Pumpkin Science activities for Kids roundup

The Perfectly Pumpkin contest hosted by  B-inspired Mamas, Preschool Powol Packets and Gift of Curiosity and us!
There were so many amazing pumpkin themed activities, recipes and crafts! It must have been a tough decision for our guest judges to pick a winner for their categories.

The Science nerd fan in me was drawn to these fun science themed Pumpkin activies that were entered.

Life with Moore Babies played with states of matter and created some very cute decorations with their Melted Crayon Pumpkins.
They also showed us how they demonstrated the pumpkin lifecycle by growing pumpkins in a pumpkin!

Little Bins for Little hands made a Pumpkin-cano which may just be the coolest baking soda and vinegar experiment I have ever seen!

A lil Scientist at Stir the wonder had a great time with an exploration of Pumpkin guts.

The Preschool toolbox shared a couple of great Pumpkin life cycle printables and the fun they had working with them.

Frogs and Snails and Puppy dogs tails made up a mixture of Pumpkin spice scented 'Clean Mud'!

These were just a small sample of the amazing entries the contest had! Thanks to everyone who entered! To see the winners head over to the announcement at B -inspired Mama.

Expanding Molecules or How we nearly set fire to the Microwave.

We found the Accidental Scientist: Science of Cooking site while we were doing our Cookie Unit study. There is a lot of great information on this site but what caught Miss K's attention was an activity to make 'Monster mallows'. She saw it as a great reason to buy candy, I saw as a way for her design her own experiment.

Instead of just observing a marshmallow heat for one minute in the Microwave Miss K chose to heat  marshmallows for  varying lengths of time so she could compare the changes. 

We found some cute retro style marshmallows at Target selected 4 to test and put the rest aside for consumption.

Using a sharpie Miss K labeled our test candy 1 to 4, these was the method she wrote:
1. Heat for 30 seconds
2. Heat for 60 seconds
3. Heat for 90 seconds*
4. Left out on the counter (control)

What happened?

I wish I had taken a video of the marshmallows, the kids reaction and their later dramatic retelling of it all to Daddy! As promised by the Accidential scientist all the marshmallow's puffed up dramatically during heating! The kids were amazed at how big they got! What did differ between heating times was the final texture and color of the candy (which we observed AFTER it cooled down).

After 30seconds the marshmallow nearly quadrupled in size during heating. When no longer being heated it begans to shrink to approximately double its original size and was still sticky.

After 60 seconds the marshmallow has not only quadrupuded in size but collapsed again and browned a little around the edges. When it cooled to the touch it felt hard on the outside but remained sticky at its core.

We only made it to 75 seconds with marshmallow #3 before it began to seriously spark and smoke. At this point I stopped the microwave and ran the blackened candy outside so it didn't set off the smoke detectors. When it cooled down we got to observe the changes. There was no stickiness, it was very brittle and the burnt sugar was very dark and shiny.

Why did this happen?

Candy is primarily full of sugar. In the case of Marshmallows there is also a lot of air and water. When you heat something in the microwave the water molecules vibrate at a crazy speed. This heats up the water and sugar molecules and air bubbles.  The air bubbles push against the walls of the now softened sugar and the marshmallow blows up like a balloon.
When the heat is removed the marshmallow begins to cool and the air bubbles shrink and the sugar hardens. If  you continue to heat  an already 'puffed up' marshmallow it will eventually get so big it  'pops' and deflate.

What did we learn:

My Mother can attest to the fact I do not have a great track record with Microwave ovens.
In my teens I decided to make popcorn in the microwave using a pyrex dish, gladwrap and oil. Yes oil! Lets just say my Mum was not happy to come home to a microwave with a blackened interior complete with popcorn shaped groves...again sorry mum! For some reason Dad didn't seem surprised.

In hindsight this was probably not a great experiment for us but it was a great lesson in the effect heat has on molecules! It also inspired us to look for some more ways we can use food to teach science concepts. Here's our collection of things we want to try!

