Playing with clouds

Cloud DOUGH, that is!  I found this pin on Pinterest (where else?)  You use 8 parts flour to 1 part baby oil (So 8 cups of flour, 1 cup of baby oil, or change amount to suit your needs!), mix it up with your hands, and you have this moldable, crumbly, powdery, super-soft play stuff to have fun with!

It feels powdery in your hands, but when you squish it together like you're making a snowbal, it mushes and holds shape!  We made little "sandcastles" using teacups, funnels, and other small kitchen items.  And, as you might've guessed, we added GLITTER!  Why not, right?  I add glitter to anything I can, really.  :)

It is, in fact, quite messy.  That doesn't bother me, but be prepared!  It doesn't stick like regular playdoh would, though, so all it takes is a minute or two with the vacuum and you're all set for your next activity!

We put a lid on ours to save it for later - seems like a shame to throw it out after one use!  This is one project we do only while Miss Lucca naps, though.  She will eat ANYTHING... and I'm pretty sure I don't want her ingesting baby oil!  

I love sensory activities!  Anything you can stick your hands right in and scoop, pour, pile up... that's right up my alley.  

Another reason this particular activity jumped out at me:  Raina has been interested in (among other things!) clouds lately.  It started as wanting to know at any given time if it was going to rain.  Then she thought EVERY cloud meant rain... so we started talking about the different types of clouds, weather, all that good misty stuff.  We got a couple books out of the library, inspected the humidifier mist, even found some old Bill Nye the Science Guy (!) on YouTube.  Now, I'm not sure THIS has anything to do with actual real clouds, but it was a fun tie in, and we talked about clouds a little while we did it - mostly what we thought they might or might not feel like.

I'm pretty sure Raina is going to ace science when she's older!

Butterflies and Raccoons

We grew butterflies!  (Grew?  Raised?)

We got this kit, and followed instructions:  Insect Lore - live bug kits!

It was pretty awesome at first.  I did this when I was younger, and have always loved butterflies, so it seemed like a no brainer to do this with Miss Raina this summer. Go online and order the caterpillars, easy peasy.  They arrived a few days later in the mail, cute and little and fuzzy wuzzy!

In no time at all, though.... they were eating through their brown food stuff, getting rid of waste, and getting big and meaty.  They yucked me out in a way I didn't remember getting yucked out when I was younger!

Raina checked them every day... she was so anxious for the caterpillars to turn from babies to "grownups" and build their "raccoons!"  We did lots of talking about the life cycle of a caterpillar/butterfly.  We read the book that came with the kit, read some things online, and of course read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" a few hundred times :).

A week and a half later, the raccoons came!  Slowly, one by one... the caterpillars built their raccoons on the lid of their little cup-bitat, and when they were all in... we moved them to their new and spacious butterfly screened in condo!

Then more waiting.  And some drama.  (With no pictures.  No pictures of sad butterfly drama)

I woke up one morning to find 2.5 of 5 butterflies out of their cocoons!  Hurrah!  By the end of the day, the count was the same - 2.5.  Ugh.  Next morning... 4.5 butterflies out.  And the half butterfly was flapping his wings furiously and frantically, causing the place to shake, and making a noise that freaked.  me.  out.  A day later, it was clear (to me, at least,  I don;t think Raina ever got it) that we had only 4 butterflies, and one sad cocoon mishap.  I am still pretty traumatized by it, and the sound of the flapping.

After 2 days of admiring our beautiful painted ladies indoors, we decided it was time to set them free!  Outside we went, opened the butterfly condo... nada.  Looks like the butterflies liked their condo... furnished with leaves, flowers, and tiny sugar water drinks.  I cut the whole lid of the condo, and they ventured out one at a time.

Raina's reaction was exactly what I hope for as she watched them fly out into the sunny day.  So amazing, that I couldn't stop watching it for long enough to take a picture.  You understand, right?  Those moments are gone so fast, I had to capture it in my memory instead of through a lens for once!

Will we do it again?  I'm undecided.  Part of me wants to give it another go and watch next years caterpillar larvae miraculously become brilliant orange butterflies.  Part of me can't go through the flapping again.

Stuck in the ice!

Oops!  I accidentally dropped a bunch of Raina's tiny toys and things into an ice cube tray and froze them!

