Poppin's Book Nook #2 - Wizards and Magical of States of Matter

Welcome to the second edition of Poppin's Book Nook! Our theme this month was Wizards. To be honest, I couldn't think of many Wizard books for my kids age right away. Then one of the girls happened to come across Joe-Joe the Wizard Brews up Solids, Liquids, and Gases at the library.  It is a cute little book about a young wizard that doesn't enjoy his "plain old science" class. It also happens to teach States of Matter, something the girls needed to learn more about.  

So the girls got to learn about states of matter along with Joe-Joe. We started by exploring balloons filled with different states of matter: one with air, one with water, and one with ice.  The quickly realized the water filled balloon and the air filled balloon could be squished into different states while the ice filled one couldn't. 

After playing with the balloons it seemed obvious that the girls didn't really believe a gas took up space (because they couldn't see it), so I borrowed this fun DIY Water Fountain from Learn with Play at Home! 

You start with a balloon and an empty bottle. Ask you kids what is in the bottle (correct answer = gas). Then blow up the balloon and ask what is in it (again the correct answer = gas). Ask what will happen when the balloon is put on the bottle. They make think the balloon will go down because it is now open, but it doesn't! Why? Because the bottle was already full of gas! 

The second part of this experiment also show how gas takes up space and how both liquids and gases will flow and change shape.  Again you need a bottle (we used a 2 liter), as well as a bendy straw, and something to seal the hole (we used liquid nails because I couldn't locate my hot glue gun *gasp*). Make a small hole in the bottle and slide the straw in. Seal the hole. Then (with the straw facing up), fill the bottle even with the top of the straw.

Now (with your bottle sitting in a pan), blow up a balloon and put it on top of the bottle. Be amazed as the air in the balloon pushes the water out through the straw! And repeat, over and over and over! 

We may not have made "chocolate gas" like Joe-Joe, but we did have a lot of fun playing with states of matter.

Make sure you visit all the other participating blogs to see what Wonderful Wizard Fun they had this month! Then come back and link up your Wizard fun too!

Next month we are headed way into the past with Dinosaurs!

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom - Royal Baloo - 3 Dinosaurs - Monsters Ed - Chestnut Grove Academy - Growing in God's Grace - Royal Little Lambs - Life with Moore Babies - Teach Beside Me - The Usual Mayhem - Mum Central - Fantastic Fun and Learning - Kathys Cluttered Mind - Play Create Explore - Toddler Approved - Growing Book by Book - Adventures in Mommydom - B-Inspired Mama - The Fairy and The Frog - Edventures with Kids - Learning & Growing the Piwi way - A Gluten Free Journey - Rainy Day Mum - Mom to Crazy Monkeys - No Doubt Learning

Collecting Salt from Salt Water

One of the first activities we did to go along with the book How to Make and Apple Pie and See the World was to get salt out of saltwater.  I suppose we could have just boiled it dry, but I decided to take a different approach.

 First I had the girls add salt to the water and see that it disappears (dissolves).

To get it back out We prepared a bowl with clay in the bottom and popsicle sticks sticking up (I wanted skewers, but apparently I'm out). Then we poured in the salt water we made. And waited overnight.

The next morning this is what we found. Look close, and you can see some crusty stuff above the water on the popsicle sticks....salt!

This was a pretty easy little experiment, and only the first of several activities we did along with this book. Be on the look out for more!

Homemade Compass for Katy and the Big Snow

Recently the girls have shown more interest in school and as a result I have started going through Five in a Row (volume 1) with them. Honestly it isn't much different then some of the things we would normally do like book related activities, but it gives a great guideline that ties tons of topics into a single book (which you read each day for five days).  The makers of Five in a Row only expect you to discuss each topic or do a small project, but we all know I have to further with, well, everything, and add something hands on.  So the first book we chose was Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton; because at the time, we had a big snow!

One thing we went over with this book was cardinal directions and reading maps. My girls have only had to read maps before for things like treasure hunts, so this was new. Especially when we threw the directions in with it! We decided to make a map of our neighborhood, and to help with the directions we made a compass.  

To do this you need a strong magnet, a needle, a piece of cork or styrofoam, and a glass of water.

Start by rubbing your magnet on the needle; always going the same direction. Then insert your needle into your cork or styrofoam and place gently in your glass of water. The needle should spin around and point to north. (More complete instructions at the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration)

Obviously, while standing in my kitchen, I knew where north was, but to show the girls that we actually did make a compass I got out a real compass to compare. And look! They point the same way! 

With this information we were able to make our map.  I drew our house and a little compass on and then started asking then what would be north, south, east, or west of our house. At first they struggled a bit, so I would point int he direction and tell them to imagine they were standing outside, what would they see.  Eventually they caught on, and I was able to ask them which directions things even farther away (like Grandma's) would be. 

They got the idea pretty well and went back to the book and were easily able to read the directions on the map and figure out which way Katy drove while she was clearing snow. 

Over the 5 days of reading and discussing Katy and the Big Snow the girls came to really enjoy the book and remember the lessons taught by it.  I definitely think they will enjoy Five in a Row, and I am sure you will be seeing more book based activities to go along with it!

Poppin's Book Nook #1 - Princesses, Knights, Castles, and Fizzing Rocks

Welcome to the first edition of the Poppin's Book Nook! Our theme for this month was Princesses, Knights, and Castles, so we chose to read The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch.

We have read this book several times before, and the girls really enjoy the story. After all the heroine, Princess Elizabeth is a very strong and independent character. She outsmarts the dragon to save her prince and then realizes he is too shallow and not worth her time. I can only hope my girls can be as discerning when they get into relationships! 

I have tried to teach my girls that the outside is not the important part about people, but at 4 and 5 they are still enthralled in how pretty all the princesses are rather then how they behave.  So I wanted to use this fizzing rock experiment to show them that the outside doesn't tell you anything about the inside.

I started by mixing baking soda with some food coloring and a small amount of water, just enough to make it moldable. If you add too much water, just add more baking soda!

Then I molded it around a variety of things trying to make sure some of the prettier colors had worse treasure, like rocks. I threw some money in the mix too, but I made sure to put more of it in the colors I knew my kids didn't prefer. It was a bit over exaggerated, but I think the point came across better that way.

I even sprinkled them with glitter and put little jewels on a few!

After letting them dry for a day or so we were ready to see what was inside. They each chose their favorite rock and used vinegar in a spray bottle or a bowl to uncover what was inside.

As suspected, they chose the "prettier" colors with the jewels. One found a rock and one a marble.

They continued spraying and dunking, spraying and dunking.

Fewer "pretty" rocks remain. They started finding coins after this which caused a great deal of excitement! Of course they were still finding some marbles and erasers and such as well.

The last rock remains. I had no idea which rock was which once they were placed on the plate, so  was really fortunate that this rock had the largest amount of money (a quarter), but it was chosen last.

After we had found all the treasure (and used all the vinegar), we discussed what we found. We talked about how there was no way of knowing what was inside the rocks just by looking at them and how the "prettier" rocks didn't always have the best treasure on the inside.  We talked about the characters int he book and how Prince Ronald looked good on the outside, but his behavior showed he was not very pretty on the inside. And we talked about how real people are like that too. How the prettiest people on the outside aren't always the prettiest on the inside, and you have to get to know the inside of the person to really know how pretty they are!

Make sure you visit all the participating blogs to see what Princess, Knight, and Castle book they chose and what they did with it! I can't wait to see all the creativity! Then come back and link up your related posts!

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom - Royal Baloo - 3 Dinosaurs - Monsters Ed - Chestnut Grove Academy - Growing in God's Grace - Royal Little Lambs - Life with Moore Babies - Teach Beside Me - The Usual Mayhem - Mum Central - Fantastic Fun and Learning - Kathys Cluttered Mind - Play Create Explore - Toddler Approved - Growing Book by Book - Adventures in Mommydom - B-Inspired Mama - The Fairy and The Frog - Edventures with Kids - Learning & Growing the Piwi way - A Gluten Free Journey - Rainy Day Mum - Mom to Crazy Monkeys

Dream Bottles

We just finished reading Roald Dahl's BFG over here, and I wanted to come up with something fun to go along with the book.  I saw these cute little juice bottles in the store, and something just clicked...I would make Dream Bottles.  I made 3, and only 2 are true to what is really described in the book, but the third was fun too.  

The first one I made was our trogglehumper (nightmare).  I used water with a bit of glycerin then added some red food coloring and silver glitter with some star confetti.  The book talks about how violently this dream moves when caught, and if shook the contents of this bottle can move quite violently like a snow globe.

The second one is our golden phizzwizard (best dream).  Here I used the girls apple scented shampoo with just a bit of water, so it would move a little.  Then I added the same silver glitter and stars.  This resulted in a very calm bottle where the glitter and stars take a great deal of time to settle to the bottom.  

Our third dream bottle was just for fun.  maybe it was similar to what would have happened when the Big Friendly Giant mixed up all the dreams.  It  included water with blue food coloring a layer of oil and the same glitter and stars.  The glitter stayed in the oil layer, and when this bottle is shook it travels back to the top in oily bubbles.  Fun to play with; hard to photograph.

I showed them to the girls, and Nadia's initial reaction was to put on a pouty face and say, "I already have a calm down jar!"  (If only the calm down jar worked for her; she just throws it instead of looking at it). I explained the bottles to them, and then they got busy shaking.

In fact they played with them on and off most of the day.  Pretending to sleep and giving each other dreams.  They made them all into good dreams though mostly about becoming fairies which resulted in the dream giver placing fairy wings on the sleeping child. 

To be honest I was a little concerned with the girls being frightened by this book, but after the first part, once they realized Sophie would not be eaten, they were fine. In the end they told me "I like the Queen, and Sophie and the Friendly Giant, but not those other Giants that eat people!"