Squishy Circuits - Playing with Electricity, Sort of

I first saw this idea on Ted.com in this fabulous talk. The experiment sounded so fun, that I looked up AnnMarie Thomas's Squishy Circuits site, copied her recipes for the resistive and conductive playdoughs, picked up some "ingredients" at a local RadioShack and came up with an idea.

Actually, M came up with an idea. For some days he's been pretend-playing the episode of Megamind where Megamind lures Metro Man into a trap. Naturally, next thing he wanted to build was a trap for Metro Man. Perfect opportunity, isn't it?!

Being very ambitious, I wanted to build an activity that would combine pretend-play with math, science, and fine motor skills. Yeah, and have some sort of art element to it too.

And so the idea of a labyrinth was born. We started off by using a manila file folder that was laying around and converting it into the base of our labyrinth. I wanted M to help me draw it, but he wouldn't budge. So I drew it myself.

We then used regular playdough to build the low walls. M participated in this activity - pinched off little pieces of dough, rolled them into long noodles (he didn't like that part) and carefully laid them onto the drawn lines. This last part was particularly hard 'cause he had to make sure there were no gaps or cracks or the Metro Man would escape.

Next we painted the path bright red, sort of like a red carpet. Red is still M's favorite color, but it also fits here - looks like a red carpet (and Metro Man, with his good looks, fab hair and a knack for publicity seems like a Hollywood type).

Then we went to the kitchen to make special "electric" playdough. M helped me measure and mix the ingredients for the conductive (pink) dough, but then started experimenting on his own recipe. He eventually created something very goopy, but of beautiful pea-soup color, some fancy paint products call it "moss green" (I can never achieve this shade of green when I try, but he did it).

I then proceeded to show how a small LED light lights up when electrical current is applied to the playdough. M played with it a bit and discovered the importance of maintaining proper polarity. Finally, we built a small enclosure with the dough and put a plastic dome on top (since it's an old observatory. Told ya before - watch the movie for details). We then stuck a couple of LED lights into the dough above the entrance and connected the wires.

The trap was set and sure thing, Metro Man was caught... and caught again... and again... and then again only this time he was an astronaut.

M even wanted to play with this dough the next day, putting LEDs in, connecting the wires, and testing what happens when you stick an LED into the same piece of dough. We also built a playdough cake with a red LED candle and in the process found out that our resistive dough wasn't resistive enough and we were much better off with a piece of plastic.

We'll try this activity again in a few months. Hopefully by then I'll devise a more interesting setup that creates more opportunities for experimenting (and cook a more resistive dough).

Week 5 - Half-Way Home

Just 5 more weeks or so before my stronger half gets back and we head back to NC. Let's see, what were we doing this week...

Ah, so M got sick. So we pretty much stayed home most of the week. And since we stayed home, we made stuff, mostly toys but also a magazine.

First, we made the TIE Fighter using a toilet paper roll, some empty tea candle holders, styrofoam ball (big mistake since it managed to both absorb a ton of spray paint and melt in the process), left-over styrofoam take-out containers and some odds and ends.

Then we made a robotic capsule that uses two kinds of fuels (disgusting syrup and liquid methane, as explained by M). Then we played a bit with it pretending that it first landed on a wild planet full of hungry dinosaurs and then - on the Moon.

We also made a drawbot, but I can't find a picture of it so I'll post it later. Tomorrow we're staying home again 'cause M is not completely over his cold. So we plan on making another bot, this one - to knock the building blocks down and then to have an epic fight with the drawbot.

Another thing we tried making was our own magazine. M seemed to be interested. You see, I bought him an issue of Popular Mechanics that he really wanted 'cause it had a picture of a giant space ship on the cover. But turns out, the actual article wasn't very long and, more importantly, didn't have many pictures at all.

I suggested that if he was to publish his own magazine, he can control what stories appear in it. He, of course, said that the magazine had to be only about the Outer Space. In fact, he wanted it to be called "The Cosmos Magazine". So we went through our collection of clippings and M put together a cover.

