Growing Sweet Crystals and Eating them... mmmm...

 

 

 

 

 

We grew crystals. About a week ago I cooked water and sugar on the stove, let it cool and poured it into a jar. I tied a string to two Popsicle sticks and placed the large stick over the brim of the jar suspending the smaller Popsicle stick into the liquid. It's been about a week and as the crystals grew we kept looking to see how it was doing. Today we broke it and ate some. It was very solid. I had to break it free and cut my hand in the process. Those crystals can be sharp. I think the picture just above is so cute of Zoe looking funny at the crystals and deciding if she likes the taste or not. So cute!

Here are the instructions from one of our science books. 

With the help of an adult, boil 1/2 cup of water in a saucepan. Add 1 cup of sugar one spoonful at a time until all the sugar is dissolved. Keep adding sugar until the solution turns into a clear syrup. Let it cool for about ten minutes, then pour the syrup into a glass jar.

Now get a piece of string about a six inches long. Tie one end of the string around a pencil. Then tie the other end to a Popsicle stick. Put the pencil on top of the jar so the Popsicle stick hangs in the syrup.

Set your jar aside. Take a look at it every day to see what's happening. In about a week, the syrup should be crystallized and ready to eat.

“Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one's bath like a lump of sugar.” ~ Pablo Picasso

Our Little Star!

Here she is singing again. She makes up her own words and most of the time what she sings rhymes. One of these days I'm going to capture a song on video/tape or on paper. There are no batteries in this mic/recorder.

She changes her clothes numerous times a day. Some days it drives us BATTY! But this is how she is. She loves to dress up and create her own trends. Sometimes she decorates her outfits with things I'd never think of. Here she only has one glove on (I don't think she has really heard of Micheal Jackson) and she has some tinsel hanging out of her head band. She also has a bathing suit on. She has changed many times already. Laundry is crazy around our house.

Gertrude Temple`s advice to her daughter before each scene: "Sparkle, Shirley, sparkle!"

We have babies!

 

Our Sow Bugs had Babies!! I prepared another jar, since each year many of them die when they are very small. I read that they sometimes get eaten because they are so soft. As soon as I see a bunch of them on one (easy to grab) leaf, I'm going to move them to the other jar to attempt to keep more of them alive. Maybe I'll give that new jar to another homeschool family. I can post on our local group and see if anyone would like to watch them grow.

Okay... I feel that I need to explain how we keep track of which is which. I am no scientist but we use our names to keep track of the two types of crustaceans in our jar. I've had many talks with others about the proper names for each and have even discussed if they are the same or different. From our three years of bringing these animals into our home and observing them, we know for a fact that we usually have two kinds. One which is usually called Pill Bug, Potato Bug, or Rolly Poly Bug is usually darker in colour and very obviously, rolls up into a little ball to protect itself. The other type looks similar to that bug but is lighter in colour and doesn't roll up into a ball. We have read in books that the later one is referred to a Sow Bug. The babies look like the Sow Bug to me. We usually don't see the mother much or she moves slow for a while because she keeps them in a pouch on her tummy to protect them until they are too big for her to carry. They then start to crawl around on their own. They are very small but look like their parents and usually are a bit lighter in colour and softer. This is when they are still vulnerable and can be eaten. They grow fast and in a few weeks we'll be able to see them better because they will be larger.

“Curiosity is the one thing invincible in Nature.” ~ unknown

Junior Scrabble

Today we played Junior Scrabble, but it was a milestone for Austyn. We used the advanced side! He did fine, but I did help a bit. He had a hard time getting use to the idea that he had to use a letter already on the board and he had trouble visualizing the word when it ran vertically down the board instead of horizontal. He did a great job for the first time and his spelling is great even with little formal practice.

I should mention that he had another milestone. He usually hollers for someone to come in the room and read the screen when he is playing a video game but today he decided it would be easier if he just read it himself. He was so excited about this that he was hollering down the stairs telling me all about it. LOL!

“It should be noted that the games of children are not games, and must be considered as their most serious actions.”~ Michel de Montaigne

Book Sharing Monday

I'm a bit late... It was a busy day away from home. I hope you like it. I wanted to post this one a couple of weeks ago but lost it. So I prepared a different book but decided last minute to do this one since I now know where it is.

 

Are You Grumpy Santa? by Gregg and Evan Spiridellis is a book that we read in our home all year long. Our regular books are either better read by Daddy or Mommy and in this case Daddy is the winner. He reads this one well! The first time I read it, I knew my hubby would love to read this book. So much so that it almost brought tears to my eyes. It's such a cute story about Santa having a bad day and he becomes so grumpy (just like my hubby does... it's so cute sometimes... LOL). I think the first page of the book describes the story well.

"We all know Santa's jolly,

but there's something else worth knowing.

There are times when even Santa doesn't feel like HO-HO-HO-ing!

If you've never heard this story,

you might be quite surprised.

It's about a grumpy Santa who became un-GRUMP-ified."

 

Outside to play in the first snow

 

The kids got a chance to go outside to play with what little snow we have. There were a couple of occasions when we were possibly going to get snow but it ended up to be rain or the snow didn't stay. It's not enough to make a snowman, have a snowball fight, or make a snow fort, but the kids played with it anyway and enjoyed themselves. They've been waiting anxiously for this. When there was frost on the ground they wanted to go out and play with it! LOL!!

“To appreciate the beauty of a snow flake, it is necessary to stand out in the cold.” ~ Unknown