Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Crazy Science Day

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Day 2 of “Winter Camp Rick” was “Crazy Science Day.”  We got a much slower start this morning as the kids were happy to play at home together for a while before we started in on the experiments.

Our first project was making rock candy. First Reagan and Alex had to measure and cut kitchen twine and then tie it onto a pencil to suspend in the liquid.  Dec 09 Crazy Science Day 001

Next, they measured out sugar and water and dissolved all of the sugar into the water.

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Then we poured the water into the glass jars and let them sit all afternoon.

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By the end of “Crazy Science Day” we had made rock candy.

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Pretty cool and yummy.

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Our next experiment was to see if you really could cook salmon in the dishwasher. 

 

The kids each seasoned their fillets, topped them with lemons and wrapped them tightly in foil. Dec 09 Crazy Science Day 013 Dec 09 Crazy Science Day 014

We then put them in the top rack of the dishwasher and ran it on a normal wash cycle with heated drying. Dec 09 Crazy Science Day 015

Rumor had it that you can cook the salmon and wash your dishes at the same time, but we weren’t quite that daring.  Alex thought the salmon would come out all watery; Reagan was worried it might be a little soapy, but they both thought that it would be cooked.

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The end result: the salmon was cooked perfectly, all flaky and delicious.

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We ate every morsel.

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While the salmon cooked, we read Dr. Seuss's book Bartholomew and the Ooblek

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Then we made our own ooblek, which was just as green and sticky as it was in the book. 

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Next up: blowing up balloons with a mixture of vinegar and baking soda.  The kids weren’t quite sure how mixing these two together could blow up the balloon, but were delighted to see if it could be done. 

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Our balloons didn’t blow up that big and we decided that next time we tried it, we would need to use more of each of the ingredients to get the balloons to blow up bigger.

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After that we made our own lava lamps using oil, water, food coloring and alka seltzer tablets. 

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Alex declared it the coolest thing ever. 

Carter made his own fun with a pot holder. Dec 09 Crazy Science Day 053

Then we moved on to making our own slime and it was quite slimy and delightful.

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I think Gracie could’ve played with it all day.

Our last project was making trees that magically grew out of newspaper. 

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We taped sheets of newspaper together, rolled it up tight, cut it down halfway and like magicians, the kids pulled out trees taller than themselves. 

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To top off the “best day ever” according to all the kids, was dinner at the Rainforest Cafe where we sadly met Greg and Linda to return Gracie and Alex and end “Winter Camp Rick.”  Chances are, there will be another “Crazy Science Day” in our future.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Museum Day

This week is Winter Break for Reagan. Last summer, I took Alex (Reagan’s 3rd cousin) for a couple days for “Camp Rick.”  I had so much fun with the kids that I wanted to do it again, but this time I wanted to have both Alex and his sister Gracie come to stay for “Winter Camp Rick.”

Last night, it took a while to settle the kids down for bed because they were so excited for “Museum Day” today.  So excited in fact, that they all woke up at 5:30 am and Gracie was screaming “It’s museum day. It’s museum day!” Life is sometimes just so much better with a theme day.

As I was barely awake and Ella still was sleeping I got the kids all cereal and had them eat on the couch watching TV.

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A little while later, a couple of cups of coffee later for me, we made some Banana Crumb Muffins.

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Gracie did a great job of mashing the bananas for the batter and Carter couldn’t wait to lick the spoon.

After the second breakfast we were off to the Children’s Museum in Boston and Gracie and Carter both got a cat nap in on the drive down.

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We had to wait in line outside of the museum for about 5 minutes because we got there right when it opened.

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It was a busy day at the museum and all of the kids were very busy too:

Climbing:

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Bouncing:

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Playing with sand:

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Watching the show:

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Took a break for lunch:

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Played with trains:

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Dressed up:

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Took a rest:

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Smiled for the camera:

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And had a super fantastic “Museum Day.”

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