Weird Science!

Today I had some time alone with Emma. That's not something we get very often and it was nice to get the chance to do some "big girl" stuff while Sophia spent a special day with Mimi.

Emma originally wanted to go swimming when I asked her what she wanted to do, but she woke up with a cold, so we had to change our plans. She didn't know exactly what she wanted to do, she just said "something fun." Now that, I can make happen. We were going to do science experiements!

While I got our materials ready, she got to work painting a snail magnet. Now, I do fun stuff with my kids, but rarely do we do things that involve mess. Paint, glue, glitter (oh, the glitter), sand, and the like just aren't my cup of tea. So when I told Emma that she was on her own to paint while I got things ready she wasn't sure if she heard me correctly but she didn't wait to find out. Luckily, she is extremely meticulous and I have nothing to worry about with her. She did a great job on her magnet.

Once the magnet was put aside to dry, we got ready for our first experiment. I told her that we were going to make lava lamps. She didn't know what that was, and she didn't care. She was ready for anything. I gave her a jar filled up with about three inches of water and she poured in 1/3 cup of vegetable oil. We were all out of food coloring, but that can be added after the oil. We observed the mixture and explained what we saw. Then, she shook a little salt onto the top and watched the magic happen! Try it for yourself to see what it does. ;)

Next on our list was making volcanoes. I gave her a vase, three tablespoons of baking soda, and 1/2 cup of vinegar. I put everything in a pan to catch the mess and explained what she needed to do.

She was amazed at what happened and she didn't tire of this easily. She did it over and over again. She didn't give a hoot about the explanation of what occurred, but she sure had fun making it happen!

After we had our fill of volcanoes, we talked a little bit about how she wasn't feeling well and the germs that invaded her body. I asked her what she thought germs looked like and she said red with teeth. Pretty good visual! We talked about microscopes, viruses, hand-washing, and good bacteria. I was pretty impressed with her level of attention. She was very intrigued that she had little "monsters" in her body. This all led up to an art project that I have been wanting to try.

I pinned this idea from Raising Sparks and Emma loved it! It was really easy and the outcome is adorable! I put a few drops of paint on the paper, gave Emma a straw and she went to town! I thinned tempera paint to almost the consistency of water colors. This first try was a little thick. The paint should move around easily.

We tried again and got a good consistency. Once it was dry, she glued on the eyes and I drew on the mouths. I asked her which ones were germs and which were good bacteria. Of course, the red ones were germs and had "teeth." I LOVE the way this looks. My favorite little guy is the germ on the top right. He looks a little boogeyman-esque.

Here are both of her creations, proudly hanging on the refrigerator!

I hope both of my girls follow in their parent's footsteps and love science and learning. I sure love being their first teacher!

Nature Walk

I found an idea for a color coded nature walk in Family Fun a while back and I have been dying to try it out. The idea is to color the sections of an egg carton and have the kids search for items to match the colors. This sounded right up Emma's alley and I liked it because it was a fun (and free) thing to do.  Here she is with her carton at the beginning of our walk, ready to start filling:

This activity really helped Emma pay attention to her surroundings while she focused on one specific color.  I wasn't very optimistic about finding items for all the colors since it's winter, but we knew we'd still have fun trying.

Today was a little warmer and it seemed like the perfect day to try out our nature walk.  Emma understood her task easily enough and found a green and brown item pretty quickly.  We guided her through the rest and she had a great time searching for her items.

She said she wanted to ride this "big turtle."

This was the best find of the day.  She found this claw on the banks of the stream.  It was an "honorary black item", but we decided to leave it there. :)

Toddler Rule: When in doubt, poke with stick.

Even though there wasn't much out at this time of the year, she still managed to fill up her entire carton. Here's what she found: Red berries, an orange rock, a yellow leaf, green pine sprig, blue flower, purple leaf, brown acorn and pine cone, black rock, white flowers, and pink dogwood bud. 

After Emma filled her container, we had a chance to get out and play for a bit.

This was such a fun activity for all of us and I'm excited to try it again in the spring.  Since most of the items won't last, I'm thinking of taking a picture of each item and putting them into a little book so she can see how the variety changes each season.

The carton can be made with any colors.  The magazine's example even used various shades of colors.  We still have two uncolored sections left in our carton.  I might let Emma choose one of the colors and also choose a "challenge" color for our next walk.

Let me know if you try this with your kiddos and if they enjoyed it as much as mine!

Tot School

Andy went back today after a gloriously long break from work.  It's been so nice having him here during my break from school to let us spend time together as a family and to help out with the kids. It's nice to have a 1:1 kid to parent ratio so that each kid is getting equal time.

Lately, if Emma isn't kept occupied, major meltdowns occur (gotta love those Terrible Twos!).  It's been below freezing all morning, so I knew that getting outdoors was not going to happen.  I came across this awesome website on Pinterest that was full of great activities for preschoolers called "Tot School." Today seemed like a great day to try some of them out.

The first activity she tried was my favorite, but I was making breakfast and didn't get any pictures.  I took a blank sheet of paper and drew pink, green, and orange stars on it.  Then I gave her some leftover garage sale stickers we had from the summer.  She matched the stickers on the appropriately colored star.  She loved this and it was so easy! Here is her finished product:

Excuse the breakfast stains; she didn't want to give it up while she ate. :)

Emma loves to help me cook, and I try to let her help with as much as I can, but we're usually fighting the mad dash from work to dinner and there isn't always time to let her help.  Her favorite thing to help with is pouring.  

I gave her two cups, some macaroni, and let her practice pouring the macaroni from one cup to the other.  She LOVED this and it kept her occupied for over 30 minutes.

When she was done pouring, I gave her some numbered cups and had her count out her macaroni into each cup.  We mixed up the cups, but she wasn't fooled!

At one point she tried to take a shortcut and poured the macaroni into the number 8 cup. :)

We continued with the pasta theme and strung penne and wagon wheels onto ribbon. This thrilled her beyond belief and I decided that I'll dye the pasta next time and let her make a necklace.

Check out that concentration!

So proud of herself!