 Tiny toys included:  

a pink pom pom

a scrap of fabric

a fake makeup applicator

the grumpy old troll (who lived under the bridge)

a marker cap

a foam heart

 some mini chocolate chips (not my best choice)

a monkey key cover

part of a crayon

tiny zebra

a penny

rainbow bead (this used to be an awesome bracelet, until it encountered Raina's 1 yr old self)

 

an outlet cover

a silly band

screws (uh-oh! you stole daddy's things!)

princess ring

 

oops... i spilled water on them!

 ...and then they froze into tiny toy filled icebergs...

So when bathtime came, I called out to my tiny scientist, "OH NO!  Raina!  Your toys!  They're stuck!  What are we going to do?!"

 

 "We should put it in a bowl, Mumma.  And warm it up!"

and then, almost before we could believe it, our trapped little friends were soup!

We spent the rest of the bath (in our filthy looking tub, which is now cleaned and re-caulked and oh so pretty) putting toys back in the tray, emptying them out, putting them in, taking them out... you see where I'm going with this, right?

 I try my hardest to keep bath time fun... to try new games and exciting tub experiments.  This one, it was absolutely a hit!  Raina's already asked to do it again!  I think next time I'll freeze things in colored water! 

Science, stuffed.

Remember when I said I was going to turn the tie-dye Sharpie experiment into a pillow?  I did!

Science Sunday!

In my former life (pre kids, that is!) I was a preschool teacher.  And a pretty darn good one, if I can pat myself on the back a little here.  But at home, with my own kid, I'm finding a hard time getting in the groove.  Raina's almost 3 now (2 weeks!), so technically, she's a preschooler.  (Wait, what?!  How'd she get that old??)  I've been wishing for a while now that I could get my behind in gear and really start trying to get some learnin' in at home in semi-structured sort of way.  We're (sorta) getting the hang of this 2 kids thing, so I'm starting slowly, and seeing how things go.

Today was Science Sunday.

And it rocked.

Hearing Raina yell, "Let's do more science!" is pretty awesome.

We did 4 experiments:
(you can watch videos of the first three of these on you tube if you want more details!)

Milk, food coloring, and dish soap

In a shallow dish (we used a plastic lid), pour a layer of milk.  We used whole milk.  I wonder if the fat content makes a difference in how the effect comes across?

Drip food coloring into the center of the milk.  Don't worry if it looks like they are mixing together.

Squirt a drop or two of dish soap into the center.... and watch the colors dance!

Raina thought this one was pretty incredible.  We did it a bunch of times, varying the colors, food coloring placement, amounts of each ingredient, etc.  We also did some investigations like "What happens if we blow on it?

 If we blow on it with a straw?"

"What hapens when we tip the plate?"  "What happens when we stir the mixture?"

Volcano pre-show:  how does it work?

I wanted to do volcanoes.  But inside the volcano, the workings of this get hidden! So we did it first in little clear containers.  Raina squirted in three different colors...

then mixed in baking soda...

then poured in vinegar!

We got science ALL over the floor!  And on Lucca's pants.  I wonder if Lucca learned any science by being an observer today?  :)

After the fizzing and bubbling subsided, she spent some time mixing the lava bowls to make new colors!

Volcano

We decided to make our volcano out of playdoh.  Raina was concerned when I told her it would ruin the playdoh, but I assured her we'd get more, and then she was okay with it.

We made a big hole...

Jammed in some baking soda (we are now officially out of baking soda!)...

Put a few drops of food coloring and some vinegar in a cup...

and poured it in for an explosion!!

We made a yellow explosion next, and then added some dish soap to mix things up.  Dish soap makes the explosion BUBBLY!  Cool!

Sharpie tie-dye

I saw this idea on Pinterest.  All over Pinterest, actually.  You use sharpies to decorate some white fabric (we used a white mens tshirt stretched over a baking sheet, and held it in place with rubber bands).

We did it on our couch, but you might not want to :).  Our couch is yuck, to be truthful, and I don't mind getting things on it anymore.  Any excuse to get rid of it.

When it's decorated to your liking, spray it with a spray bottle filled with rubbing alcohol.  The colors will start to run and spread!  The more you soak it, the more they spread.

For this step, we set up in the tub.  Make sure to ventilate! (Our house actually reeks of vinegar and rubbing alcohol now... ventilating when it's windy and thirty degrees isn't easy!)

our bathtub is gross, i know.  don't tell me - tell the landlords :)

I'm definitely saving this.  Maybe making it into a pillow for Raina's room??

I think I'm going to institute Sunday as Science Sunday in our house.  Do you have any favorite experiments to share?

And tomorrow...  Math Monday?