SMMART SCIENCE:Negative Space Ice Sculpture

My middle daughter is waaaaaaay into "making ice" lately.  Fortunately, there have been no spills yet.

She fills a glass with water and pops it into the freezer.  Then she comes back to check on it periodically to check the progress. She loves when there is just a thin film of ice over the top and the water is still liquid underneath.  She breaks through the ice and eats off the thin shards.

My favorite is when she leaves it just long enough for all of the sides and top to freeze, leaving liquid inside of the icy shell.  When she lifts the ice shell, the liquid water drains and a beautiful negative space ice sculpture remains.

A fun way to talk about the many phases (liquid to solid) that water undergoes.  Have you seen the many silicone molds that IKEA has?  Those are super fun to make ice!

SMMART READING: Popcorn letters

We were eating popcorn...again!...a favorite snack around here.   Some of the popcorn spilled onto the table.  Before I knew it, my little daughter exclaimed, "Look, 'O'!"  She had fashioned the spill into a letter.

Good reminder to make letters and practice letter sounds with whatever snack we are eating!

SMMART SCIENCE: Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus Globe of Steel

In the new "Dragons" Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, eight members of the Torres Family taunt death as they speed their motorcycles around and around in the Globe of Steel.  "Once locked inside a 16-foot steel globe, all together they will orbit at an unprecedented 65 miles per hour within inches of each other. "

This is INSANE!  If you have ever seen this exhibition, it's a heart stopper.  I catch myself holding my breath as they whiz around and around each other.  It seems almost fake, like there is no way they can attempt this feat and not run into each other...yet, each real person goes into the Globe, rocks his bike in ready stance and zooms up into the controlled chaos!  Amazing!  Really, one of the most talented groups that Barnum and Bailey Circus showcases.

 The riders zoom on their bikes upside down in the globe and don't fall downward into each other.  How do their wheels stay on the steel, no matter what direction they proceed?  Even upside down?  This is a display of daring centrifugal force.

www.sciencenetlinks.com  explains that "Centrifugal force is a fictitious force associated with a rotating system, such as a merry-go-round on a playground. When the system stops rotating, the force seems to disappear. Another way to understand this force is to consider Isaac Newton’s First Law, “that an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by another force.” When you are pressed against a car door as the car goes around a curve, you may feel pushed outward, much as you would on a merry-go-round. Really, there is no force pushing you outward. Your body wants to go in a straight line, but the car holds you in, acting as the other force to make you go in a curved line. On the merry-go-round, you are holding yourself onto the ride, exerting a force that keeps you from flying off to travel in a straight line."  (http://sciencenetlinks.com/afterschool-resources/fun-forces/)

It goes on further to share the experience of riding in a car that is going fast.  Your body wants to continue in the straight line forward.  When the car turns around a corner, your wanting-to-go-straight-body presses against the side of the car.  The car is pulling you with it in the direction it is going, even though your body wants to go straight.  So there is this "fictitious force".

Now for the fun hands on activity to demonstrate that speed is necessary to keep people sitting in a roller coaster, and the Torres family motorcycle wheels on the steel.

Tie a piece of twine to the handle of a small bucket or sand pail.  Place a ball or penny into the bucket and have your child spin the bucket in a circle so the bucket goes upside down.  If your child spins quickly enough, the ball and penny will stay on the bottom of the bucket.  Ask your child if the penny will stay in the bucket if you swing more slowly? Have your child swing the bucket slowly.  What happens?  In order to swing the bucket in a circle at all, you will have enough speed that the penny stays in the bucket.  Ask your child what would happen if you turned the cup upside down? (The penny falls out.)

Let your child try swinging around some other objects.

Lets get daring.  Fill the bucket with a bit of water and ask your child if he thinks that the water would stay at the bottom of the bucket when he swings it over his head in a circle. (It doesn't matter if it's liquid, it will still experience centrifugal force.)

SMMART ART: Color Mixing

My girls taught me a fun way to learn about color mixing...Red and Blue make Purple!

This summer has been filled with "cool pops".  The girls eat up the frozen fructose corn syrup :) and leave the melted liquid behind.  Then they pour their liquid into each others' plastic cool pop sleeve.  They make all kinds of colors.  Just today my little 3 year old held her red pop and told her blue pop holding sister that she wanted to make purple!  I was pretty surprised that I hadn't come up with that idea.

