Sunday Science: Butterfly Life Cycle

The best way to learn about an insect's life cycle is to watch it first hand. 

A really easy and amazing insect to care for is a butterfly. 

We used the kit by Insect Lore and love it:

You receive a net habitat and a cup of caterpillars with food. Once the caterpillars form their chrysalis you transfer them to the net.

Our butterfly emerging from it's chrysalis

 Butterflies grazing on juicy oranges

 Butterflies mating!!! We did not expect to see this.

 Butterfly laying over 70 eggs.

 The instructions said to let the butterflies go within a week and we should not have to worry about eggs. These eggs appeared 5 days after the butterflies emerged.

If you look closely, there is a tiny and very hungry caterpillar on top of this leaf.

We let most of the eggs out in a field in upstate NY and kept a few at home on a bed of wet paper towels and leaves.

And of course we had to introduce him to the famous hungry caterpillar by Eric Carle (in Hebrew). 

There are tons of other activities that can be down alongside "The Very Hungry Caterpillar":

Photo Source

Photo Source

Photo Source

Science Sunday: Homemade Marble Run

 Using bottles and paper towel rolls I took out of our recycling trash, we were able to construct this makeshift marble run. (Ignore the ugliness that is my wall).

I cut the bottoms off of plastic bottles and cut paper towel rolls in half then taped them to the wall.

Lots of trial and error work needed before we got a successful marble run. 

Kids did need to climb a chair to insert marbles.

For much older kids, you can use this activity to demonstrate a variety of concepts from physics including: 

velocity

projectile motion

acceleration

gravitational force

kinetic energy

potential energy

Here are some other fun ways to make your own marble run:

cut open a pool noodle from Family Fun

OR:

Use a cereal box and toilet paper rolls from This Momma Loves

Sunday Science: Brain Hat

We made a brain hat to show our girls that our brain has different parts and different jobs to do. It is the control center for our body.

We found this brain hat template through Scholastic's Human Body- Easy Make and Learn Projects. It is full of manipulatives and models to help kids learn about the human body.

Click on the link below to access a PDF version of the entire workbook:

http://www.ahabitatforlearning.org/files/4009556/uploaded/Scholastic%20Human%20Body.pdf

Here is another great resource with tons of brain and neuroscience activities and lesson plans:

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/experi.html

You can also check out the play dough brain we made by clicking on the image below:

Science Sunday: Painting With Fizzing Scented Ice

Another post inspired by Growing a Jeweled Rose

I think after today's post we will give the whole baking soda/vinegar thing a rest and move on to the human body.

But today we had fun playing with fizzing ice paint.

 First we filled ice trays halfway with baking soda.

Important note: Results would have been better if I diluted the baking powder in water first. Our ingredients didn't freeze as an even mixture and we had reduced fizzing once we added the vinegar at the end.

 Then added drops of washable tempera paint

Filled with water and mixed with toothpick.

Added spices to turn this into a sensory activity as well.

We used cinnamon, vanilla extract, zhaatar, and oregano.

 Cover with foil , stick popsicle sticks in, and freeze for a at least 4 hours

 Our pretty shapes

Smelling their scented flowers

 The girls swirled their ice pops all around the water table and them squirted with vinegar to watch their paint fizz. 

 Fizzing paint

Squirting vinegar onto the residual baking soda left in ice trays.

Science Sunday: Surprise Color Concoction

Today's post is inspired by Juggling with Kids.

1. When kids aren't looking, put out a tray of spoons with a "magic powder" on them.

2. To make magic powder drop some food coloring on each spoon and then cover with baking soda.

3. Fill some clear plastic cups filled with some vinegar.

4. Tell kids to mix magic powder into their magic solution and watch what happens:

Target concepts:

1. Acid/base reaction

2. color mixing

Science Sunday: Glow in the Dark Potions and Goop

Credit for this activity goes to Growing a Jeweled Rose:

A black light might just be the best $16 I ever spent. We got ours from here.

We started off by making some glow in the dark water (must have UV light to get the glow going). 

Super simple: 

1. Take a sharp knife and start sawing at a highlighter

2. the casing will easily break open 

3. take out the highlighter ink and soak it in up to 6 cups of water

4. Done 

We started off with a glow in the dark volcano:

 Baking soda in cup and pour vinegar + glow water mixture over it

 Then we made some flubber using our glow water as well:

 

Here is the recipe we used for flubber:

Borax 1 tsp

Water 1 cup 

Glow water 1/2 cup

Elmers glue 1/2 cup (4 oz container)

1. Add 1 teaspoon of borax to 1 cup of warm water 

2. Add 1/2 cup of glue (4 oz container) to a 1 cup measuring cup and rinse glue container with warm water to remove all of the glue. The total amount of liquid water and glue should total 1 cup. Pour contents into a glass bowl and mix well with a whisk.

4. Pour the Borax solution into the glass bowl of glue mix. 

5. Mix with your hands for a moment, the goo should form almost instantly and pour out the small amount of extra water.

Concepts discussed:

acid/base reaction

Uv light

Describing texture of flubber