A Little Science Fun

When Jut is away for the week, we need to get a bit creative to keep things running smoothly at home.  Otherwise the days get long and everyone gets a bit crabby.  So the week Jut was gone this month, I did some thinking and planning to keep us busy.  E has been wanting a 'science' journal and to do science experiments.  So, I decided to let her start this week with some 'Gooey, gooey, glop'...aka cornstarch and water. 

If you have never played with it before, it is a great example of a colloidal suspension.  It acts like a solid when force is applied to it, and yet it acts like a liquid without added pressure. However, we didn't talk too much about all that 'sciency' stuff...we just had fun making hypothesizes about the nature of the goo and then observations about the behavior of the goo.

The kids had fun observing it with the magnified glass.  Stirring it up with a spoon...trying to make hand prints, etc.  We tried to cut cookies out of it with our playdough accessories.  E thought that it was going to act like playdough but decided that it was even better than playdough! 

The kids did make a bit of a mess with it, but it was an easy clean up that E did most of the work.  She had a great time.

X got in on the fun too.  He liked running his trains through it and covering them up with the goo and then sending them over to the 'wash down' aka the sink.  E had a good time with that too.  I think my little guy can turn any activity into a Thom*as the Train playtime. 








His train habit did get a bit excessive, I think this picture has at least 3 engines that are 'stuck in the mud' waiting to be rescued and sent to the 'wash down'.












To end our experiment, E wrote all of her observations into her science journal.  She did a great job!

Since we finally started our 'science' journal, we've done a couple other experiments for fun.  I've got two great little scientists on my hands!