"POP"

I love this picture! I love this picture because of the collage of paper fans on the wall. This masterpiece (I'd call it that because I know from a crafters point of view, this was no picnic in the making but the reward was sweet) reminds me of LIFE. Alot of us have the everyday gray and white things that we have to take care of. And vvery now and then our routine offers us a bit of "pop" and that's the great mustard color you see here in this picture. When you dig a little deeper, you can see that even the whites and grays have some texture or patterns to them that are not quite all the same. Hence, even on our most routine days, there's always something that looks or feels just a tad bit different than the day before it.

I wish I could recreate this and hang it on my wall behind my bed to remind me the little unexpected joys or challenges that each day brings and of course that the "POP" of change is never too far away!

More science before school starts

So, we did do more science projects however; we didn't do such a thorough job as the first time with all the notes and such. Here are two more that were and weren't successful due to not realizing that we didn't have enough materials and not enough time.

Lava Lamp!

We kinda needed a little more oil!

An alka-seltzer

It did fizz and do some bubbly stuff but because of the lack of oil, the effect was minimal.

Next - Making chocolate melt!

So we put chocolate in the upstairs bathroom, in a shaded spot outside and in the lawn which was very sunny. The ants got all over the chocolate that was in the sun and even though Atlanta feels terribly hot to us, none of the chocolate melted all the way in the sun or in the upstairs blazing hot bathroom. It was fun to get the kids doing something different so next year, I have time to prepare and have ample supplies on hand.

E=where did this week go?

I'm pretty sure I left you guys thinking about math and science projects and you're probably on pins and needles to see the kinds of things we did. I too am so excited to share them with you; however we only managed to do one. Well...one that worked.

The first one was writing in lemon juice on plain paper then holding it up to a light bulb and being able to see your writing. Not sure why it didn't work but it didn't. You see, this whole journey started when JT said he wanted to be a scientist. So I had the genius idea to start with experiments at home by teaching him how to write down his observations, his hypothesis, results, etc. The next one we did was great.

HOW TO MAKE AN EGG FLOAT IN WATER

Simple, all you need is water, alot of salt, a tall glass/cup and an egg.

For observation, I asked him to place the egg in the plain water and we watched it sink to the bottom. So now we know that getting it to float does not happen naturally.

This is what the water in the cup looked like after adding 5 tbsp of salt. The step after this is to stir the salty water together and then pour in clean water on top being careful not to mix the two. You want the cup almost full of water.

Now he's gently putting the egg in the water being careful not to drop it in and...

VOILA!! A floating egg!

To be completely honest, the first time we put the egg in it didn't float but JT remembered it was because we hadn't stirred the salt into the first cup of water. "Great observation", I said to him and he was correct. Mixing the salt water before putting more plain water in made all the difference. The density of the salty water made the egg almost float right where the salty water ended and the plain water began. The egg floated for a few hours until we took it out. Science is an amazing thing!