Science and Art Fun!

The girls and I had fun doing a science/art project in our "Lakeside Homeschool" last week!  (Last week was our first semi-official week of homeschool...super busy and super fun!).

I froze a bowlful of water a few weeks ago in anticipation of this project.  We finally found time to do it, so I dumped the ice onto a tray and gave the girls a container of salt and food coloring.






They poured on the salt and squeezed on the food coloring.




Iridescence!




Messy hands!




Last time we did this project was when O(5) was 2 or 3 years old.  She was SO proud of her beautiful ice that we had to keep it in the freezer for months!  Luckily, they didn't ask to keep their beautiful ice this time (because we don't have any room in our freezer)!

Blue/Yellow Color Mixing Discovery Bottle

I was so excited to see this color mixing discovery bottle since color mixing is an activity that we spend a lot of time on.



To make this discovery bottle, I filled the bottom one third of the bottle with water colored with blue food coloring. Then I heated cooking oil and mixed in yellow powdered tempera paint. I stirred and stirred to try to get the paint to dissolve. It eventually dissolved enough, and I spooned it into the bottle. (I did this slowly because I was try to avoid putting any undissolved powder into the bottle). I'm not completely happy with the bottle because the yellow oil clings to the sides and makes the blue a little cloudy, but I've worked on it for several days, and I think this is as good as it's going to get.




The liquid turns a nice shade of green after shaking it vigorously. Then it immediately starts to separate into yellow and blue again.



I have to admit that I am much more impressed with this than the girls are, but they have had fun with it, too.  I'm looking forward to making more coloring mixing discovery bottles for E(2)'s science shelf!  (I'm hoping to find blue lamp oil because I think this would work much better with blue lamp oil and yellow water).

Magnetic Pipe Cleaner Discovery Bottle

E(2) and I made a magnetic pipe cleaner discovery bottle during "P" week! To make this discovery bottle, I cut pipe cleaners into small pieces and put them in a clean and dry plastic bottle. It doesn't get much simpler than that!


The girls love moving the pipe cleaner pieces around using their magic magnetic wand!


This is another one of those activities that is all over Pinterest...so, I'm not going to link to a specific site for the idea.

Our Feather Collection

The girls and I have found lots of pretty feathers lately, and I realized that we needed a safe place to put them (they were getting ruined and/or lost).

Floral foam works perfectly for displaying the feathers! The girls were really excited about this since they can easily remove and then return the feathers to their display. E(2) likes to scratch at the foam and make a mess, but it's not a big deal. The floral foam crumbs will make for a great lesson on sweeping!

Fun with Magnets

The girls and I have been experimenting with magnets for the last couple of weeks. We jumpstarted our exploration of magnets by reading Mickey's Magnet. (the paper on the side is hiding identifying information...this is an old library book that was thrown out and the name of the library is written on the cover).

Mickey's Magnet is about a boy who drops a box of pins, and his father shows him how to pick them up with a magnet. He learns why some things are magnetic and some are not. He also learns how to magnetize objects. The girls love this book!


One of our first magnetic activities was a magnetic treasure hunt. I hid a bunch of objects in rice, and they used our magic magnetic wand to find them. They both LOVED this!


We took turns magnetizing safety pins. We then used them to pick up tiny nails. (I was watching E(1) closely, and she made no attempts to eat any of these objects...thank goodness!)


After we magnetized the safety pins, we put a magnetic "rock" in a pitcher of water. I showed them how we could move the rock around in the water using the magic magnetic wand. They were amazed and then excited to have a turn. We spent a long time experimenting with this. We couldn't get the rock over the edges of the pitcher, so we had to reach in and grab it. They thought that was great, too, though :)



The book and our magic magnetic wand are now on our science shelf awaiting more explorations and fun!

Our Dead Insect Collection

After finding several really beautiful and interesting dead insects, the girls and I decided to start a dead insect collection. They are VERY excited about this, and we've gone on several "dead insect hunts" in our yard. We've found beetles, bees, dragonflys, moths, huge grasshopers, grandaddy longleg spiders, mayflies, etc.

Elliott found these huge and scary insects at work (Thank goodness we didn't find these at our house!)






We keep our dead insects in an old printer's box. We're hoping to fill every space before summer's end.

Montessori on the Beach...Landforms

The girls and I had a great time making landforms on the beach last week! I laminated the landforms sheet from Montessori at Home and took it, along with a large aluminum container, out to our tiny beach (this would work just as well at a sandbox). We chose a landform to make and got to work!

We made lakes and islands on the first day.




On the next day, I remembered to take blue food coloring and small plastic animals with us to the beach which made this activity even more fun!

We made a bay on the 2nd day. I drew the outline with a twig, and the girls dug it out.


We then slowly poured the water into the container. This was a good lesson on erosion because when O(4) poured the water too fast, the land eroded away.

After playing with the bay for a while, O turned it into an island.

We all really enjoyed making landforms, and I think this is something we'll do often this summer! (and I'm so glad that I didn't go to the trouble of making model magic landforms like I planned to years ago...this was much much more fun and engaging for the girls than having premade landforms)