Sunshine has an awesome teacher. I could go into how completely wonderful she is, but that's another post. After school the other day, Sunshine comes running out telling me about a science experiment she did in class. Her teacher and I got to talking about it and Monster then asks if he could bring in a science experiment for her to try, too. This leads to a night of science in our house. Since Monster wanted to bring in an experiment for Sunshine's teacher, Sunshine had to bring in one as well, of course. The moment we got home, Sunshine went right to thinking of experiments. She decided to do penny cleaning. We found some dirty pennies and Sunshine wrote up her experiment. After that, we decided to make a Food Dye Color Wheel. This was super cool! It takes a few hours to get really good results, but well worth it!
We are STEM dorks in this house. I'm constantly doing science and math things with the kids and Husband likes to do technology and engineering activities with them. Husband has the kids doing simple computer programming and building circuits while I do simple experiments and incorporate math into everyday life. Even my kids' friends get excited to come and do science experiments.
Sunshine has an awesome teacher. I could go into how completely wonderful she is, but that's another post. After school the other day, Sunshine comes running out telling me about a science experiment she did in class. Her teacher and I got to talking about it and Monster then asks if he could bring in a science experiment for her to try, too. This leads to a night of science in our house. Since Monster wanted to bring in an experiment for Sunshine's teacher, Sunshine had to bring in one as well, of course. The moment we got home, Sunshine went right to thinking of experiments. She decided to do penny cleaning. We found some dirty pennies and Sunshine wrote up her experiment. After that, we decided to make a Food Dye Color Wheel. This was super cool! It takes a few hours to get really good results, but well worth it!
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...at least with pictures. Last summer, I had a huge Mommy Fail. I forgot to take any sort of pictures of my darling daughter with her trophy after her last baseball game. I had to pose the picture after I remembered I didn't take one a week or so later. This year, I was on top of it! I've been trying to document every last thing we have been up to this summer with pictures. Summer is going by so quickly that I don't want to forget a single thing. This summer has been nothing less than awesome. It makes me so sad that there are only 4 weeks left. We are going to make the most out of the time we still have. It's funny because we've been crazy busy, but we've also had a lot of down time where we are just hanging out and doing, well, nothing, just like summer should be! There is something on the calendar for every day so far, but between events, we do whatever it is we feel like doing that day. For example, the other day, I had a sitter while I went to yoga. Then, when I came home, the kids spent the next 4 hours,yes, 4 hours, playing imaginary games with each other before it was time to eat dinner and head to VBS! They played pirate, built with Legos, played restaurant, and other things I'm not even sure of. They didn't need, or want, me for any of it so I was able to mow the lawn and do laundry! I even got to watch about 20 minutes of TV while I folded clothes and they happily built things in the basement! Thus far, it has been the perfect summer and I've got the pictures to prove it! The grandpas' birthdays are also in the summer, only 3 days apart. We made some pretty cute cards. My dad can't stand dandelions in his yard, so we thought the "dandy'lion'" card would be cute for Papa. Of course we've done science experiments! We melted styrofoam packing peanuts in acetone nail polish remover. Cups are lined with foil so that the acetone doesn't eat away the plastic. Then, we talked about surface tension with the milk, food coloring, and dish soap experiment. Video is courtesy of Monster's cinematography. The blue and red didn't work as well as the yellow and red. Since science is actually one of my worst areas, I'm not sure why, and we tested it several times. And we've made some yummy fruit pops and fruit and yogurt pops (didn't get a picture of the fruit and yogurt). Both are so simple to make! For the fruit pops you just slice up fruit, put it in the mold and then top it off with coconut water. Fruit and yogurt are literally just that....fruit and yogurt. I mixed a peach and yogurt in a huge bowl and them spooned it into the molds. Easy peasy! We have also started back to school shopping, which has made me very sad. I know these next few weeks are going to fly by. This time is so precious and I don't want to miss or waste a single moment of it!
