINK so"s from Mama, he settled on a safe and [hopefully] less messy cauliflower test. The picture to the left shows his proposed ingredients, his hypothesis, and his results.

You'll notice at the very bottom, he added that he made broccoli, which is exactly what his cauliflower looked like when it came out of the green dye. :)

And then for the next twenty minutes, he raided the fridge for any other possible items to test, from apples to marshmallows, simultaneously confirming his hypothesis and, apparently, satisfying his snack attack.

And, finally, I carved out a star on the leftover half apples so they could dip into the remaining mush of dye and use as stamps for the next half hour.

All in all, a very successful (read: no permanent damage) experimental Sunday.
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2 comments:

Diana said...

Wow. We had the same afternoon last week. And even though mine are older, my entire body still reacts with a scream, "Nooooooo!" But they are older, so their cleaning up skills are decent, so I said yes.

Try Dancing Raisins. (Not an exploding lava volcano, but surprising and good for a giggle): Get a tall glass or tall, clear plastic cup. Fill it with any clear bubbly liquid - i.e. 7up, Sprite. Drop 7 raisins into the liquid. Watch.

And you can tell Chago, that afterward Jordan did dump the whole box in. And any other dried fruit he could throw in there. No surprising results, but it squeezed out a few more minutes from the event. Ahhh, happy childhood memories. Afternoons like this make up for all the screaming over homework right? Just pushes all THOSE memories out, right? RIGHT?

Jo Anna Guerra said...

That's too cute!! But I have to say, with the little brainiacs you're raising, I'd be nervous, too.