Science Success!

After last week's science scare (scaring the kids off of science, that is), I think I've won them back - whew! More lab work, this time with things that erupt. Eruption is always good!

I don't know if these pictures will be too small for you to see ... but our little scientists did a great job of making the experiments do exactly what they were supposed to do. You can see something erupting from the bottom of the blue glass ... blobs of "stuff" travelling both up and down in the green glass, and a gigantic eruption in the red glass.

What, you ask, is all that white sediment in the red glass? The experiment called for the scientist to shake some salt into the glass ... our ... um ... enthusiastic youngest scientist enjoyed shaking salt so much that she felt it necessary to shake the entire salt shaker into the mixture! But hey - looks like it had some interesting results! We would never have seen the gigantic geiser otherwise!

Spring Has Sprung!

This past weekend was both the first weekend of Spring, and Easter weekend - a rare combination. It feels springier than usual to me these days (maybe I'm jinxing us by saying so) ... there isn't a lot of snow left, and I'm just itching to get out on long walks & afternoons at the park.

Take a peek at the kids' handiwork with the Easter eggs ... aren't they pretty? We need to have a gigantic potato salad really soon ... our family isn't much for egg salad, but we love dyeing Easter eggs - a sad combination.

Anyways - just wanted to wish everyone a warm & happy Spring season - hoping that it brings with it new and refreshing changes. (o:

Death by Lab Report

Ahhh, the joy of Science!
Scientific method. Testing your theories in the lab. All very exciting. Will it work? Will your keen observing and digging up of existing work in this area all come together to help you form a bulletproof hypothesis which you will then carry out with greatest precision in your laboratory, to get the exact results you expected?

Erm, not exactly.

But that's alright! Scientific method allows for that. Scientific method doesn't mind things not turning out - so long as you explain why not. It's about the process.

And then it's about the report. The very structurally-defined report. The report which, as it turns out, even when it's been cleverly made into a form ahead of time, takes a l-o-n-g time for a kid to write out while classmates wait. I'm afraid my theory of someone - anyone - taking dictation while the others chimed in with the content sounds much better than it plays out. (That didn't sound bad, did it?) But really, it was very close to early death to a couple of our little scientists.

*sigh* Live & learn. Next Monday: new lab report form - possibly the world's first multiple-choice lab report. It might not do justice to the cherished format, but to save little scientist lives, I think it'll be worth it. (o;

We're Off to the Poopy Plant!

Heh heh ... a field trip to the water filtration plant has to inspire some jokes and crude comments, right? Who'd have thought they'd all come from the parents?

The kids are studying the water cycle in co-op this month. This is a great topic - thanks Sarah! - and it's already had some serendipitous offshoots. We missed our first co-op because we were visiting at Julie's, so in order not to start off behind, we brought along a few things we had at home that addressed the subject.

One of those happened to be a Magic School Bus book about the water cycle. Well - that was M's first exposure to Magic School Bus, and it was just perfect timing - she was absolutely enthralled with it! There was a little rolling of eyes from the other side of the table, since E considers herself done with those books by several years now, but M was just mesmerized. It led to more & more Magic School Bus adventures for us, and she's learning a ton from them. I love those books & shows!

Another great thing she learned last week while studying water cycle, though I suppose not quite so accidental, was about the states of matter. I hadn't yet talked to her about solids, liquids and gases, much less the transformation of one substance from one state to the next to the next - so it was fun to talk about that, and we have had several lively conversations since then about states of matter.

And very incidentally, just two days before I read the materials to them, and completely oblivious to the entire water cycle thing, M was asking some questions about the nature of clouds and how they formed and such - the timing could not have been better!

So. That brings us to today. It's field trip day - and our destination is the water filtration plant! I for one am so grateful that this is NOT a Magic School Bus trip ...