Germs, bacteria and fun...

So we finished last month the Magic school bus kit polymers.  It was fun. She made her own bouncy ball, gack, giggly marbles, glue out of curdled milk and so much more.  Learned how its the same polymer in diapers that they use to make fake snow.

Now we have moved onto Bacteria. 

This goes along with what she was learning in health.  How to stay healthy and wash our hands properly. 

So we did this neat thing first.

I had her pretend to sneeze.  Then I sprinkled in her hands red glitter to represent her germs.

She then shook my hand to see how much of her germs spread to me.

Then she pretended the chair was a shopping cart.

I had her touch a few more things until most of the germs were spread around the house. 

I then went around touching them.

This showed her how her germs then spread to me.

Hours later here comes our little kitty Willy and he had red glitter on his head and back. LOL

Its a nice visual to show children how germs really do spread.  I should have done that again and had her wash her hands to see how much came off with just water like she tries to do or with soap.  Think we will be doing that tomorrow.

First experiment in the kit was to try to grow mold. 

in one test tube was wet bread put into the refrigerator

in the second one was wet bread kept in a warm spot. 

It didn't take long for the warm bread to start forming redish mold.

The cold one never grew anything.

We moved onto learning about yeast and what it needs to come alive.

So what do you do when your experiment bombs?

you try again.

what do you do when it bombs again?

Well I was going to retry it one more time but then I started thinking........

maybe its the yeast that isn't doing its job? 

the experiment : put yeast in test tube up to the 1/4 mark, sugar up to the 1/2 mark the fill it with warm water to the 3/4 mark. cover top with a balloon.  Wait about 1/2 hour and its supposed to make the balloon inflate a little bit.  We waited 2 hours. 

It did not happen both times.  First time Samantha did it all so I thought maybe measurements weren't accurate?

So then I did it.  Still didn't work.  SO how many times do you retry something to get the results it claims will happen?  

So I thought about it. could it be the yeast?  Maybe its old?  It came with the kit.  

So stay tuned I will try this one more time with fresh yeast. I will even take pictures..........

That is if I can figure out how to get them off my camera!  

Some exciting finds....

This summer I hit a jackpot on science kits.  Both Steve and I were so excited about the groupon deal we saw. We both purchased the deal without telling each other.  We ended up with a total of  6 Magic School Bus science kits at a very reasonable price.  She will be learning about:

1. rainbows and colors
2. germs
3. space
4. solar energy
5. going green 
6. soaring into flight 

Then I found another good deal... Samantha has a tag reader. She is getting too old to use it.  Most books are for under 7.  Well a trip into Target one day I was browsing around through the isles and what do I see some tag readers on clearance.  They had this cool game on the solar system.  She is all of a sudden in love with her tag reader again. Uses it to have stories read to her at bedtime.  I am excited as this will be a fun addition when we review the solar system again!  

One more cool find... We went to an event at the New Children's Museum in Fall River today and Samantha got to paint a tile for them to use on a wall there.  Well they had all the paint set up and they used bottle caps to put the paint in. Talk about less waste that way.  When she had painted in the past it seemed like a lot got wasted. Well no more. Tomorrow I am off to the craft store to buy some bottle caps.  Better yet... the caps off our throw away bottles. That will work too and save money.