April even signed up for the teen program. She doesn't have the science part with the teen program though.
The boys are excited to get their 20 minutes in everyday. They've seen some of the prizes in the display case, and are hoping for a chance to win one. I'm hoping this gets them excited about reading. Because my boys aren't always thrilled about reading.
We love playing at the Wilsonville library too. They always have something fun out to play with, especially right now with the summer reading/science program going on. But, really it's just another typical day for us at the library.
So, we have done 2 official science experiments this week toward their goal of 10.
The first one was inspired by Almost Unschoolers. We played with popping balloons over a candle light. Then we filled one up with water, and observed how it didn't pop with water in it. I had the boys make predictions as to what they thought would happen. Aaron was Mr. Smarty pants though, he had already done this experiment in his co-op class a year ago. Alex (3) ran away when he realized what was happening, and that the balloon would pop. He doesn't like loud noises at all.
We had some extra blown up balloons laying around so I let them each take turns popping them. Boys and loud bangs are always a match made in heaven.
Finally, we got to the water filled balloon. They both had fun holding it over the flame for a while. We never got the water warm though. It must have been too much. We only had big balloons, although I could have only filled them up a little. For complete instructions on how to do this experiment you can visit Steve Spangler science.
The next science experiment we did was LEGO science: an ice excavation experiment. This was a lot of fun for my boys, and goes right along with some other LEGO movie stuff we are doing right now (posts to come soon) since we bought the movie today.
I said to the boys (just as she does in the blog where I found this idea) that they are archaeologists, and they have found something interesting in a glacier while looking for fragile fossils. They had to excavate these fossils as carefully as they could, and find ways to get the ice melted or chipped away to get to their fragile fossil.
They had some salt, water, and a dropper to start with. I told them they had to come up with their own ideas on how to CAREfully get the lego mini-fig (fossil) out.
They slowly got some utensils from the drawer, and eventually they got some hot water. It was interesting to see them have patience (or not sometimes) with this. They did really good.
We talked about how hard it would be to really have to dig something fragile out of a huge glacier in real life. We talked about what a glacier is. We talked about how the salt can be used, and how they could focus on just the area around the "fossil" rather than the whole block of ice.
Aaron finally pulled out one distraught Emmett. He must have been pretty cold there in that ice for a while :)
Desiree
2 comments:
Hey - thanks for the mention :) The balloons we used were very small.
Our library is also doing a summer science program - I'm looking forward to see what they come up with.
Yes, I looked for some small balloons. We usually always have water balloons lying around, but of course when you need them, they are nowhere to be found :)! Thanks for all your wonderful ideas!
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