Why?

Okay,  I've been dragging my feet writing as to why I haven't put up a post practically all summer...

This summer I just really wanted to focus on my family... lying in the grass and looking up at the clouds, exploring new places, going on vacation...and not worrying about putting up a post.

So, I gave myself that gift. It's not like one weekly post takes sooo much time...but it does, when I'm running after four little ones.  And I tell you, that this number four is keeping me so much busier!  He's an absolute doll, but I never sit down (except when I'm at the computer). 

I also started our own family blog.  I've been keeping journals up to this point, but I'm giving the blog a go and I'm really enjoying being able to have photos tell the story along with my text.  (I still have a journal though, to tuck in those little love notes and drawings.)

Time seems so precious lately... my little ones are getting so big and I want to know that I gave them my all.  This year will also be filled with doctor visits and surgeries...I am BRCA2 positive for the breast cancer/ ovarian cancer gene.  I am going forward with prophylactic surgeries that will help reduce my risks of getting these cancers.  I am blogging through this journey..for my children..and for others who may be experiencing this too.

So, time is precious and I've wanted to soak up my family for the summer...

SMMART BABY MATH: Counting Spider

This activity works great near by a hard surface...a floor or a hard cover book.

Use your nails to creep along the hard surface so your baby can hear your fingers coming.  "Here comes the spider!" 

Crawl along your baby's toes, feet, and up his leg til you tickle his tummy, shoulders and little neck.  While you are crawling, count your steps out loud..."One, Two, Three, Four, Five...Tickle!"

SMMART SCIENCE:

Firework Icecream

One of my daughters insists she made up "Firework Icecream".  It sounded like a lot of fun, so we buzzed to the store to get some poprocks.  This is a great JULY treat!

Sprinkle poprocks onto your favorite icecream.  RED-poprocks/ WHITE-vanilla icecream/ BLUE- use a blue bowl to serve your treat.

Why do those poprocks fizz and pop in your mouth?  "Here's the basic idea. Hard candy (like a lollypop or a Jolly Rancher) is made from sugar, corn syrup, water and flavoring. You heat the ingredients together and boil the mixture to drive off all of the water. Then you let the temperature rise. What you are left with is a pure sugar syrup at about 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). When it cools, you have hard candy.
To make Pop Rocks, the hot sugar mixture is allowed to mix with carbon dioxide gas at about 600 pounds per square inch (psi). The carbon dioxide gas forms tiny, 600-psi bubbles in the candy. Once it cools, you release the pressure and the candy shatters, but the pieces still contain the high-pressure bubbles (look at a piece with a magnifying glass to see the bubbles).
When you put the candy in your mouth, it melts (just like hard candy) and releases the bubbles with a loud POP! What you are hearing and feeling is the 600-psi carbon dioxide gas being released from each bubble." (http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/science-questions/question114.htm)

SMMART SCIENCE: Cells

I was trying to explain to my daughter that our bodies are made up of cells, specialized to perform a myriad of individual tasks from creating our teeth to the blood running in our veins. Cells are difficult to visualize and comprehend when you just "talk" about them.

So, I've been trying to figure out a few ways to model the cells in our body to help aid my daughter's comprehension...please post any other ideas you might have!

Place a bit of water a a few healthy squirts of dish soap into a pie plate. Place the pie plate onto a dish towel to keep the counter dry. Give your child a straw and instruct her to blow bubbles...so much fun! For sure, she'll create a HUGE pile of bubbles spilling over the pie plate. Have your child touch the bubbles with her finger and try to pop them individually.

Explain to your child that our body is made up of millions and billions of teeny tiny cells. Each cell is stacked upon the other like the bubbles. The cells each have special jobs. Some cells make up our skin, some create our teeth, some create our hair, some work together to create our heart and some make up the blood in our bodies. There are many types of cells.

Each of the different types of cells started out the same, but each cell has expressed DNA inside that tells it what type of cell it will be. So, we have blood cells, and hair cells, and nail cells...

I found an interactive website that shows a diagram and you can learn about the different organelles' functions:  http://www.cellsalive.com/cells/cell_model.htm

Check out this awesome cell biology animation:
http://www.johnkyrk.com/

I think a little lightbulb went on in my daughters head...I need to think of some more examples of how to explain cell properties (organelles and all that)...any ideas?