Ten kids and a Dog

Monday, May 4, 2009

Unplugged Project-Powder-Blow up a balloon with Carbon Dioxide

For this week's Unplugged project: powder, we blew up a balloon using carbon dioxide made from vinegar and baking powder.

Items needed:
baking powder
vinegar
balloon
small funnel (very helpful)
bottle with a small opening that a balloon can fit around

Using a funnel, we put about 1/4 cup of baking powder into a bottle. Our bottle was the vinegar bottle with was empty.

We then used the funnel to fill a balloon with vinegar.

Stretch the balloon over the opening of the bottle, make sure to keep the vinegar in the balloon.

Dump the vinegar into the baking powder.

When the vinegar and baking powder mix, carbon dioxide gas is given off--blowing up the balloon.

Enjoy your children's reactions!!! My kids loved this.

Check out everyone's POWDER projects over at Unplug Your Kids.

Next weeks unplugged theme is: MAGIC

Sunday, May 3, 2009

My two-3 year olds.....

Endulge me!!

These photos are purely for the a mother stuggling with the reality that her last two babies are growing up!!

How could they do this to me??

My two three year olds, for the next three days.

And now a blast from the past.....

two, 2 year olds.....5/3/2008

two, 1 year olds--5/3/2007

Tot-School

Kimberly turns 3 this week!

Luke is now a Tot-School graduate. He turns 4 this week, (after being 3 with his sister for a few days.) I am sure though, that we will still be seeing him among the future Tot-School posts.

We have begun a "big bug" unit. I have many plans for studying insects, incorporating both big and little learners.

You can see a more indepth post about our ladybugs here.

Our wonderful ladybugs have joined our other magnet creatures on the fridge.

A great activity we did this past week was button caterpillars.

They are now crawling around in our flowers and plants.

Coffee filters, medicine droppers and liquid water color paint made some lovely butterflies.

We loved the dropper, coffee filter painting so much, we have many beautiful pieces of artwork awaiting projects.

The weather has been unseasonably warm and sunny. Spring has sprung gloriously, and we have been enjoying every minute of it. Mark and Grace built a "bridge" over the tiny stream out back and Luke loves practicing his balance.

Kimberly still needs a little help from a friend--big sister Laura.

Kimberly picked this puzzle activity off the shelf all on her own. She also successfully completed it all on her own for the first time!!

Way to go, Kimberly!!

We have been having fun with gardening. Our beans have grown very tall.

We have now transplanted them into a big container and they are outside--except when the temps fall below freezing. Hopefully we will first get blossoms and then a few beans.

We made daffodils using egg carton sections.

Lovely
We seem to do more crafting around here than anything else---maybe this week we will get to more "schooly" activities.

It is hard to tell the homemade daffodils, for the God-made daffodils.

We spent part of the week in this position---poor, yucky sick boy. After about 48 hours Luke was back to his old self.

Another beautiful nature day at Oneida creek.

Make sure to check out all of this weeks great Tot-School posts at 1+1+1=1.

How can it be? My baby is 3!

Happy Birthday, Kimberly!

Friday, May 1, 2009

We Made It: Friday Showcase....Ladybug, Ladybug...

fly away home......

I found very cute ladybug crafts for this week's insect fun.

I found the pattern for this ladybug at First-School.

I cut out the pieces using foam sheets so we would have long lasting magnets.

Kimberly was very careful to get the eyes on "just right".

To help Kimmy get her ladybug pieces in the right spot, I put the glue down on the main red heart and Kim added the legs.

The legs are also L's---so we worked on a little letter recognition also.

Gracie made a different, 3-D ladybug. This pattern is found on this page, along with many other very cute ladybug activities.

I first printed this on regular printer paper, so that we could try the proper folding technique. After we knew how to accomplish the folds, I printed it on card stock and made our final ladybug. Instead of gluing the edges together as the directions told us, I used staples to hold the ladybug together.