Dancing Pigs

What do you do with the food left on your plate? Scrape it into the garbage, right? It's food, it will easily decompose in a landfill. Well, that's not entirely accurate. What if I told you that it takes 50-100 years for food scraps to decompose in a landfill? For food to decompose, it needs good air flow and micro organisms; however, in a land fill there really isn't either of those things.

I really don't ever have a problem with food scraps because I am a member of the clean plate club. I like food, it likes me, which is an all around good relationship. However, my toddlers don't have that kind of relationship yet, so we are throwing a lot of food away. I have to stop myself from eating the food off of their plates just to keep it from the garbage. So what do we do with our food scraps, we started feeding them to the pigs on my parent's farm. 

If I can recycle our food at home, why can't I do it on a bigger scale? This led me to the local grocery store. I asked if I could pick up their produce scraps for the pigs. The first day I was there to pick it up, they had two 55 gallon containers full. I was shocked by the amount. Afterall, this was not a big grocery store with a huge produce department. As I was loading it up, my 5-year old could see watermelon rinds in the sacks. His response was, "The pigs are gonna love that watermelon." He was right the pigs did love that watermelon. 

The fun came when the boys fed the pigs. They loved to just watch them sort through the fruit and do a little happy dance around the pen. The pigs did actually run around, which qualified as their happy dance.

Note: these pigs are only being fed vegetables, fruits, and some stale bread scraps. They also have a full feed ration to choose from. This is in full compliance with the swine health protection regulations, so USDA stay off my back.

Anyone can have worms to eat food scraps.
Kids love them, even high schoolers. 

Decorative Valentines Box

Pinterest has really set the bar for DIYers. So when my preschoolers came home with notes that requested a decorated box be brought to school for their Valentine's Day party, that is the first place I looked. The number of unicorn boxes complete with tissue paper and glitter was astounding. I settled on a Minnon box instead, and asked my husband to construct it. (He constructs, I decorate.) He made a face similar to someone getting flicked in the ear, and followed that up with, "Can't we make something original. I don't want to copy someone else's Minnion." He went on to mention Wall-e, and then I tried to find a Wall-e box on the internet that I could copy. There weren't any. So today I decided the boys and I would muddle through our decorative box making.

My 3-year old and I went to the basement to rummage through our box collection. We found a box that was square enough, and found some cardboard pieces we could shape into the eyes. I unrolled the paper towels, grabbed the tube, then rerolled them without a tube. I put the tube in the center of the box, shaped cardboard eyes, and used a ridiculous amount of hot glue and tape to withstand my 3-year old. Red was the color of choice for this Wall-e robot, which didn't include arms or rolling tracts.

My 3-year old was so pleased with his decorative Valentine's Day box, that it was the first thing he showed his brother when he got home from preschool. I quickly defused the jealousy by asking my 5-year old what he wanted to make for his box. He said a Stegosaurus. "That's the one with sails on it's back, right?" I asked knowing full well it was. I was in the process of telling him that I didn't think I could make that, when I stopped and grabbed the tissue box. I opened up the sides and took the tissues out. (They are now in a neat pile.) I grabbed two more pieces of cardboard and rolled them, one for the tail and one for the neck and head. I attached them to the tissue box while my 5-year old cut out the sails. I traced them onto the light weight cardboard, so he could have lines to follow. I hot glued them on to complete the Stegosaurus. He painted it all different colors, and a Stegosaurus was born.

I'm really happy I didn't use the Pinterest pictures. When I do use them, I'm usually disappointed that it didn't turn out like the pictures. I didn't have any expectations when I started this project with the boys, and that made all the difference. We just had fun cutting, gluing, and taping. They probably had the most fun painting.

After everything was dry, my 3-year old took his Wall-e and rammed it into my 5-year old's Stegosaurs. He then hugged it and said he loved it. I'm glad we made it heavy duty sans glitter and tissue paper.

 

 

 

Mad Scientist

Over breakfast I asked my 5-year old son what he wanted to do today. He replied with, "Maybe we should do another experiment." He said this as he was blowing bubbles into his glass of milk with a straw, which gave me the idea for this experiment.

We put the rest of his milk in a clear plastic container. He added drops of food coloring to the milk. Next a toothpick was dipped in dish soap then touched to the food coloring in the milk. The dish soap repelled the food coloring making all the colors look like a tie dye shirt.

