Deconstruct a Camera

I had forgot we had done this and my daughter reminded me about it recently: "Hey, Mom remember when we took apart the camera?" It is always amazing when your child references back to something you hoped would be a memorable experience.  It was.  A lot of the things that we have done on The Chocolate Muffin Tree have proved that when we do things with our children they remember whether it is reading to them, sitting with them, listening to them, or whatever. We took apart a camera...a broken camera.  It was a very sad day that this Canon Powershot fell into the salty oceans of Maui, but the vacation was fantastic! Once a camera falls into the ocean it will soak up all the salt water and salt does damage,  but the memory card was fine which had all our great memories so at least those were not lost.  As time went on I thought about how it would be cool to deconstruct this camera and see all the parts that made up this Digital camera.

So with the loss of my camera we gained a new experience to put under our belts. Here is the camera before:

We gathered some simple tiny screwdrivers and other tools that might help a long the way. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.  I had to recruit my dear husband to help with this process. Be careful if you ever end up doing this because my husband shocked himself when he had to detach the flash reserve....ouch! (just a little shock) The shock was not really painful, just surprising because he didn't see it coming. So with anything you decide to deconstruct....be cautious!  Here are the parts and pieces again.  Amazing to see all the pieces.

Why would you want to do this? Why not?  By taking things apart you are learning about what makes up something. Also, if you are able to put it together (we did not!) you are learning all about construction and how things work.  Ironically, my Fathers favorite thing to do is put things together.  Give him a broken item or something in pieces and he will be so happy.  By doing this, you may be appealing to a whole side of a child you never knew. Happy Deconstructing!

Simple Straw Noisemakers

These are so unbelievably easy to make and with few supplies. We found this idea here from ScienceBob.com.  I didn't even think my daughter would think this was that great,  but it turned out to be a hit.  One never knows with kids, so with my experience I would say to just try things even if you think it won't have success. These straw noisemakers are something you'll want to bring outside.

Supplies Needed:

plastic soda straws

scissors

First flatten out one end of the straw on the edge of the table.  On the same end cut the straw to a point (as shown below). Experiment with different cuts and lengths!

Then flatten it a little more and then blow on the pointed end of the straw. Blow closer to the end where the point is for best results. ScienceBob.com describes it as a duck call noise that it makes. You may need bigger lungs, so an adult may be able to do it easier. 

Try cutting the straw into different sizes for different sounds. Experiment! The science behind this is that the the two ends cut at points vibrate very fast to create a sound.

Making and Playing With Slime

I cannot believe we never tried this until now.....so worth the wait though. Find out how we created this slimey Fun. The pictures speak for themselves.

To create stretchy and oozing slime all you need is:

Slime

(2 Recipes for Slime found here in my last post)

a strainer, colander, sieve, or anything with holes in it (we used a tennis racket!)

Basically all you do to create this AWESOME experiment is to place the slime on top of the item with holes and let it slowly ooze out.  You could hang a strainer up high or we placed a tennis racket on top of two kid stools on either side. Then let the slime do its trick.  I walked away for a minute or two and my daughter came yelling, "Come quick.....NOW!" This was ultimate excitement!

Looks like a brain.

SO Slimy and FUN.....

Hope you try this....do not wait as long as we did!

Making Two Kinds of Slime

As I said in my last post, we've been reminiscing about old projects, experiments, and recipes in my blog books from Blog2print. This time my daughter wanted to make slime again after seeing the post here.  Not only did we make that kind of slime, but we also made a different kind of slime too. Keep reading to find out the 2 types of slime we made.

Recipe #1 Slime:

Mix in one bowl:
3/4 cup warm water
1 cup white glue
few drops of food coloring

Mix in a second bowl:
1 1/3 cups warm water
4 teaspoons Borax
(Borax is found in the laundry section.  ****Borax should not be ingested and can cause skin reactions with some... so use your discretion!)

Pour contents of first bowl into second bowl and let sit for one minute without stirring. Then explore Slime #1!


Recipe #2 Slime:
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup white glue
1/4 cup liquid starch
few drops of food coloring

Pour all glue in mixing bowl and then add water.  Stir water and glue together.  Add food color.  Then lastly add starch. Then have fun with Slime #2.


Making the two kinds of Slime was fun in itself and this time my daughter could actually read the recipe, so making it a great reading activity and science experiment too.

We compared and contrasted the two kinds of Slime as we were playing with them:  Slime #1 was
more rubbery and Slime #2 was smoother and more squooshy.

Then very soon after, both slimes were mixed together....which ended all comparisons. (But it did prove that yellow-green and blue make green!)  Plastic bugs made a great companion for the slime play.

