Apparently, I’m picking some real winners of experiments to try with the kids. I figured building a house of cards wouldn’t be that difficult.

I was wrong.

We were able to make a few ‘teepees’ out of the cards, but before we could get much farther, they would all collapse…however, it drove home the entire point of the experiment overall, so in that sense it worked out perfectly!

Question of the Week… What will happen if a key card is removed from the card house?

Items we used for this experiment:

~ deck of cards

~ brainpower and patience {the latter sadly lacking in our house}

Predictions and Experiment…

Each of the kids made a prediction about what would happen…which wasn’t too difficult, considering we couldn’t even get a card house built! Their prediction was that it would fall ~ and that it did!

Before we started the experiment, we talked about force {pushing or pulling on an object}. We tried putting our fists together in front of us and seeing what would happen when the force from one arm was more than the force from the other. I also demonstrated force by having Zachary try to stand up from his chair while I pushed down on his shoulder.

The kids each took about 7-10 cards and tried to build a card house with it {two teepees on the bottom, a card laying on top of them and another teepee on top}.

Mommy tried rather unsuccessfully to build just one. Every time I tried to build the second part of the house, the first one would fall. Zachary was the only one who managed to get two standing up together.

Eventually we tried creating different styles of card houses and Laurianna was able to make one that was a little more square in style {notice the tongue concentration with both her and Zachary ~ grins}.

The Nutshell Reason…

Force {push or a pull} can put an object in motion or change speed or direction of a moving objects. Objects also put force against each other and can balance if the forces are equal. Obviously the stronger force wins and will push the other object in the direction that it is going.

After the Experiment…

Once we finished our experiment and talking about why things were happening the way they were {force, balance, etc…} the kids answered a few questions on their observation sheet from the book and illustrated what happened during our experiment.

Resource: How to Do Science Experiments with Children is available from Amazon and you can also check it out {and do some of the experiments} using Google Docs! The experiments use easy-to-find objects and also include record sheets for kids to fill out with their predictions and experiment results. Each experiment also includes teaching tips and explanations…which are rather handy! :) Don’t forget to check out some other great science ideas at Science Sunday hosted by Ticia at Adventures in Mommydom.

This week we talked about molecules…and cohesion…and surface tension. Water, soap, and newspaper were involved. Did I mention water and a squeezable bottle of dish soap?

And Mommy only wanted to bang her head on the table once.

The question to find the answer to: What will happen when two ‘men’ made out of newspaper are put into water ~ one in soapy water and one in plain water.

Items we used for the experiment:

• 2 plates
• water
• dish soap
• newspaper men

The kids made predictions about what would happen to the little man dropped into the soapy water ~ would he sink? sink faster than the man in plain water? sink slower? same speed? All the kids thought he would sink faster ~ and they were right!

We put water on both plates and added dish soap to one of the plates. We gently put the newspaper guys on each plate and watched to see which guy decided to sink first.

After the experiment was finished, each of the kids answered several questions about what had happened and the why behind it and then drew a picture illustrating what the results were. This has really been fun to see their interpretation of the experiment.

The Nutshell Reason…

The dish soap reduces the surface tension of the water. The water molecules, instead of sticking together, attach themselves to the other material in the water {dish soap}. When the newspaper is put on to the water, the water immediately makes it wet and it sinks. The paper put in the plain water will take longer to get wet.

Resource: How to Do Science Experiments with Children is available from Amazon and you can also check it out {and do some of the experiments} using Google Docs! The experiments use easy-to-find objects and also include record sheets for kids to fill out with their predictions and experiment results. Each experiment also includes teaching tips and explanations…which are rather handy! :)

Don’t forget to check out some other great science ideas at Science Sunday hosted by Ticia at Adventures in Mommydom.

This week our experiment together was all about chemical reactions. We have plenty of dirty money around our house {pennies that is}, so we decided to give them a bath in a few different solutions and see what would happen.

If you’d like to try this experiment at home, you’ll only need a few simple things to try it yourself:

• salt
• white vinegar
• dirty pennies
• a glass jar
• a Tablespoon to measure
• a plastic spoon
• paper towels
• bowl of water

Before starting our experiment, the kids made a prediction about what would happen when pennies were washed with a mixture of vinegar and salt. Would they sizzle, turn black, bounce up and down, or become shiny? Predictions varied with our three ~ black, bouncing and shiny {only McKenna guessed correctly}.

We also tried putting just salt on one penny and just vinegar on another to see what would happen. The salt just rubbed off and the vinegar started brightening the penny, but didn’t do a very good job.

The kids measured and mixed 6 Tbsp. of white vinegar with 2 Tbsp. of salt. They took turns stirring and stirring, meanwhile peeking to see what was happening inside the swirling mix.

Each of the kids drew a picture of what happened during the experiment ~ I LOVE seeing their interpretations of what happened! The result? Here are the before and after pictures of Laurianna’s two pennies.

The Nutshell Reason…

Pennies become dull looking because the oxygen atoms in the air combine with the copper atoms on the pennies. When we mixed the salt with the vinegar, a chemical reaction took place. Together the two different items formed a new chemical called hydrochloric acid. When hydrochloric acid meets oxygen atoms on the surface of the pennies, it makes them shiny and looking new.

Resource: How to Do Science Experiments with Children is available from Amazon and you can also check it out {and do some of the experiments} using Google Docs! The experiments use easy-to-find objects and also include record sheets for kids to fill out with their predictions and experiment results. Each experiment also includes teaching tips and explanations…which are rather handy! :)

Don’t forget to check out some other great science ideas at Science Sunday hosted by Ticia at Adventures in Mommydom.

We had much fun with a quick and easy experiment this week that helped us all learn a little bit about high and low air pressure. I found a lovely book of science experiments {see below} hidden in a stash of my teaching books while I was cleaning and sorting books for next year.

If you want to try the experiment yourself, you’ll only need a few things:

~ a blow dryer

~ ping pong balls

~ electricity

Before we started our experiment we made a prediction about what would happen to the ping pong ball resting on the nozzle of the blow dryer. when we turned the blow dryer on. Would it blow away? Stay in the column of air above the dryer? Be sucked into the hair dryer? Melt? The kids were mixed in their predictions and Zachary ended up being the one to guess predict correctly.

Each of the kids took turns trying it out, moving the hair dryer from side to side and up and down so that the ball traveled along with the air stream. McKenna wondered if two balls would be able to stay in the air stream ~ and they did for all of 3 seconds {but the look on her face was hilarious!}.

   

Zachary ~ the ball is light and air is heavy so the air was lifting the ball up

McKenna ~ the ball was light and the air force was so strong it floated

Laurianna ~ because the heat rose straight up and didn’t spread out

The Nutshell Reason…

The pressure in the column of rapidly moving air shoots upward and is lower in pressure than the air around the column. The ping pong ball is ‘pushed’ back into the center column by the higher pressure of the air particles around the column ~ air moves from areas of higher pressure to areas of lower pressure.

Resource: How to Do Science Experiments with Children is available from Amazon and you can also check it out {and do some of the experiments} using Google Docs! The experiments use easy-to-find objects and also include record sheets for kids to fill out with their predictions and experiment results. Each experiment also includes teaching tips and explanations…which are rather handy! :)

Don’t forget to check out some other great science ideas at Science Sunday hosted by Ticia at Adventures in Mommydom.