Egg-periment

Only soft shell, naked eggs

On Thursday I was a substitute teacher for a science class at the high school I formerly taught at. One of my favorite things to do is catch up with my teacher friends, so I was telling another science teacher about an experiment that I did with the boys that didn't work out. He suggested trying it again, but doing a second part to it. I was really excited to try the new part with the boys, so I told my good friend, a social studies teacher, about it. She responded with, "You guys were just hanging out discussing experiments, Nerds!" All the while putting her index finger to her nose pretending to push up glasses she doesn't have. She can name the presidents in order, and I can do cool stuff with an egg.  We all have our area of expertise.

Vinegar eating hard shell

The first experiment was suggested to me by my good friend who is a loyal follower of this blog and thought it would be perfect for the boys. This experiment was to put vinegar and food coloring in a jar with an egg and seal it. (No, we weren't coloring Easter eggs.) We left the jars sealed for 24 hours. The vinegar ate away at the hard shell, but not the soft shell. However, the tongs that we used to remove the egg from the jar broke the soft shell. What's supposed to be left is a colored bouncy ball of sorts.

This second time around when the vinegar ate away the hard shell we gently scooped them out with a spoon. I had to gently wash the eggs to get all the hard shell off, but it wasn't hard anymore and rubbed off easily. Then we rinsed out the vinegar jars and put water in one and corn syrup in the other. The boys gently added the eggs, sealed the jars, and put them on the mantle to watch them.



Eggs going into water and corn syrup

Water floating on top of the
corn syrup with the shrunken egg

After a few hours the corn syrup egg shrunk and the water egg was swollen. The boys kept a close eye on it all day. I explained that the egg shrunk because the water from the egg is pulled through the soft shell into the corn syrup. The egg in water filled up like a balloon. I explained that the water was sucked inside the egg through the soft shell.

We took the eggs out of the jars and were about to hard boil them to continue the experiment when the water egg rolled off the counter onto the floor. It splattered everywhere because it was so full of water. We still hard boiled the corn syrup egg.



Shrunken egg

This was a long, messy experiment; however, the boys and I had a blast. They held the jars to their ears to hear the fizziness when the vinegar was eating the hard shell. They moved the jar around  around to see the water added to the corn syrup from the egg. They were very gentle to keep from breaking the egg so the experiment could continue. I think they might be ready for their first pair of science safety glasses and apron.



The water egg that fell on the floor



Regular hard boiled egg with the
shrunken hard boiled egg

Magic Electricity

When was little I remember rubbing my feet across the carpet and then touching my sister's arm. It would shock her, and most definitely be annoying. Sometimes she would retaliate with the same shocking business. I was recently able to show my sons the powers of static electricity.

I told my sons that if they were good at the doctor then I would reward them with balloons. They were very excited about this, and earned their reward. So when I was watching them throw the balloons around I had the idea to use static electricity to move a pop can. I had the boys rub the balloons on their heads and hold it next to the pop can. The electricity moved the pop can. My 5-year said it was magic, which gave my husband the idea to rub the balloon on his head then stick it to his hands and the wall. This was really mind blowing for the boys. Then they had to try.

I explained that it was electricity that made the balloon stick to things and move the pop can. I used lightning as an example of this kind of electricity. When electricity builds up in the clouds it strikes as lightning, and when it builds up on the balloon it sticks to things or pushed things away. Explaining atoms, protons, neutrons, and electrons is going to have to wait a few years.

Maybe next time we'll have to try pop can races.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sons of Agriculture

I started this blog to document the life change of moving from a full time Agriculture teacher to a full time mom. It was a hard transition for me because I swore I could never stay home with our kids. If anything, my husband was the one who volunteered to stay home. I was also pregnant with baby number three at the time, so rational thinking wasn't always possible.

When I started telling people about my transition the responses were varied, but one in particular got me thinking. The response was, "I know a lot of people that don't use their degrees." My degree is in Agriculture Education with an endorsement in biology for middle school and high school. This seemed like a challenge to use my knowledge and "degree" for my own kids instead of someone else's kids. So this blog was also started as way of holding me accountable.

