Balloons in the Snow An exploration of molecular movement Outside of my house, there is alot of snow. The temperature hasn’t gotten above freezing for several weeks. But, my husband and I spent the weekend filling hundreds of water balloons with air for our kids to play with outside. Are we crazy? Is it cold and snowy outside? Yes, but that’s …
Science in Action: O is for Ocean
My children love the ocean. My oldest, especially, is fascinated with everything oceanic. My children habitually beg to be taken to whatever is the nearest aquarium. When we finally visited the California coast a couple of years ago, we couldn’t leave without a trip to the beach. We stayed so long our baby fell asleep on our beach towels. This …
The Candy Experiment
My fifth grader came home the other day all excited. She’d apparently just had a fantastic science class and wanted to do a science project at home. We’d just been to the store, and I had purchased a few pounds of candy. She decided to see which type of candy would dissolve in water the fastest and how long it would …
Science in Action: N is for Nuclear Reactions
Nuclear energy is an amazing concept. Imagine all the energy the sun creates is caused by nuclear reactions. Granted, as humans, we’ve not done such a good job of harmlessly harnessing the power of nuclear reactions, but we have made great strides. So, for our Science in Action this week N is for nuclear reactions. There are two types of …
Science in Action: L is for Light – Exploring Light using Sparklers
The patriotic celebrations came – and were fun – and went before I had a chance to help my children use some sparkler fireworks I’d bought. Rather than letting the sparklers wait for another year, we used them to explore light in our Science in Action: L is for Light unit. My children had a lot of fun dancing around …
Gelatin — A Choose-Your-Own Adventure Dessert
Gelatin is Utah’s State Food. As much as that sounds odd, it is a great state food for Utah. Families in Utah are usually larger, on average, than most other states. So desserts need to be quick, easy to make, and feed a lot of people. But, let’s face it, just straight gelatin can get a little boring. So, people have …
Earthquake Gelatin: A Physical Science Exploration for Preschoolers
How the Earth moves has always fascinated me. The formation of mountains, the movement of the continents – all that just seems so impossible but it happens. Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanos – these are all results of the movement of the Earth’s plates. My children seem equally fascinated by these forces as well. It is always easier to teach children about their interests – so I made some earthquake gelatin to show them how the Plate Tectonics works.
