Painting with Ice

Summer is just around the corner here and summer vacation has already arrived for some of our school aged friends. Here is one great way to continue some science learning and stay cool. Painting with ice!

Usually we only think about ice in the winter, but it makes for a fun summer activity too.

I mixed regular tempera paint with water so it was about equal parts water and paint. I used small plastic cups and froze them for about 30 minutes so they were slushy but not solid. I stuck the sticks in - some I had to prop up with other sticks to get them reasonably straight.

Then I waited. That was the hardest part. But to make them solid, I waited overnight.

Then I popped the plastic cup in warm water to unfreeze it just a tiny bit and then we painted. As you can tell, we only use primary colors and as the paint defrosted during use, we created secondary colors.

5 things to do in a blizzard

One of my favorite MF devotees, C., wants to do somethings in the snow falling here in New England. Because Hurricane Sandy wasn't quite exiting enough, now we have a crazy N'or Easter pummeling us! Rather than whine, let's do some fun science.

Sadly, there is no where near enough snow yet to make a decent snowball but here are a few ideas to bring a little science to this snowstorm.

1. Snowflakes.  Put some black construction paper in the freezer, or just leave it out to get cold. Once it is cold you can catch snowflakes on it and look at them with a magnifier.

2. Tracks. The squirrels and birds are leaving lots of little tracks in the snow. What sorts of stories are they telling?  Can you leave a snow story with just tracks?  How do your tracks change as you run or jump?

3. Ice Cubes. Put out two ice cubes in cups or containers. Put one where you think it will stay frozen and the other where you think it will melt. Let them sit for a period of time, an hour or so. Then check your predictions. Did your predictions (guesses) turn out correct?  What do animals do to keep warm in the winter?  They usually add layers of fat and fir to stay warm and they make some sort of den to retain heat. Can you do that for your ice cube?  Did it help it melt faster?

4. Measure it!  Put out a can or cup with straight sides and wait for it to fill with snow. Using a ruler or stick, mark how full the container is by putting one end of the ruler in the container until it touches the bottom and marking how high up the snow went. Now let the snow melt. How much water was really in the snow?

5. What is in snow? Scoop up some snow and put it in a container to melt. Pour it through a coffee filter and see what was in it. Now try again with the cleanest snow you can find. How clean was the snow really?  Snowflakes usually form around some little tiny piece of dirt so no matter how clean the snow looks, the center has a speck of dirt.

5 June Science Ideas

Need some quick ideas for fun summer science with the kids? I usually have a few quick ideas for days that are just too hot to be outside or if summer plans fall through.  Here are some good ones for June:

1. Ice - Make some fun ice cubes in whatever containers you can find around the house. Pull them out and put the kids outside with a couple of challenges like build the tallest tower or have ice cube races by pushing them along the deck or driveway. What shape moves the best?

2. Kites - This is such a fun thing to do with kids, making a kite. Here is an excellent kite to make with minimal supplies. I have done with with kids as young as four and as old as teens. It was a hit with everyone. There are no formal experiments, but you will try flying and then altering your kite as you go. Think of this more as an engineering project.

3. Floaters and sinkers - This is a fun activity on a hot day. With very young children, use a small tub, but with bigger kids, consider using a small pool. Gather some objects and make predictions about what will sink or float. Then test your predictions. Were you right?

Here is a longer explanation.

4. Reversible Change - How long does it take for a freeze pop to turn to liquid?  What if it is in the shade? Can you have a race to see who can keep their ice pop frozen the longest. Once they are all defrosted, how long does it take to refreeze?  Check every 15 minutes. You will be surprised on both ends.

5. Mentos geysers - This is a super fun activity and will have everyone amazed from age two to 92. The idea is that if you put Mentos candies into a 2-lr bottle of diet soda, you will get a geyser. I would recommend trying different kinds of diet soda. When we did this we found that different kinds made a difference in the height of the geyser. Get the tube here tho I was able to get mine at Target at Christmas time.

Ice in the spring!

This week at the library we played with Ice.  We have played with ice before in the winter. Check out those pictures here.

I would highly recommend trying some of the activities when the weather is warmer. I put water in all sorts of containers and froze them to make funny shaped ice cubes. I had ice cube trays that made heart shapes, tubes and long rectangles. We made towers with ice cubes and they were lots of fun to work with - slippery and cold.

Check back over the week to hear about other season mix ups.

Book Review: Sid the Science Kid: Why Did My Ice Pop Melt?

Sid the Science Kid: Why did my Ice Pop Melt?

This is a simple retelling of a time when Sid had his ice pop melt and how he figured out that sometimes solids can change state in become liquids again. Along with his friends and family, he also discovers that this is a reversible change and he makes ice pops again.

I always like Sid the Science Kid shows - they reinforce real science at a preschooler's level without babying them. If you like the show, this book will appeal to you. It looks just like the show but without the singing and silly jokes.

4.5/5 

Experiments with Ice

Today we are going to do some experiments with ice at the Millbury Public Library at 1pm. We are going to be doing lots of predicting, observing and data collecting and having fun while we are at it. Just to get you warmed up (or should I say chilled out...) for the program, here are some other simple experiments to try at home.