Almost every child has made a volcano at one point in their lives. I never did. I honestly don't think I even knew baking soda and vinegar combined to form a reaction until I was in college. Pitiful, I know. A few months back, a friend of mine, saw something on Mamasource that she thought Monster would be interested in. It was the Magic School Bus Science Club. Of course he was interested and with the deal being literally half off, I was happy to sign him up! I admit, I'm slacking on getting to these experiments that the kits come with, but we did finally get to the volcano. Both kids were so excited! It's not like we've never done baking soda and vinegar before, so I couldn't figure out why this was so exciting for them, until we started to do it. The first part of the experiment is actually making the volcano. When making it, I realized another things I had never done until that moment...paper mache! I honestly think I learned more through this experiment than my kids did! There are components to making a volcano that I never knew or would have thought of. Such as, there is a .5 liter bottle inside of there. Then you need card stock or heavy paper of some kind to go around the bottle. Then comes the paper mache and after that, paint. I'm really not sure how I thought a volcano was made, but it wasn't that. The next part of the experiment involves a testing phase to get the best "explosion". The kids thought this was super cool. Sunshine didn't get the concept of how much stuff to try, but it was great seeing Monster's mind working to figure out which ingredients we should us more of and which we should use less of. When we got a good sized explosion and the volcano was dry, we blew it up. I'm really glad I decided to do it outside even though it's in a box for containment purposes. The moment that black paint go a tiny bit wet, it leaked right through the box...all over my porch, so we quickly took the volcano to the grass. Since this was technically Monster's experiment, I let him do the vinegar honors. We did have red food coloring in there, but you can't see it in the bubbles. Now, this was not on the level of that commercial where the dad and daughter blew the volcano up and it got on the ceiling and all that, but I'm new to this science stuff. By the time Monster is in high school, we should have one of that magnitude :) I love being able to do this kind of stuff with my kids. We all end up having a great time!
We started out the day with the plan to build a volcano. That plan got derailed by Husband moving the volcano kit with instructions. We decided to make disappearing ink instead. That led to a crazy acid and bases experiment. The kids had a blast, and frankly, so did I! I so wish i could have gotten pictures of these, but we were having too much fun to stop and take pictures! Since I know everyone is wondering, here are our results!
Citric Acid...obviously, an acid Baking Soda...base Lime Juice...acid Milk...neutral Hot Sauce...acid Rubbing Alcohol...neutral (this one surprised me!) Canola Oil...neutral Vanilla Soy Latte...acid Bath and Body Works Hand Soap...acid Act Kids Mouthwash...base Windex...base Jet Dry...acid Carpet Cleaner...base Leather Cleaner...base Apparently, Jet Dry is so acid that when mixed with the carpet cleaner and the leather cleaner, it changed the whole chemical make up to an acid. We had so much fun testing, mixing, and dumping. They even helped with clean up so it was win-win all around! Through all the craziness, I have done a couple of crafts and found some cool new products to use. Wash and Brush Timer. I had seen this a while back and bought it to give to Sunshine for Christmas. Her hand washing has been so fast lately, that I couldn't wait until Christmas to give it to her. It is great. Only problem is that Sunshine is three feet tall. I have it affixed to the mirror and she has trouble reaching it. So, I still have to be in there to push the button for her to wash her hands. Good thing is that she's doing a much better job of hand washing. Teeth brushing is also a little easier with this, but my kids are good teeth brushers anyway. Thankful Wreath. I had found some cute wreaths for autumn on Pinterest, but none were exactly what I had been looking for. I had thought of using this one and adapting it to make it into a thankful wreath. Then, I found the "Wreath of Plenty". It was exactly what I had been looking for. I sat down with the kids and Husband and we all came up with things that we were thankful for. Best part of this one is that we can add to it year after year. Unfortunately, I didn't have straight pins and the thumb tacks just didn't cut it for securing the leaves. Each time the door closed, leaves would fall off. Next year, I'll have straight pin ready to go! Number Balloon Scavenger Hunt. I had originally pinned this to help Sunshine with number recognition. I never got around to it doing it for her. A couple of weeks ago, Monster had a friend over. I decided to do this for them as a scavenger hunt. They loved it! Sunshine and I hid all the balloons before the boys got home from school. The pack of balloons I got had 15 balloons, so our hunt went from 1-15. The boys had a blast finding them. I promised the boys that I would make it more challenging next time. Next time, I'm going to put math facts on the balloons and they need to solve them and find them in order. A week after Monster and his friend played, Sunshine had her friend over and the balloons were still sitting in the laundry basket. I decided to try it with Sunshine and her friend. Once again it was a hit. Since they are only 3 years old, I didn't hide the balloons, just spread them out every where and they had to find the numbers. They played it three times in a row! Beer Cap Ornament. A friend of mine and I are going to be making snowmen bottle cap ornaments. We have so many bottle caps, that we will never use them all for snowmen, so I found this idea and loved it! I made this wreath for another friend. I used all Great Lakes Brewing Company caps because she loves Christmas Ale. Husband thought it was super trashy, but I knew my friend would appreciate it. Solar System Model. A friend of mine took Sunshine to swim lessons on day, so Monster and I had time to ourselves. For Mommy/ Monster time, we built a model of the solar system. Monster got an awesome science kit that had the model in it. It was so much fun to work on this with him and have some one on one time. He even let me paint Neptune, which is my favorite planet. Snack Skewers. For Sunshine's snack day, she wanted to take grapes and blueberries. I figured I'd try to make it easier for her teachers and I skewered the fruit. Since the kids are only 3, I cut off the sharp ends. This is about as creative as I can get with snacks. We are also currently working on transforming the train table into a Lego table. All the train pieces are packed up to be put in storage. We've bought the base plates. We just need some time to get it all together. Monster is very excited about it. He's asked Santa for Legos for Christmas so hopefully we get it all done before the man in red arrives.
I've got a ton of projects to finish up before Christmas. Hoping I get the motivation to complete them. The good news is all the gift shopping is done, so that frees up time for other things. Sunshine moved up a level in swimming, so the time is different. I'm hoping that gives me some time to finish projects up as well. Stay tuned! My migraine had me fall behind on the recipe thing. This week, my family didn't eat so well. It took me until yesterday to feel better and actually get out the grocery store for real food. The only thing new I tried this week was spaghetti squash in the crock pot. Super easy, which is why I was able to handle that with my head. All you do is pierce squash with fork all over to prevent it from blowing up, put it in crock pot, add one cup of water, and cook on low for 9 hours. It turned out pretty decent. I've never cooked a spaghetti squash before, so I don't know if this is common, but it turned out a little runny. By runny, I mean it seemed like it actually had some water in it. Maybe it was over cooked. Maybe I pierced it too much. Or, maybe that's just how it turns out. It was still good though. Monster and I liked it with butter and pepper. Sunshine wouldn't eat it and neither would Husband. For two weeks, I did pretty well with keeping up with more than one new meal for the week. Here were some that I tried. Chicken, potatoes, green beans. This was so easy and so good. It will most definitely be made again! It's just chicken breasts, cut up potatoes and green beans, frozen, canned or fresh, put all together in a casserole dish. Use a packet of dried Italian dressing and sprinkle over everything (I did't put it on the green beans because I didn't think my kids would like it). Then, pour a stick of melted butter over everything. Cover. Put in 400 degree oven for an hour. So yummy! African Pulled beef with yogurt mint sauce. This one wasn't so great. It was pretty bland. Plus, no one in my family liked the mint sauce. If I would have put dill rather than mint, they would have enjoyed it a lot more. This wasn't worth my time to make. The lack of flavor was really disappointing. Bacon wrapped chicken. This was OK for a change, but probably not something I'd make again. It was so simple and had good flavor, but the bacon didn't get crispy enough for me or my family. It could have been the kind of bacon I used, but, honestly, it's not worth me trying again. However, the chicken was great. Husband thought it was too sweet, but I really enjoyed it and the kids didn't hate it. I may flavor the chicken that way again when Husband is out of town. Taco Pie. My son literally ate half of it. Half of a pie. I used ground chicken instead of beef. It was very good. Sunshine didn't eat it, but that wasn't a surprise she doesn't like ground meat of any sort. This a definite make again meal! All I did was use a roll out pie crust, bake it for 10 minutes, added seasoned, cooked ground chicken, topped with cheese and baked another 15 minutes. After that, we put sour cream, olives and tomatoes on top. Chicken Ranch Tacos. The meat was very good, but I added season salt to it. Everyone, other than Sunshine (do you see a pattern here?), ate it and enjoyed it. The recipe that I found for this modified it for the crock pot, which is what I did. It was just one cup chicken broth, 1 lb chicken breast, 1 packet dry ranch dressing, 1 packet taco seasoning. Combine in crock pot, cook on low for 4 hours, shred chicken and cook extra half hour. I added just a touch of season salt and more taco seasoning. After shredding, it literally soaked up all the juices and it was incredibly tasty. None of us added ranch dressing to our tacos though. I tried, but liked sour cream better. These next couple of weeks will be bringing lots of pumpkin themed recipes. I can't wait! I love pumpkin!
As a side note, our pumpkin experiment did not go well. The pumpkin molded, started to rot, and was attracting all sorts of bugs. It was seriously gross. Monster thought it was really cool that it was so gross. It's pumpkin time! This year we planted pumpkins. Horrible year for crops, but we did get one pumpkin that turned out perfectly! Sunshine couldn't wait to pick it off the vine, so we bought one at the store. We decided to do a science experiment with the store bought one. The experiment was super easy. Cut off the top, stick in soil. Water. Watch. Since we only did this on Tuesday, there's nothing growing yet. We have high hopes though! Another thing we did with the store bought pumpkin was pull some of the seeds out to roast. We've had horrible luck with pumpkin seeds in the past. This round, they turned out great. At least Sunshine and I thought they turned out great. Monster and Husband didn't like them so much. Sunshine and I liked them so much I almost want to buy another little pumpkin just to roast the seeds! What I did was let the seeds dry for 3 days on wax paper. Then, I sprayed them with canola oil. After that, I tossed them in salt. I roasted them in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes, flipping them after 10. We've got another pumpkin on the vine that should be ready by Halloween! So excited about all the wonders of autumn!