Exploring Electricity

Over the last month, we have been working our way through The Magic School Bus - Jumping Into Electricity kit & The Magic School Bus And The Electric Field Trip book

Miss K and I created graphic novel style note booking pages for her to record her observations and results of the electricity experiments. She came up with the ideas, I drew it.

 

The experiments in the kit were really fun and clearly explained. The guide is laid out a lot like the Magic school bus books. Miss K could follow the instructions and enjoyed reading the explanations and background information.

 

 

I like to explain things with models. My models are not conventional. Here we are using plastic fruit to represent the atoms and the green pom pom is the electron jumping from each atom. Apparently Miss K has picked up this trait because when I asked her what she already knew about electricity she pulled out four crayons to show me that it can only flow if the 'circuit wasn't broken'.

 

This pictures I got were from the Static electricity experiments....

 

 

The circuits were a real hit with the Piwi's too! By the time we packed up the Christmas lights (after Three Kings day) Miss K could explain how they worked!

 

 

Some other kits we are going to include in our Science curriculum

 

 Chemistry:

 

 

Polymers & Slime

Exploring Flight


Light science

 

 

 

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M is for Magnet

Shared with the new linky party....

Monday kid corner

Letter of the week: M

 

 

This I tried something different and set up a little center for Mini Piwi based around her letter of the Week, M. Usually she just has Workboxes. This is how it started out...

 

 

It looked a little bare for a reason. We added pictures of items starting with M and displayed her 'M' projects. Each night she took everyone for a 'tour' of her work.

 

Books of the week:
We read and made crafts with Mouse Shapes, Mouse Paint & Mouse Count by Ellen Stoll Walsh.

 

We used the M for Mouse printables from 1+1+1=1.  They were very popular!

 

 

 

 

There were also plenty of other activites going on .I posted earlier this week about the fun doing Experiments with Magnets.

 

Mini Piwi loves her new Melissa & Doug Shape, Model and Mold set. The wooden tools are easy and fun to use. Mini Piwi has no complaints at all and the tools are built to last. However, if I was going to be picky... The wooden box it comes in is a cute idea but a lid would have been a nice extra. It doesn't come with a lot of dough. What it did have, had a weird plastic smell. Overall though, it is definitely more durable and preferable to all the gimmicky 'gumball and ice cream makers' being put out by another well known brand.

 

 

As part of a review of 2nd grade patterning we made Bracelet and Mini Piwi was so proud that she could work thread the little beads all by herself.

 

 

We are Exploring Electricity in Second grade so Mini Piwi was also the middle of all the experiments going on with Static electricity. She volunteered to be the official 'balloon charger'.

 

 

 

 

 

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 Letter A week: Glitter 'Gators

 

Letter B week: Bugs & Bears

 

Letter C week: Giant Caterpillars

 

Letter D week: "Real' Dinos

 

 

Sharing is caring!

I'm sharing with: 1+1+1=1 Tot school & these link ups

 

M is for Magnets

At the start of the week we were still talking about opposite charges with our Magic School bus electricity experiments. I realized that the magnets on our Thomas trains were a perfect example of attraction. Mini Piwi was really interested so while Miss K worked on her Electricity notebook pages, I got out the big magnets. I showed Mini Piwi how much stronger they were than the one on the trains. She thought it was all hilarious!

 

I had some experiment sheets for Miss K to do with Magnets but no printables for Mini Piwi. Her enthusiasm inspired me to make a quick 'M is for Magnet sheet'. Today we had a mini scavenger hunt to find all the items on the sheet. The cat was the hardest to find as he was asleep up high in a bedroom.

 

 

....the leaf didn't move!



The spoon sticks!

 Mini Piwi put a sticker by the things that the magnet could pull. She then went all around the kitchen looking for other things that she could pick up. A word of warning about working with Magnets...make sure your wallet/handbag/computer is out of the way. These things don't like magnets as much as Preschoolers do!



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Measuring with Mini Piwi