Making Sugar Crystals – Science at Home

Posted on May 10, 2013 by lifeatthezoo

Sugar Crystal Experiment

Welcome back to another Science at Home post… this post was encouraged by Trisha from Inspiration Laboratory – she challenged me to get sciency in the kitchen! The obvious and most fun craft for kids in the science are Bicarbonate of Soda experiments as there is lots happening very quickly. We will be doing some in the future. In the meantime, I thought they would enjoy making some sugar crystals.

  • Materials: Sugar, water, saucepan, jars or glasses, coffee stirrers or wooden kebab sticks – food colouring optional
  • 3 cups of sugar to 1 cup of water
  • The food colouring was an experiment to see whether we could colour our crystals

Making Crystals

1) Pour the sugar and water into a sauspan and stir. You will find that “not much happens” to the sugar. Water is able to absorb solids – but not very much. By heating it, you enable it to absorb more.

Science of disolving

2) Start heating the pan and keep stirring – still not much happens, clearly the water isn’t hot enough. Bring to the boil and keep stirring – now the water is able to absorb all of the sugar.

3) Let cool a little and pour into your jar. Add a coffee stirrer attached to a piece of card (we just cut a slid) and let rest. Make sure the card does NOT cover the whole jar opening. As you want water to evaporate.

4) Leave for 2-3 weeks and let the Crystals form

Sugar Crystals Day 1

Day 1

Sugar Crystals Day 4

Day 3- 4

Sugar Crystal Experiment

Day 7-8

We observed some crystals forming at the top an bottom of the jar immediately. The ones on the sticks started forming gradually after about 4 days. After a week, we had a good amount. After 2, the white could probably have been removed. But we are continuing to leave them a bit longer.

The Science?

This experiment is about “dissolving things” and “absorbing things”, as well as about structures and how some materials have a Crystal structure in their natural state. The water is able to absorb other materials (i.e. they dissolve in the water), but the ability to absorb is increased as you heat the water (this has to do with the molecules of the water moving around more, allowing for others to “slide in”). As the water cools, it’s ability to hold the molecules reduces and they are “pushed out” – the crystals start to form. Over time, the water evaporates from the jar – making the concentration of the sugar higher and again resulting in more crystals being formed.

Watch the rest of our Science in The Kitchen Experiments:

Visit Inspiration Laboratories discover what happens when you add water to cornstarch  flour or baking soda!

 

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Science At Home: Acoustics – Vibrations make Sound

Posted on May 4, 2013 by lifeatthezoo

Well.. you may have seen that we have been busy playing the homemade guitar over on Red Ted Art. It was lots of fun to make and the kids loved decorating it. But there was another “motif” for making the guitar – a hidden science project!

The core of the instrument is this:

Guitar ScienceA selection of different sized elastic bands – some are wider and bigger (e.g. the brown and lilac one) some are fine and really quite small (e.g. the blue one).

Put them around a container and they all produce a sound. A different sound. What is going on. And why can’t you hear it if you “twang” it between your fingers?

We had a go just holding the elastic – and you could hear something.. but not ever much. Then we put it around the box and suddenly the high pitched twang of the little blue elastic is loud and clear!

We then tried the different elastics and experimented.

Explanation:

1) Finger twanging versus the container – the container acts as a resonator – that means it “catches the sound” and reflects it back us. The smooth surfaces of the container ping the sound right back at us and make it sound louder.

2) The different sizes and thickness of the elastic bands. Sounds is a vibration of the air – i.e. how fast things move and the sensitive mechanisms in our pick up on these vibrations. A small elastic, pulled tight, will resonate at a much higher frequency, producing a higher sound. A big soft elastic, resonates more slowly and will make a deeper sound. So two things affect the sound – the size of the elastic and how tight you pull it.

Kids Guitar Craft

 

 

 

 

Posted in Education, Parenting, Science | 3 Comments

Little Poppet’s Board Books

Posted on April 30, 2013 by lifeatthezoo

Well.. you know how I LOVE picture books, don’t you? Our house is literally overflowing with kids’ books and I can’t wait for mine to be able to read for themselves too.

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So when this adorable little book – Little Poppets, Paula Metcalf and Susan Mitchell- came into my hands, I fell in love with it instantly.

It is the story of a little Mouse that one day finds that its tree has grown some socks.  Mouse and his friends thinks his tree really does grow socks, as the next day there are more socks and even some underpants on his tree. The story has that that wonderful child like innocence about it (after all, we all wish our tree would grow socks or maybe some toys? Or maybe pizza? Don’t we?). But we, the reader know better! The next door neighbour’s washing has blown away in the wind!