I love Agriculture, and as I look back at the last year these are some of the ways that I have shared that love with my sons:

1. Iowa State Fair: this was the first year that I wasn't working, and the boys were able to enjoy it.

2. Seedlings: the boys were amazed when a seed grew into a plant when it was smushed between wet cotton balls.

3. Butchering: the boys were respectful of the animals that we would eat. My 5-year old puts on his play apron and asks if he can wear it to butcher chickens next time.

4. Combine rides: this year during harvest the boys saw a couple of deer come out of the corn.

5. Chores: Christmas morning my husband and I drove the van down to the pig pen with the kids strapped in their car seats, so they could watch us do chores. We did chores before opening gifts.

6. Pulling weeds: identifying veggies from weeds and then deciding how the weeds hurt the veggies was an important task.

7. Flower picking: treasure hunting for flowers and then putting them in food coloring water was memorable.

8. Horse rides: They were nervous and didn't want to, but they took the risk. After a while they loved it.

9. Ticks: if you want a pet you have to take care of it, which includes pulling ticks off.

10. Recycling: my 5-year started recognizing the triangle arrow recycling sign, which means that we are at the top of our recycling game.

Agriculture doesn't mean that you have to live on a farm, we don't. But Agriculture is everywhere. It's what feeds us, clothes us, and shelters us. Be an opportunistic farmer, and go find some Agriculture.

 

 

 

How many is too many?

The ideal number of children to have is 2.6, according to recent surveys. I've been asked many times how many children we are going to have, which is an understandable question because we had 3 children in 5 years. My practiced response is to keep a straight face and reply with 6-8. I never say over 10 because I want it to be believable. The responses vary between men and women, but they are always amusing.

Men usually respond with a nervous laugh, and then try to end the conversation as quickly as possible when they see that I'm not laughing. One male co-worker looked at me and asked how we could afford them. He was ready with the $300,000 figure per child. It's more like $245,340, but whose counting. I just shrugged my shoulders in response. Another male co-worker smiled with a "good for you" after I said 6 kids were a good even number.

Women usually think about my answer and ask again. "Six kids, really?" or "You're sure about that?" I'm usually vague about the second answer, but that's usually followed by some 'old woman that lived in a shoe' comment.

My husband suggested that we have kids in the odd years of this decade (2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019). Easy for him to say. From the beginning, we have tried to plan our babies. Planning never worked out though.

So how many is too many? I've done a pros and cons list like my logical mind likes. The cons are obvious: time, money, sanity, etc. However, watching my sons whisper a secret to each other and then burst into contagious giggling is enough to wipe out any cons. Watching the three of them play together is enough proof for me. An outsider might see a chaotic, disastrous household, but a closer look will reveal a lot of love and fun. 

Crayon Foundry

I was about to open my fist full of broken crayons over the trash when I noticed a big crayon in the shape of a heart. That heart was the first Valentine that my 5-year old son received. It was a bunch of different crayons melted together in the shape of a heart, which gave me the idea to try that with our broken crayons. So those trash bound crayons were given a pardon.

The boys started the tedious work of stripping the crayons of their paper clothes. I was impressed that the boys had the patience to pick off the tiny pieces of paper. They lasted through half of the crayons before I was given the task. I made quick work of it by using a knife to split the paper. 

The boys took the naked crayons and sorted them into colors. Then I tried putting them in a cookie cutter in the oven; however, the melted crayons just leaked out the bottom as I thought they would. I was just going to use cup cake liners, but my husband thought it would be fun to make a silicon mold.   My husband has a pattern making kit, so we made some shapes out of play dough along with actual wrenches and poured the liquid silicon around the shapes. After 3 hours we had a mold to melt the crayons in. 