Last week, Monster attended Camp Invention. This camp was perfect for Monster. For a kid who loves to invent, build and explore, there is really nothing better. Day 1 was hard on Mommy. It was the first time Monster has been away from home all day on his own. It was gearing me up for first grade. It was hard on Sunshine, too. She kept asking if we could go get her brother. After seeing that Monster had the time of his life, the rest of the week was easy for me (and now I know he'll be fine all day in school). On the last day of camp, they had a showcase. Grandpa happened to be in town, so he was able to come. Monster couldn't have been more excited. He wanted us to see every last little thing that not only he, but all the campers did. We walked around like he owned the place! And, the crazy thing is, he knew everyone! For a kid who can't remember the kids in his class until about February or March, he knew a huge majority of the counselors and the kids in his group after a week! It just so happens that one the teachers who helped out in Kindergarten last year was the main counselor for one of the modules. She told me that Monster was awesome. He was the most focused one there. He always knew exactly what to do and followed directions perfectly. She even commented on how this camp was right up Monster's alley. I'm so proud of my little man! This month has been a bit more hectic than I had anticipated. With Husband being away, school ending, camps going on, swimming, soccer, baseball, and all the other things, I haven't gotten around to posting the fun stuff we've been doing. It hasn't been all work and no play here at the Rock household. Here, we like to combine work with play! We took a different approach to mopping the floor. This way was more fun, and just as effective. Puppy did not like us running and sliding around the floor though. Sunshine is working on letter recognition. I'm trying to make it fun for her. This is her 'A is for Alligator'. Her friend was over and he made one, too. Can you guess which color A is Sunshine's? Learning is fun in this house. Monster and I are doing an evaporation experiment that recreates drought vs. 'normal' weather conditions. We have two containers that started with the same amount of water. One container we leave and don't touch the water. That is our drought water. The other container, we add several drops of water to a night, not much, just enough so that it's getting a bit of water. The goal is to see what happens. Monster already knows, but he's having fun anyway.
We can't leave Sunshine out of science fun. During playgroup,the plan was to make bouncy balls. So glad I decided to test it before having the kids do it. It didn't work. We'll try it again, but, since I followed directions perfectly, I'm not holding my breathe. On deck? Painting with water, windsocks, jet packs, more letter crafts, making a tutu, outside mats, whining jars, and chip clip card holders. Can't wait to see all the results! The sign of a good school holiday? When your almost 6 year old takes a two hour nap after asking to go to bed early the night before. I'm relishing in this because, well, I'm exhausted. Still so much left to do before Easter also, so I will trudge on and tag in Husband for today's round of activity.
Yesterday started with drawing pictures for Mr. H who did the airport tour the day before. Both kids worked very hard on their pictures of planes. After that, we headed to the park to feed the ducks. The kids loved it. In fact, they loved it so much, we went to another park and fed geese also. When we were all out of food, we took a trip to get a desk for Monster's room. 40 minutes later, no desk. The place was closed for Good Friday. So, home we went. We painted toilet paper rolls for binoculars (got the general idea from here, but put a different, and more kid friendly, spin on it) and made some superhero wristbands (again, got the general idea from here, but instead of foam stars, we used felt because they were cheaper. My kids didn't need or want glitter, they used markers and crayons). All this before lunch. At rest time, I went up to tell Monster he could come on down to play and he was sound asleep. I was shocked. In fact, I literally didn't know what to do with myself. I couldn't decide if I should work or play. I did both. After two hours, I decided I needed to wake the Monster up before he wouldn't sleep at night. Sunshine was still sleeping, so Monster and I got time to do a science experiment. Monster has Mind Blowing Science and loves to do experiments. We tried Sunset in a test tube. The first part went well. We had to wait for the final results over night. After Sunshine got up, we went grocery shopping, because I don't seem to do enough of that. When we got home, the cat from across the street was out, so Sunshine had to go pet it. Aunt C was out, too, so we chatted while the kids played with the cat. (As a side note, I hate cats. I love animals, but cats, I can't stand. Somehow though, my daughter has a love of cats. She's already rebelling against us.) We got home and I started dinner and boiled eggs for dying while the kids did some art. I can't believe how well they have gotten along all week. Husband actually got home at a decent time. He tagged in and let me sit on a heating pad for my back, which has been horrible since I dug up the garden on Monday. All in all, a great week. Technically, we have three days left, but it's a holiday weekend and Monday it's back to music class for Sunshine and swim lessons for Monster. |
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