Melting Ice in the Fridge

Saturday night at dinner time had us conversing about our world. Somehow, the conversation was turned to, "What do you think will happen if we put ice in the fridge?" J, without hesitation, hypothesized that it would melt. Why? Because he's just that smart (intuition).

John and J put an ice in a cup and placed it in the fridge over night.

J checked on it during breakfast this morning and found that it wasn't completely melted! He was baffled. We left it in the fridge until lunch time, when it was found completely melted. They put another piece of ice in a cup and left if out between breakfast and lunch. That too was completely melted by lunch time.

Why did the fridge ice take longer to melt?

The temperature in the fridge was above freezing, so the ice would melt. It took a long time since the temperature in the fridge was in the high 30 (deg F) range. The air from the fridge did melt the ice. It was just slightly warmer than the ice itself, so it took a long time.

The temperature of the room (~72 deg F) was much higher than freezing point (32 deg F), so it didn't take as long to melt the ice cube.

Other things you can try with ice:

Melt an ice cube in front of a fan. Have one away from the fan to compare the two. What happened?

Record the temperature of various locations around your house (fridge, freezer, closet, patio, washing machine, etc.) with a thermometer and predict which ice cube will melt the fastest based on the knowledge you learned here. Place an ice cube in various locations and see if you're right!

Related Posts:
     *Melting ice, measuring temperature
     *Melting ice with colors

"Look Mom! It sticks!"

Fun with friction!

Felt and fleece work really well when it comes to adhering to other materials using friction alone. This is a great, quick science lesson to hypotheses about what will and won't stick vertically on things. Would the pillow stick to the wall? What about a heavier pillow? Would silky objects stick to the couch? Would silky objects stick to the wall? What if the materials were wet? Experiment and have some fun!

What can you stick to the back of your couch?

Doing science with your kids blog

Christopher Danielson has been a reader of this blog since the beginning. He started the Talking Math with Your Kids blog where he discusses how he and his young children talk about math. We follow each other on Twitter where he virtually introduced me to Casey Rutherford. Inspired by Talking Math with Your Kids, Casey started the hashtag "#dswyk" which stands for "doing science with your kid(s)," and I promptly joined the #dswyk party. A few days/weeks (I'm oblivious to time at this point in my life, thanks to Miss Baby J) later, he created a blog: Doing Science with Your Kids, and now I'm a contributor.

My first entry is a lesson on sink or float led by my 5-year old boy, J. Does a Duplo sink or float? The answer might surprise you. Click on over to check it out!

I'll still be using this as my main blog and contributing as I can to Doing Science with Your Kids.

Baking soda and vinegar volcanoes via a 5 year old

A few weeks ago, J woke me up from a much needed nap telling me that he wanted to do science. I asked what he wanted to do, and he really wanted to do balloon science, particularly baking soda and vinegar blows up a balloon. Frankly, I wanted to do something else (because though fun, it is a quick experiment that we've done more than once), but we kept the baking soda and vinegar part of the science he wanted to do. I asked him if he wanted to do volcanoes. He gave us an enthusiastic, "YES!"

Being lazy and having a new baby (who at the time was content), I didn't want to spend time looking up the experiment online. We decided to experiment on our own on how much baking soda vs. how much vinegar and the size of the container we were using for the experiment.

Mountainous material for the volcano:
I admit again that I am lazy. J had been given a lot of Play-Doh for a birthday last year, so I'd figure we'd use some up by covering the paper cup in different shades of Play-Doh. I don't want to be crafty at this point in my life, but here is a homemade playdough recipe if you'd like (painted paper mache volcano might be better if you have time to plan ahead and want it to look cool). The Play-Doh got soggy, but held up. We tossed it after we were done though we were thinking of saving it before we started, which is why we only put a small amount of orange and red on our volcano. We remained lazy and just used the Play-Doh container, without any decoration, to test a smaller container. J enjoyed it just as much as the decorated volcano since the "wow" factor is in the interaction between the baking soda and vinegar.

Place volcano in a pan with high sides, or you'll have quite a mess to clean up afterwards.

Amount of baking soda:
We used 1 tablespoon (tbsp) of baking soda as a starting point. We also used 2 tbsp, but 1 was enough to give multiple eruptions with our amount of vinegar, see note below on limiting reagents. We placed the baking soda in the cup first.

Note: We started with about 1/2 of a box of leftover old baking soda from the last time we switched it in the fridge, so there was plenty to experiment with.

Amount of vinegar:
We had a little under 1/2 gallon of vinegar to experiment with though we initially weren't planning to use it all. An adult poured it into a small 8 oz cup for J to handle. You definitely don't need a 1/2 gallon of vinegar, but we buy it by the gallon because it's cheaper and we can use it in impromptu experiments.

Size of container:
It turns out that if you have limited resources (ie. minimal amounts of mountainous materials, baking soda, or vinegar), go with a smaller container. If not, the bigger container works just fine.

Experiment:
Let your little one lead. We let J measure the baking soda and gave him the vinegar in a kid size cup. He knew what to do from other baking soda/vinegar experiments. I thought the reaction was over after the first pass of vinegar. J's curiosity lead to the discovery that 1 tbsp of baking soda can lead to multiple "eruptions" (reactions).

Notes:
With 1 tbsp of baking soda, the unmeasured vinegar (under 8 oz) poured in spurts seemed to be the limiting reagent. We poured more vinegar, and the reaction kept going. This is an advance concept for preschoolers, but you can definitely point it out and see if they follow.

After experiment free play:
I'm big on letting my 5 year old continue to play once the experiment is over. This experiment resulted in a sensory bin since there was a big glup of baking soda in basically water. However, when he transferred his pile of baking soda from one part of the tray too another, he got a sizzle. There was still a reaction left!

And apologies for the shaking camera. I was helping J with the experiment, and John was juggling the camera and this cute nugget:

She liked the volcanoes too. Well, at least she didn't fuss.

Have you experimented with baking soda and vinegar volcanoes? How did you model the volcano?

Mathematical Dice Games

J spent a day sick at home last week. It was a minor illness, so he was very antsy about being inside all day. He pulled out his dice to pass the time. J's great aunt had given him the Tenzi Game (affiliate link) over the summer. We haven't played it the way it's supposed to be played (getting all 10 dice to show the same number, which sounds like some super Yahtzee game), but we now have 40 dice to play with however we want. This is heaven for this math mama! Let me tell you some fun math games we've played with them and how we plan to continue to grow and develop mathematically with the dice.

We started out with each person having their own color of dice, so we can easily distinguish who rolled what.

The Bigger Number Wins!

J actually came up with this game on his own. We started out with one dice (aka. die) each. We rolled the dice, and J first counted the dots on each die and told me which die had the most dots. As we played more, I encouraged J to make his decisions quicker, without counting.

This game is great for older toddlers (who won't shove dice in orifices that they shouldn't be in) and preschoolers to understand the concept of greater than/less than.


Addition: The Bigger Number Wins!

The next game included two dice each. Again, having different color dice is wonderful for determining what numbers belong to each person.

We rolled the dice, and J added up the dots on everyone's rolls. Whoever rolled the biggest number wins! J also ranked who came in second, third, and last. We also increased the frequency of rolls and decreased the amount of time between each roll as we progressed. This challenged our 4.5 year old to make quicker decisions and encouraged more mental math rather than counting dots. In our picture example, the yellow dice wins with 11, green comes in second with 10, white is third with 9, and blue is last with 7.

For older kids: This game can be adapted to use more dice for a greater challenge.


Subtraction: The Smaller Number Wins!

We haven't played this game yet. I imagine it going something like this:

Each player gets two dice of the same color. Everyone rolls their dice and each person's smallest number rolled is subtracted from the larger number rolled. Whoever gets the smallest number wins! In our picture example above, we have a tie for first: yellow and blue both have 1. Green comes in next with 2, and white loses with 3.

For older kids: This can also be a two player game with two dice of different colors each. Pick a color to always subtract from the other color. Note that this might give you negative numbers! The smallest number still wins.


More Math Fun with Dice!

During his childhood, my husband was given a dice game by his grandpa (he has no idea of what it is called). After his old game broke, John went on to design one for himself on his 3-D printer and uploaded it to Thingiverse (to share with other nerdy people). The goal of the game is to use mathematical operations (you know, please excuse my dear Aunt Sally's loud radio - the mathematical order on how you're supposed to solve complex problems parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction from left to right) on the 5 white dice in order to get the result of the two black dice added together (so on the picture above: how would 2, 3, 3, 3, 6 make 42?). If you want more details on the game or want to print one of your own, visit the Dice Game Thingiverse page. This game is also great for older kids.

Do you have any fun math games you play with dice?

The Guessing Game - Practicing Descriptive Words

Lately, J has been playing this game where he pulls out everything he owns and hides it behind his back. He then makes us guess what it is by his clues. Luckily, his clues have gotten better as the game has progressed.

This is a great game for beginning to use descriptive words, which are useful in the scientific world. 

These words can describe:

• what the object looks like.
• Is it big, small, colorful, etc.?
• the shape of the object.
• Is it round, oval, square, rectangular, etc.?
• what the object feels like.
• Is it smooth, slimy, bumpy, etc.?
• what the object is used for.
• Is it used for cooking, cleaning, fun, a specific purpose?
• what letter the object begins with.
• what sounds the object makes.
• if it can be used more than once.

My favorite clues J has come up with:

• It is used to hit a baseball. (Baseball Bat)
• I wear this on my head to protect my eyes from the sun. (Baseball cap)
• It begins with an M and is used to make cold food warm. (cardboard microwave - this one threw gma off during a Skype guessing game session)

One that threw us off:

Clues:

• He said there was something behind his back.
• He was not holding it.
• It's blue.

Yay for static electricity!

Seriously, this game has killed much time in our household. It's usually an impromptu game due to boredom, but we love to play it on Skype with his grandparents. It's fun to see him improve on his descriptions too.

Order Numbers and Math

It's no secret that we love In N Out in our family. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this West Coast chain, it's probably the freshest fast food you can get, and it's often very crowded. You order at the counter, and they call your number when your food is ready. J's favorite thing has been to ask, "How many more till our number is called?"

You can do this quick and easy game to pass time at any restaurant where they shout out sequential numbers. At In N Out, the numbers go from 1-99.

John and I don't like to answer, but we turn the tables on J (age 4.5) and make him figure it out. It's hard for a four year old to mentally subtract the smaller number (what was called) from the bigger number (what we have), for example: they called 33 and we were 40; 40-33 = 7, and so we had 7 orders till ours. Instead, we've taught him to count up using his fingers starting with the next number, as in our example above: 33 was called and we want to get to 40, so he finger counts starting with 34 as 1 on his hand, 35 is 2, and so on. He'd stop at 40, which would be 7 fingers he placed up. He's starting to catch on that 30 is 10 away from 40, and he can do the 2-3 numbers away in his head. He loves having the right answer, and it excites me when he's excited about learning (especially math).

However, we only can have the math game when he wants it or else we get, "Mommy, [deep sigh] I don't want to do math right now."

**We've been heavy on the math recently mainly because it requires little-to-no prep work and mess for this pregnant mama. Math and science go hand-in-hand. I encourage you to make both math and science everyday topics of discussions in your household.

J's lesson on light

I've been really behind on posting science experiments. Most of my days are spent at work and then tending to J's needs. By the time he goes to bed, I'm spent and rarely want to spend more time at the computer, let alone trying to make coherent posts.

Anyways, this morning, in the hustle and bustle of getting ready for church, J excitingly proclaims that he has a science lesson for me. Of course, I stopped in my tracks to listen to my four year old. He shined his finger light (LED of sorts) on the wall and showed me what happens when he was close to the wall versus when he was further away from the wall.

After dinner, I asked him to demonstrate again, so I can record it:

What is happening:

*The light is more concentrated the closer it is to the wall. The light is approximately the size of the LED finger light. Though it is small, it is very bright.

*As you move further away from the wall with the light, you have the same amount of light spread out over a bigger area (the more diffuse the light gets). The light may get bigger in size, but it's not as focused and bright. The light has more space to move through and spread out.

Other fun things you can do:

*Have fun with shadows. Hold a light source at a set distance from the wall. Make shadow puppets. How do the shadows look when your close to the light? How do the shadows look when you are close to the wall?

Related Posts:

• If you like my son's experiment he came up with all on his own, check out some other science lessons he has made up: J Lessons. One of my favorites include a finger counting lesson.

Turkey Sail Cars

We're not huge on celebrating Thanksgiving (despite J and I being Mayflower descendants). I feel like kind of a Thanksgiving scrooge (we're not cooking a feast this year).

To reduce the scroogey feeling, I really wanted to do something Thanksgiving themed for science. I decided to adapt the toilet paper sail cars into a turkeymobile by adding a turkey to the mast!

Turkey details:
I remember from my elementary school days turning hand prints into turkeys. I traced J's hands, and we cut them out in yellow, orange, and red. Originally, I was going to add half of a toilet paper tube on top for a head and use the handprints as feathers behind the head, but J was so excited to make his thumb the head of the turkey. We went with J's idea (I think it's ultimately easier). He even gave it an eye and a beak.

J and his turkey:

Action shot!

J wants to bring to to his Thanksgiving themed share day (think Show and Tell) coming up on Wednesday. Score!

Biomechanics a la J

Super sleepy, sick J revelation: "See this?" [points to folds on palms of hands]

"It's so we can pick up things like our toys."