The boys had a blast breaking the crayons and watching them melt in the oven. After they cooled we popped them out of the mold, but the wrenches kept breaking. They were too thin. We couldn't fit enough crayons into the mold to make the finished product thick enough to keep it from breaking when we took it out. 

My problem solving husband wanted to try, so he proposed using a homemade double boiler to melt the crayons and then pour them into the mold, much like a foundry with metal. We were discussing the procedures, and my 5-year old must have been listening intently because at bed time he told Daddy to wait for him to wake up to make the crayon wrenches. 

The whole family really got involved to make this project a success. Really, my husband made this one happen, mainly because he engineered the shit out of it. He would probably shrug his shoulders, put on his half smile, and say he was just helping. He just helps a lot, so thank you husband. 

As I look at this post I realize we did a lot to recycle crayons, but it was awesome to take the boys through the whole thing. I mean what kid has a crayon foundry? 

 

 

 

Lava Lamp

My over active toddler boys do really well with a structured schedule. With a schedule, the boys are less likely to climb the counters to get the M&Ms or use the chair as a trampoline. I'm also happy with a schedule because it reminds me of an actual job, and I get to be creative and come up with easy 'special' projects. Today's project was a lava lamp.

"I know, I know, I'll be careful," my 5-year replied to me as he was pouring oil into an empty water bottle with no funnel. As he was being careful I was recalling the time I dropped the open oil bottle on the floor and it splattered all over the kitchen. Well, it turns out my 5-year old has better cordination than I do because he didn't spill anything. He even added water and food coloring to top it off without spilling.

The last step to this science experiment was to add Alka Seltzer. I broke the tablet into four pieces to add it to the concoction. The best part about this experiment was watching the tablet pieces shoot the water and food coloring around the bottle giving off carbon dioxide. When all the bubbles settled we put the cap on tight.

The boys had fun shaking the bottle around and watching the water food coloring globules separate than form back into lava. Putting the flashlights around the bottle was really fun for them too even though they don't know what a lava lamp is.

As we were doing the experiment I explained that oil and water don't like each other, but the water and food coloring do like each other. I also explained that the fizzy tablet (Alka Seltzer) made the water and food coloring stick tightly together. This seemed like an acceptable explanation because they could see the proof in the bottle.

After this experiment my 5-year old said to me, "You need to teach us what we want."  And off he went to play with the lava lamp. I'm so thankful he wants to learn and I can teach him.

Toy Library

Our children are so lucky to have such loving family members that rain gifts on them every year for Christmas and their birthdays. Since two out of our three children were born in December, our house turns into a Toys R Us look alike store complete with the all the empty boxes during that month. So this year we came up with the toy library to declutter, organize, and tame the wild toy chaos.

For a long time, my husband has been saying that we needed to go through all the toys. We kept the toys in little containers that were piled onto a built-in bookshelf in our living room. When new toys arrived, my husband and I would sneak some of the old toy containers to the basement to make room for the new. We have been doing this since my 5-year old was born. With the amount of toys that we had in our basement, I wasn't looking forward to this, so putting it off seemed like the thing to do.

My husband came up with the toy library idea, where we put shelving in an easily accessible place in our basement for our boys to keep all of their toys. Just like checking out a book at a library, they pick out a certain toy to play with, bring it upstairs, play, pick-up, return it to the basement shelf, and pick out a different toy.

My 5-year was trying to avoid napping, so he asked if he could "organize" the toys. I agreed, so he dumped all the containers of toys out on the living room floor and started sorting. All of the blocks together; all of the ninja turtles together; all of the animals together. This didn't last long before he asked to bring all the toys up from the basement. I must not have remembered all of our toys in the basement because I agreed. So our 5-year old carried little containers upstairs and opened all of them. By the time my 3-year woke up from napping, it was serious play time.

Eventually the boys helped catagorize and contain all of their toys, which are on shelves waiting to be played with. We set aside some of the bigger toys to be used as rewards, while we fixed, threw away, and donated others. Now our living isn't over run, and the boys are (Hopefully) never bored with their toys.