Question:

science activity

DANCING PAPER CLIP

Impress your kids with a "Dancing Paper Clip".
Fill a baby food jar with water and drop a steel paper clip into it. Tell your child that you can make the paper clip dance up and down in the water without touching it. Then move a magnet up and down outside the jar to make the clip dance. Let your child try it. Explain that the magnetic force form the magnet passes through the glass and water to make the clip move. Kewl!

INDOOR RAINBOWS

Place a small mirror in a clear glass of water. Put the glass on a sunny windowsill. Position the mirror in the glass so the sun will hit it and cause a rainbow to shine on the wall. Point out the rainbow to your child, then move the glass to make a rainbow somewhere else.

CARNATION SCIENCE

Here is a great little "science" project that will amaze your young child. Get a white carnation. Leave it out of water to 1 - 2 hours until it starts to wilt a bit. Cut 1" from the stem. Place carnation in red-colored water made by adding red food coloring to water. Cover 6" of stem with water. Observe what happens to the carnation.

ICE HOUSES

First you will need to freeze water in various shapes for your outdoor winter construction. You can use old cake pans, jelly molds, plastic containers, tin cans and milk cartons. Just fill the containers with water and leave outdoors for several cold, freezing days (in the shade) so you will have lots of ice bricks. Stick the blocks together with water and snow as the mortar, and build a wall. You may need to build your structure over several days, refilling the containers and making more blocks as you go along. Happy building!

RAISE A MONARCH BUTTERFLY

To raise a Monarch Butterfly you'll need:
A large glass jar or aquarium
Milkweed leaves
Waxed paper
And elastic band
Look for a caterpillar about as big as your little finger. Collect the caterpillar and the top of its plant in your glass jar. Put in a few extra milkweed leaves. Cover the jar with waxed paper and secure with the elastic band. Punch small air holes in the paper with a fork.
Place the bottle outside or near a window where it's sheltered from direct sun and from rain. Now watch but don't bump the bottle. After a few days, the caterpillar will stop moving and hang still under the lid or one of the leaves. When the chrysalis is finished, take the cover off the jar and gently ease the milkweed part way out so the chrysalis is in the open air. (If you have used an aquarium this is not necessary) Check on it often and remember to count its golden spots. Before long, the chrysalis will lose it's beautiful green and turn dull and dark. Nothing is wrong, when that happens, it's not dying it's changing again. You should start checking on it more often
When the chrysalis eventually turns clear, with black and orange showing through, stay nearby. The butterfly inside will soon crack the chrysalis. Then the wings will emerge, followed by the whole butterfly. Let it take its time to stretch and dry before flopping away. Look carefully. What has happened to the golden spots?

FROZEN BUBBLES

When the temperature dips below the freezing point, many changes occur in our environment: water turns to ice, and rain turns to snow. Let the children experience some of these changes by taking part in the following activity.

Chill containers of bubble solution in the refrigerator. When the temperature is below freezing, take your child outside to blow bubbles. Have your children observe the bubbles closely as they blow. They will notice ice crystals forming on the surface of the bubbles. What happens when the bubbles pop? They shatter.