C covered the bugs with slime, tore it into tiny pieces, stretched it, and pressed bugs into it to make impressions. Slime makes for such creative and FUN play with endless possibilities.

Hope you are inspired to try out both recipes for Slime. 

 Do you know any other recipes for Slime?

Dancing Candy Hearts Experiment

Do you have any left over candy hearts from Valentine's day? Well,  I have just the experiment that you can do with candy hearts that my daughter has been going crazy about the past few days.

Materials Needed:

Candy Hearts

Clear jar

1 cup of water

2 Tablespoons of baking soda 

about a 1/2 cup or more of vinegar

First, fill a small clear jar with about a cup of water.  Then put 2 Tablespoons of baking soda and stir.

After that,  put about 2 or 3 candy hearts in the mixture.  They will just sit at the bottom of the jar at first.

Then add the vinegar and the hearts will begin to dance or rise and fall! C was really excited how they were dancing!

We stirred them around to help the hearts move about.  Essentially the baking soda and vinegar are reacting to create carbon dioxide and bubbles and lifting the hearts up. In the end, the candy hearts just stayed at the top, but C had fun experimenting with adding more baking soda or vinegar to see if it they would dance or move more. This occupied her for a long time!

Happy Heart Experimenting!

Experiment: How to Grow a Potato

Have you ever let a potato grow like this?  As a child I was always fascinated with this and my daughter shares this same fascination.  I keep my bag of potatoes underneath our kitchen sink and this is one that we left to grow.  So all you need to do is find a dark place and place your potato there for about a month or more.  This is a great science lesson and it brings about a lot of curiosity about potatoes and how they grow.

What vegetables or fruit have you made experiments with?

Glue and Watercolor Painting Experiment

Lately we've been experimenting a little bit with glue, water, and watercolors.  I think whenever you introduce a new element to an art process it always makes it more fascinating and it definitely made it more intriguing for my daughter... who lately would rather be playing outside or doing her own thing.  One of my readers,  Amelia, told me she was going to try adding glue to our Colorful Mud Paintings mixture and I'm wanting to try that myself too.  Keep reading to find out the results of our experiment with glue and watercolors.

All you need for this process is:

white Glue

water

brushes

watercolors 

thicker paper (scrap book paper, tagboard)

To begin, first make a mixture of one part water and one part white glue.

Brush it all over your paper like this 

Then begin painting with water colors over the glue.

My daughter really liked this process.  It gave the watercolor paint texture and the paintings a different look...kind of  a speckled look.  Here is a rainbow by C.

People.

Flowers by Mom.

Flowers by C.

Experimentation and free form art.

This isn't the first time we've experimented with glue: we've painted with salt, glue, and watercolors here and check out our post on Four Ways to Use Glue (besides pasting) here.

What new elements have you added to art processes with children? 

Experiment: Growing And Shrinking Water Beads

Water Beads are truly Amazing!  We've played with them and used them for sensory experiences,  but this time we really observed up close the most amazing part of water beads: how they start so small and grow so big in just 4 hours! Here is our documentation:

Observing Growing Water Beads:

Starting out very tiny.

Then growing right before our very eyes.....within minutes.

Look at how lumpy they look as they are  growing or (absorbing water). 

More growth.

Here you can see the so tiny to full size water beads! 

On average they grow to about the size of marbles as you can see,

Now Observing Shrinking Water Beads:

We placed the water beads on some layers of paper towels here so they could begin shrinking faster. They shrink much faster when  you have them separated too.  If you keep them in a bin together the shrinking process is much slower.  Also, you might notice the "real marble" placed in the lower right corner.  We used that as a comparison to see how much they were shrinking.

Some of the water beads we isolated along with a "real marble" to see how much faster they would shrink with less moisture from other water beads around.

One surprise we found along the way was a "tear drop shaped" water bead!!!! How cool is that????

We observed shrinking each day. This is after 2 days or so.

Here is showing comparison with a marble up close.

2 more days go by.

A little more shrinking 2 days later.  It may depend on the temperature outside or in your house of how fast they shrink too.

A noticeable difference with 2 more days.  Some of the water beads were back to their original size. The water beads isolated in separate containers shrank much faster.

A lot of readers will ask, "Do water beads shrink back to their original size?" As you can see,  they do.
Much slower if they are stored together in a bag or container.

We enjoyed this week long experiment. Hope you have tried water beads and just maybe this post may spark your interest.  Check out our other post on Water Beads:  Water Bead Fun!

***Note: Water Beads Should Not Be Ingested!***

Have You Gotten On The Water Bead Bandwagon? 

Please Share Your Ideas!

Where you can buy Water beads: WalMart, JoAnn Fabrics, and Amazon.com: