Science Sunday – melting ice and floating air

Well, we did two experiments this week…

experiment 1 – melting ice:

M wanted to make colored ice, which he does from time to time (and likes to melt them in his bath water), and somehow this gave him the bright idea of doing a “simonasperiment” (science experiment) with ice: make ice and see how long it takes for it to melt.

I remembered Ticia’s family did something similar a while back, so I asked M to think of different ways to melt ice.  We came up with 4 ideas:

1. let it sit out in the room
2. let it sit in hot water
3. put it in the microwave
4. sprinkle salt on it (this idea was my contribution, and he thought I was nuts, hee hee)

So, we filled 4 small snack containers with water, and set them out in our extremely cold breezeway (which gets used as an extra freezer in winter, seriously), and brought them in when we remembered them about 3 days later. ;)

M predicted that the microwave would melt the ice first, the hot water would be second, the salt would be third, and the ice block sitting out in room temperature would take the longest to melt.

We checked the clock and wrote the time down, then quickly put one in some hot water:

 

One in an empty bowl:

We poured salt on the third one:

Then we put the 4th one in the microwave for 30 seconds on high: We kept checking it at 30 second intervals, and it was almost completely melted at 4min, 30 seconds.  It took a total of about 5 minutes to melt the ice in the microwave.  This was the one to melt the quickest, so M’s prediction was correct, but it took much longer than I imagined!

M was correct in all of his predictions!  The warm water melted the ice in about 17 minutes (we changed the water 3 times during this time in an effort to keep it in warm water), The salt-covered ice melted in 2 hours and 38 minutes, and the ice left out in the room took 6 hours to melt.

 

experiment 2 – floating air:

This was another experiment from this fun book:

We filled our kitchen sink and gathered up several things that looked empty, but were really full of air – a pan, a plastic bottle, a bowl, and a cup.  Each of these things floated in our sink, until we filled them with water.  Filling them with water made them sink:

We tried putting glass pebbles in the empty bottle to see how many it would take to make it sink.  We found that the bottle would only sink to the depth of the pebbles.  Any air in the bottle made it float, regardless of how heavy it was getting.

I told M how sometimes deep sea divers use special balloons to raise things from the bottom of the water to the top.  We grabbed a spoon, which we knew was a “sinker” from our previous “sink or float” experiment, and dropped it in the sink.  Then I blew up a balloon and tied a very short piece of yarn to it.  We place it down in the water and tied the other end to the spoon.  Because the balloon was full of air, it went back up to the surface, and brought the spoon with it, making it float just beneath the surface of the water.  M thought this was very cool.  Air is pretty strong stuff!

We also learned how submarines work.  Subs have chambers that fill up with water, making them sink.  When it’s time to rise, air is blown into the chambers, and pushes the water out, making the sub slowly rise to the surface. 

I made a hole in the bottom of our bottle, and another hole in the cap (which was not a very easy thing to do, let me tell you).  We filled our “sub” with water and it sank to the bottom of the sink.  Then we inserted a straw into the hole on the lid and M blew air into the bottle, which pushed the water out the hole in the bottom:and that made his submarine rise to the top.  He loved this, and did it over and over again!

Be sure to check out Science Sunday for more great science ideas!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Books of the Week – Feb. 12, 2011

Stuart Little, by E. B. White (the author of Charlotte’s Web) – this is our current chapter book.  Stuart is the mouse child of otherwise normal people, and he has lots of interesting adventures.   There’s quite a bit of new (somewhat old-fashioned) vocabulary in this book, which I love exposing M to.  I think it’s so important to introduce this kind of thing to him.  I credit my ability to so easily “get” Shakespeare and other older literature to the fact that my parents raised my siblings and I on stories like this (as well as the King James Bible!). 

 

Count Yourself to Sleep, by Lynn Hodges – spare yourself this one if you have a low “sugary sweet” threshold. :)  M loves it and I bet other kids his age will too, but goodness… the book is basically a song about counting your blessings, and it’s okay in and of itself… actually very wholesome.  BUT the cd that comes along with it, which plays the song, is sung by a very cutesy, cutesy child’s voice and it’s almost more than I can bear.  M listens to it at bedtime every night and it does put him to sleep, so its fine as long as *I* don’t have to listen to it too! :)

 

I Wish that I had Duck Feet, by Theo LeSieg (A.K.A. Dr. Seuss) is great.  The rhyme is perfect, the illustrations are appealing and funny, and the story has a good message about being happy just being yourself.  This is probably the hit of the week.  (M might disagree with that, because I’m pretty sure the one above this is his favorite, but still… I just can’t call that one the hit of the week – sorry, M!).

The Original Curious George, by H.A. Rey – this is a book that belongs to M, and he’s been asking for it this week.  There are only a few character books that I really like, and the Curious George ones are at the top of the list (along with the original Winnie the Pooh books).  This is the story of how the Man in the Yellow Hat found George and brought him to the zoo.  M loves the part where George plays with the telephone and calls the fire department. :)  It really is a fun book to read!

For more reviews of children’s books, check out Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.

Have a beautiful day! :)