Juice Pops – have kids mix frozen juice concentrate with warm water. Mix it until it is no longer frozen. Pour in to cups, add a popsicle stick, and pop into the freezer. Check on them every 15 minutes or so and describe what you see.

When it is completely frozen, peel off the paper cup and look at the ice crystals. What do they look like? How do they taste?

If you liked this, try freezing other edible things like grapes and bananas. Try some frozen and at room temperature.

Watercolor Snow - Grab your water color paints and go out to the snow. You can use melted snow for the water or wet the paint before going out. As you paint on the snow, the water will meld the colors and wick the paint away. After a few minutes, you will have a new canvas. You can also do with food colored water in a spray bottle or regular water bottle.

Ice Balloons - Fill balloons with water and freeze. Only fill them so the balloon is about six inches in diameter. Suspend with a close pin from a shelf in the freezer so the balloon will freeze round. Remove the latex and you have an ice ball. Put the round ice balls in a bath tub or wash tub and see how they move around. You can have races with ice balls.

Snow Flakes - Put a black piece of paper in the freezer. Next time it snows, take the black paper out and catch snow flakes. You can use a magnifying glass to observe them closely.

Fun winter books:

The Mitten by Jan Brett – discuss how different animals live in the winter, use ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.), and repeating patterns. Check out her website here for more mitten activities and pictures of the animals that you can use to make patterns or reenact the story.

Thanks to the Friends of the Millbury Public Library for their continued support of Messy Fingers!

Explore Ice!

Tomorrow we will be leading a special Messy Fingers program for preschool through third grade at the Millbury Public Library at 1pm.

Call to preregister (508) 865-1181.

5 Fun Things to do in the Snow

Here in New England we just had a lot of snow and I know we are not alone - lots of other places in the country have plenty of the white stuff on the ground! While it is too cold to spend a ton of time outside, there are plenty of fun things to do. Here are some older posts with ideas:

1. Blow bubbles! The weather is cold enough now to try blowing bubbles in the cold. Blow the bubble and catch it on your wand. What might happen?

~I posted a challenge last January here.

~Check out my results here.

2. Grab some snow and melt it in a coffee filter. Take two snow samples, one clean and one dirty. Melt them in separate containers. How long do you think it will take? Once melted, pour the water through a white coffee filter. Was the "clean" snow really clean?

3. Paint the snow. Grab some water colors and a big brush. You can paint the snow. The snow will seem to absorb the painting. What is really going on?

4. Track. Check out the animal tracks in the snow. At my house, there are tons of tracks under my bird feeders. There are small birds, big birds, and two kinds of squirrels. The other tracks are my mom's from when she fills the feeders every day!

5. Have fun with Ice. Where does ice melt better? There are some really fun ideas here.

Ice!

Today we learned about ice! Each child got two ice cubes (that were really cylinders). One they placed in a spot where it would stay frozen.

The second ice cube was put in a place they thought it would melt.

They found a small puddle and lots of kids used the puddle. The secret of the puddle was not just that it was water, but it was water with lots of ice melt in it! This was just next to the door the custodian uses for his outdoor equipment and he'd dropped some ice melt when he was working this morning.

We tested this out with two more cubes - one with ice melt poured on it and the other with nothing. The cube on the right has the ice melt on it and is making quite a puddle.

We lucked out that it was snowing today. We grabbed some small rectangles of black paper and magnifying glasses. We checked out some of the snow flakes we saw. Most just looked like clumps of ice, but some had a bit of crystalline look to them.

If you want to do some further explorations with ice, here are some ideas:

Science words: bigger, smaller, colder, warmer, freeze, melt, absorb, crystal

Juice Pops – have kids mix frozen juice concentrate with warm water. Mix it until it is no longer frozen. Pour in to cups, add a Popsicle stick, and pop into the freezer. Check on them every 15 minutes or so and describe what you see.

When it is completely frozen, peel off the paper cup and look at the ice crystals. What do they look like? How do they taste?

If you liked this, try freezing other edible things like grapes and bananas. Try some frozen and at room temperature.

Watercolor Snow
Grab your water color paints and go out to the snow. You can use melted snow for the water or wet the paint before going out. As you paint on the snow, the water will meld the colors and wick the paint away. After a few minutes, you will have a new canvas. You can also do with food colored water in a spray bottle or regular water bottle.

Ice Balloons
Fill balloons with water and freeze. Only fill so the balloon is about six inches in diameter. Suspend with a close pin from a shelf in the freezer so the balloon will freeze round. Remove the latex and you have an ice ball. Put the round ice balls in a bath tub or wash tub and see how they move around. You can have races with ice balls.

Snow Flakes
Put a black piece of paper in the freezer. Next time it snows, take the black paper out and catch snow flakes. You can use a magnifying glass to observe them closely.

Fun winter books:
The Mitten by Jan Brett – discuss how different animals live in the winter, use ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.), and repeating patterns. Check out www.janbrett.com for more mitten activities and pictures of the animals that you can use to make patterns or reenact the story.