Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Quackin' Up: Science Day

Whoever decided to remove regular school work and make our Tuesdays science/art/extra day is a genius. Oh wait, that was me.  
The only thing is I didn't come up with that on my own; I've seen it done in lots of homeschooling families.  Genius points removed. Carry on.

Today was all science, and involved 3 quick and easy projects, all from ScienceBob.com.

First up was a lesson in vibrations and sound, demonstrated with "duck calls" made from straws.  This was a huge hit with my noise-making, Duck Dynasty loving boys.

Later we calmed (and quieted) things down by experimenting with static electricity.  The boys took turns combing their hair several times and then holding the comb near the water to see the water bend toward the comb.

Finally we made miniature "lava lamps" by filling a glass over half full of water, coloring it (just for fun) and then adding a layer of vegetable oil.

Then we plopped bits of salt (and later tried sugar) onto the oil.

The salt would sink to the bottom, bringing some of the oil with it.  The salt would then stay, while the oil rose back to the top.  Fun!

Do you have a science or art project to suggest for us?  Tuesday seems to come around fairly often!

1 comment:

Betsy said...

There is a thing we used to do as kids dealing with vibration and sound and that is take a comb put some paper between it and your lips and hum into it making 'music'. If you don't get it I'll bet I could do a demo for you. :-)