Recycling a la J

"When someone gives us something to recycle, we use it again, like I built a rocket ship out of a bottle."

Patterns, an impromptu lesson

Patterns are everywhere in our life. They are particularly useful in science and are often used to make predictions about what will happen (aka hypotheses). If you can see what is happening, you can use that knowledge to your advantage. It's a great way to start guessing about what's going to happen or come next.

The greatest thing about patterns is that they are super easy to come by. You can make many patterns with pieces of paper (colored, textured, etc), blocks (different shapes and colors), beads, colored pencils/crayons, toys (blue car, red car, blue car...), food (beans, pasta, fruit, veggie, etc), silverware, straws (big straw, little straw, bendy straw), and many more. So next time you're bored waiting somewhere, see if you can challenge your youngin' with what you have at your disposal. Create a pattern and see if they can continue. You can also use a pattern while stacking (I've been known to play the tower game at restaurants back in my day - I haven't yet introduced J to some of my childhood shenanigans).

Here's our short lesson on patterns (which turned into about an hour of pattern making/completing):

Two weeks ago, we were walking home from lunch and found a big box of free items up for grabs. There were lots of books and games. This particular box caught my eyes:

It's definitely not an English game, but it looks like Domino's. I figured this would be fun for science (cause and effect - totally didn't think about patterns).

J immediately requested we played, but it wasn't in the "let's set it up like the picture on the box" way. There were four colors, and J wanted me to make patterns for him to complete.

I tried to convince him that we can make patterns and still build things to knock down too.

Then we found the bobble people the game came with. I think their sole job is to knock things down.

This was one of our more fun evenings over the past few weeks. I'm thankful for this gem of a game we found.

What are some of the ways you have used patterns in your family?

Finger tracing/counting

J came up with this unique way to write his numbers. It starts with 0 up on the top right, then 1, and then he traced his fingers 2-5. 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 are on the bottom row*. He's so creative.

On the way to dinner today, he repeated a version of his finger counting lesson and squealed with excitement about how much he likes counting. I was pretty excited about his counting too. At dinner, John told J that he (John) doesn't have to count the amount of fingers we hold up, he just knows (based on memorization). We then flashed a few fingers (5 and under) at J and told him to just say how many we were holding up. He did very well with all numbers under 5. Maybe we'll try 10 and under a different day.

*We're still working on the English way of reading and writing.

J's Window Writing

J wrote his name backwards on fogged up windows, unintentionally. He still learning. I took him outside to look at it. The only thing that didn't look right was his upside down Y, but he was happy with this quick and easy science lesson.

You can also try sitting across the table from someone and writing their name so it's correct for them. It's harder than you think. It's a lesson tutors learn really quickly.

Evaporation, according to a three year old

My three year old on evaporation: "Sometimes we spill things (like water) outside, and we don't need to clean it up because the sun will sip it up with a straw."

I love his imagination.

I think we might have an evaporation experiment in our near future. Stay tuned.

J's Finger Counting Lesson

I loved math long before I fell in love with science. However, I have no memories of learning math as a young child. I think the earliest memory was one of my elementary school friends showing me the 9 multiplication trick on the fingers (I was already really good at memorizing, but knowing the trick was useful when I started tutoring others). I think math is a lot of memorization that starts with counting. I've been having a hard time thinking of math lessons for little kids other than some brainstorming I did on counting for preschoolers, so I'm 100% giving credit to J for this lesson that I couldn't help but share.

Last week, J started holding up varying amounts of fingers and stating, "This is (fill in the blank with the correct #)." Then he went on to hold up the same amount of different fingers and state, "This is also (fill in the blank with the same correct #)." Then he counted the fingers to make sure his statements were correct.

How many ways can you find to hold up (using both hands - Left Hand+Right Hand):
*3 fingers (3+0, 2+1, 0+3, 1+2)
*4 fingers (4+0, 3+1, 2+2, 1+3, 0+4)
*7 fingers (2+5, 3+4, 4+3, 5+2)
*etc, etc

Of course, count your fingers each time you switch your fingers to show that it still is __ amount of fingers though you are holding up different fingers on different hands.

Also, remember you can also use different fingers than the standard way people finger count. For example, you can hold up 8 fingers with 5 on one hand + thumb, pointer, middle - or - 5 on one hand + pointer, middle, ring fingers.  Either way, it's still 8 fingers up in the air.

With this lesson you're introducing the concept of adding and a little bit of the commutative property of addition, along with basic counting skills.  It's so interesting to see what comes out of a 3.5 year old's mind!