So, the story is cute. But the illustration is even cuter. Created by Susan Mitchell you have each scene painstakingly and lovingly needle felted and put together. Right down to the very last detail of runny eggs and soldiers for breakfast. I know my little girl’s fingers are just itching to reach into the picture book and PLAY! Almost makes me want to learn how to needle felt certainly something to add to me “How To” to do list!!

Super cute book, would make a lovely gift too.

FYI: I was sent the book for review by the publisher

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Getting Active – Jumping Bean Bag

Posted on April 29, 2013 by lifeatthezoo

The team behind the Jumping Bean Bag send us one of Bean Bag CLub kids a couple of weeks ago. I was keen to try it out, as anything that gets my kids active is a good thing (we do far too much crafting!!!).

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The little box arrived, the kids were straight into it. The little bean bags are jolly and bright. The crafty so and so in me thought.. mmh, I can make that…. well yes, I can. BUT. Here is the but. The box comes with a get physical booklet and DVD. And I think this is where the real value of this activity set lies. Yes, we all know how to play with a ball. Or yes, I made some juggling chooks recently. But there is one thing having them, and quite another knowing what to do with them!

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“Look, Mummy, I can balance it!” 3yrs old

So far we have only explore the booklet – it has given us plenty to do – from warm up exercise to balancing and jumping. I love all the pretend activity (can you be a rocket and reach the stars?) and action songs/ lyrics.

The kids took to them straight away and The Boy (5yrs) even wanted to take his to bed with him. Well, it really is a cute little buddy to have!

Once we tire of the booklet, we will reinvigorate our activities with the DVD. Also the Jumping Bean Bag reminds me of the “hacky sacks” of the 80s – remember those? Though not a ball made for “kicking”, I do like the idea of improving dexterity and hand eye co-ordination by doing different tricks with it.

bean bagThe boy making up some of his own moves (catching the bean bag behind his back).

So far our favourite activities include:

  • Normal “throwing up and catching”
  • Throwing the bag to each other
  • Throwing 2 bean bags to each other at the same time
  • Balancing on one leg and placing the bean bag on the foot of the OTHER leg
  • Balancing again and seeing if you can flip the bean bag up from the other foot and catch it (3yrs old still has to practice!!)
  • Balancing the bean bag on our head and catching it behind our back
  • Stretching arms out sideways and balancing a bean bag on the back of each hand
  • Juggle (mummy)

As much as anything, I think the kids enjoy doing this together with me or Daddy – anything that involves focussed parental time goes down well in our house! And we all got active!

FYI: we received a free set of Jumping Bean Bags 

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Science at Home: Toad Life Cycle – Day 1 – 8 Feeding

Posted on April 21, 2013 by lifeatthezoo

Well.. it has been an exciting week! The have seen the eggs develop before our eyes and the tadpoles hatch and grow. We have started feeding them and have to move them to a bigger bowl!! Check out Part 1 of our Toad Life Cycle exploration!

Here is our “food video”

Love the “middle part” where The Boy explains what we have been up to!

And here the photos:

Tadpoles at Home Day 3

 

Day 3 Toad Life Cycle: You can see that what were “perfect” black spheres are starting to become  a little more bean like.

Day 4 - Toad Tadpoles

Day 4 Toad Life Cycle: the tinies of tails are growing! And if you look closely you see the odd twitch. Check out our video posted here to see the movement.Day 5 morning Hatched tadpoles

 

Day 5 Toad Life Cycle: yesterday afternoon a couple of tadpoles had hatched, by morning they were all out (bar the 2-3 undeveloped ones)Day 6 - growing and gills

Day 6 Tadpole Life Cycle – if you look closely you can see the gills developing. The Boy rather endearingly said “mummy, mummy, they have eye brows”!
Day 7 Tadpoles

 

Day 7 Toad Life Cycle: The tadpoles are growing (now they are about 7-8mm), the bodies are thickening and there is a lot of ore movement.
Day 7 Toad tadpoles swimming

Day 7 Toad Life Cycle: movement of the tadpoles – and A head body and tail emerging.Day 8 Caring for Tadpoles

Day 8 Toad Life Cycle: it is getting VERY busy up there. And they are hanging around the top of the vase a lot. On consultation with Rainy Day Mum , we decide they need more space, more water surface area and more oxygen.
Day 8 Caring for Tadpoles more space

Day 8 Toad Life Cycle: they are all in a large bowl now (hiding at the bottom, you can’t see them so well at this angle). Tomorrow, we shall take back at least half if not more of them and fetch some more pond water. Looking after less tadpoles in more water!

So… that’s it for now. Do come back for more! There are regular up dates on Life At The Zoo on Facebook.

 

 

Posted in Biology, Education, Science | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments