11 - 6 - 10 - Unexpected Science Lesson

As Joel was heading off on his train trip,

excited cries began to rise from the play yard.

Kendra had decided to relocate the stage.

(The stage is the base of an old bed.)

And what to their wondering eyes
did appear?

But an amazing wall of dirt and debrie.

Amazed they pondered
and wondered aloud.

How did that get there
can we knock it down?

And full of the knowledge
and smartness of school,

Kendra filled them in
on the facts of erosion.

Briefly the boy pondered
the lessons he heard

Then stomped it to flatness,
not saying a word.

Baby Praying Mantis

Magic Broom

Last Saturday - Oct. 17 -
Tim told the girls that for that day only, the moon, earth, and sun would be lined up just right to make a broom stand up.

So they tried it.
And it worked!

So for the next couple of hours I had a broom standing in my kitchen.
Then it fell over and nobody could get it to stand up again.

Although Kendra has gotten it to stand since then for short periods of time.
She says it was a lot easier to get it to stand last weekend.

Did the sun, moon, and earth have anything to do with it?
Who knows.

But it was a lot of fun!

Late Night Visitor

I've actually watched a Wolf Spider hunt down and attatch a roach.

I think he thought he'd hit the happy hunting grounds.

Tim took him round to the hot water heater and let him go, he should still get some really good meals there.

The funny thing is that Tim had just commented to a friend on Facebook about how we'd had a wolf spider in our bathroom for several months last year, until he got too bold, and I looked up to see this fellow crawling across the floor.

OOBLIK - Cornstarch and Water Experiment

What is almost solid hard when you try to push it around or drag your finger through it or roll it into a ball.....

But dripps off your fingers like a liquid when you let go of it and let it run off of your fingers or hands?



It's OOBLIK! You start with corn starch and add water until you get a mayonaise like consistancy (which we found out was harder to do than you would think.) Add water and it gets chalky and hard. We had just over a box of cornstarch and added around a quart of water to it before we could play with it. The instructions said to add the color to the water, but everyone wanted a different color, so we added it to the mix and they mixed it by hand. Which took a lot of effort!

Joel was totally amazed and kept making little balls and then asking everyone? Where is my ball? Bethie on the other hand never got her blue mixed into the stuff since she didn't want to touch it.

All of them loved it - from oldest to youngest. Matthew took a long time to get into his green. "It's really sticky," he said.

It was very messy - so we were very glad we took it outside to play.