After all the colors were pretty well mixed we added baking soda and vinegar for the second part of the experiment. The result was foaming and fizzing out of the bowl. The best part was watching the boys test out what would happen if they added more baking powder or vinegar or food coloring or tooth picks with dish soap on them. That's what experimenting is all about.

"Mom, this was a good experiment." My 5-year old said as he was mixing everything together including the toothpicks.

During this experiment I had one on one time with each boy. I experimented with my 5-year old first while my 3-year old was at preschool. And then the following day I did the same thing with my 3-year old while my oldest was at preschool. I knew both boys acted differently with one on one time; however, I didn't think they each would be so inquisitive with this experiment. I've created boys that love experiments, my mad scientists.

 

 

 

Groundhog Day

I was an adult before I knew that a woodchuck, whistle pig, and groundhog were all the same thing. I had grown up referring to the short eared, short tailed, grey-brown coated animal as a woodchuck. This was usually when the dogs were keeping the farm free of them. To keep my children from the same confusion we are celebrating Groundhog Day.

Last week at the library the boys checked out puppets along with their books. I didn't pay much attention until we got home and my son was calling his puppet a beaver. However, that puppet didn't have a big, flat tail like a beaver. I instructed the boys to call it a woodchuck. So after all day of calling it a woodchuck we started reading the books that went along with the puppet, and they were all about groundhogs. This is where the confusion started. My 3-year old started calling the puppet a woodpig. At least he knows that pig and hog are the same thing.

To clear up the confusion, we celebrated Groundhog Day by making brown paper bag puppets to make shadows on the wall. The stuffed puppet from the library is what the boys used as their inspiration for their own paper bag puppets. When their groundhog puppets were completed we went to their room, which has the best blackout potential. They made their own groundhog shadows standing in front of my phone flashlight. This is where I explained about Groundhog Day, and it's traditional of predicting the beginning of spring. They started screeching at the shadows pretending to be scared like Punxtasutawney Phil.

I liked watching them role play with their paper bag groundhogs. It was a really quick craft that promises hours of fun even after Groundhog Day.

As for Punxtasutawney Phil, he needs to start kicking his shadow's butt.

 

Australia

Ten years ago today my husband, Jeff, and I were traveling to Australia. We had just gotten married in November, and this was our honeymoon. Well, our honeymoon and my student teaching experience. We spent 2 months in the outback, so I could teach science and agriculture to complete my college degree. And for Jeff to be a "house husband," which is what they called him in Australia. Looking back to that experience, I realize that I owe a lot to my husband.

He sacrificed so much for us. He was settled with a full time job, a house, even a retirement plan when we got married. When we made plans for Australia he quit his job, put a renter in his house, and asked his mom to pay our bills from his bank account while we were away.

It didn't end there. He took it all in stride when the town of Broken Hill, Australia, affectionately referred to him as "the American house husband." He would do the laundry, get groceries, make the meals, and plan adventures when I wasn't teaching. Students would tell me that they had seen him at the grocery store when they were out for lunch. Everyone knew him because he was the only 6'8 red headed and bearded man in a 300 mile radius. Most people were shocked that a man would do that. After all, men were supposed to support their wives (financially that is), which was the general attitude everywhere we went. Little did these people know that he was supporting me in so many ways.

After we returned to the US, I graduated from college and was hired right away as a full time teacher in a town 2 hours away from my husband's former job and house. He gave that all up so I could pursue my career. Later, I found out from the school that they hired me because of my Australia experience. I'm definitely sure that I never would have had the guts to travel around the world and teach in Australia if it hadn't been for Jeff backing me.

Ten years later I'm the housewife, stay at home mom, homemaker, couch potato, or whatever the preferred nomenclature. Now I'm using my teaching experience to show my own kids cool stuff. Most of the cool stuff I show my kids is straight from the Australia teaching days. I learned it all there.

It's so very interesting to look back at how those events unfolded, and how one decision changed our futures. One decision started us down a different path, which led to another path and another. If we had not gone to Australia I really don't think we'd be where we are now.

After eight years of teaching and after ten years since Australia, I can't thank my husband enough. While I was teaching I never formerly thanked him, but I can do that here in front of all of you. Thank you, Jeff!

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.