Then he chose two pictures - the Moon and the Big Dipper - and created stories about them. I, of course, wrote them down. He then wanted an article about galaxies, but didn't want to come up with any more stories himself. So he went to ask Grandpa for a story and that's how we ended up with an interview.

Also, before M got sick we went to a lake nearby. The weather was very nice and M wanted to get some decomposing bark for some experiments. I asked him what kind of experiments and he relied "I am going to pour some water into a bowl and put bark into water and wet it and then I will observe what happens". He did collect enough bark and then he did do the experiment. Afterwards I asked him about his observations. His response: "The bark got wet, floated, but didn't change at all".

So that's about it. This weekend we'll be doing a ton of kitchen experiments, I guess. Oh, and go on a walk to look for bunnies 'cause M wants to catch one and bring him home and feed him bunny food and call him "Zaika".

Astronaut Training

A couple of weekends ago M and I spent almost the entire weekend in astronaut training. Well, he spent it in training. I was just helping him.

But before that happened, we went to a friend's birthday. Actually, the birthday was at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. It's an awesome place with a rocket outside and a bunch of cool exhibits inside and on the museum's grounds. And yes, kids can touch and play with pretty much anything there.

So on that particular trip M spent quite a lot of time outside, primarily at the water feature. He said it was a space station's chocolate making factory. Making space chocolates... Hmm, as long as he's got his priorities straight.

Inside the museum M spent most of the time at the astronaut's exhibit looking at the videos of lunar landings and monkeys getting trained up for space flights. He also spent quite some time at this contraption kinda like the one they have at some malls. We launched a few coins down it and M concluded that it was a black hole (I couldn't agree more).

Finally, he spent the remaining hour or so in the space capsule, counting down and launching it (his countdown goes like this: "One-two-three-one-blast off!".

So the following weekend we had an astronaut training camp. Since M already knows so much about solar system, it was a bit of a challenge to come up with the age-appropriate learning tasks. And then I realized that even though we had a total of 4 solar systems around the house, we didn't have a single comet!

That became our first training task - to learn about comets and make one. Here it is, complete with a tissue-paper tail and a cotton-ball coma.

We then experimented with gravity, practiced putting the space suit on, discussed which foods cannot be eaten on the space station, ran around a little obstacle course, and went to the planetarium. By the way, M wore his full astronaut costume - space suit, glothes, helmet, etc - into the planetarium to the great pleasure of 100 or so people that happened to also attend the "Earth, Moon and Sun" show there that morning.

Further training was delayed due to inclement weather - snow! It was awesome, falling in huge heavy clumps that quickly covered the garden, the car, the driveway. M was so excited! You can see that he didn't even want to take time to change from his astronaut suit, but instead put a shark hat and a jacket on.

But then the novelty wore off and it started getting really cold outside. So we went inside and made a huge space mural of Astronaut M Exploring Lunar Surface. Then, while M acted out space shuttle's landing on the Moon and launch of Hubble, I asked him all sorts of questions for his letter to NASA (because you know, now that he is ready, it's up to them to decide what mission he'll fly and when).

Plus M wrote his own letter to NASA just to be on the safe side. Afterwards he put some more star and planet stickers on his space ship (he says they show all the places the space ship's been to) and the day was over. Now we're waiting for NASA to write back to us.

More Space Stuff

Are you tired yet? Well, M's fascination with space is nowhere near over, just the opposite. We read The Magic School Bus Takes a Moonwalk daily and The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System - almost daily. That's in addition to lots and lots of other awesome books about planets and galaxies and astronauts that we go through several times a day.

We also finished the space helmet. It's giant! I clearly over-estimated my child's head size, but at least he won't get stuck in it. Plus now even adults can try it on (and believe me, we have no shortage of the takers).

Now when M goes anywhere where there might be other children (or adults) he wants to dress up in not only the space suit, but also wear the helmet and the "oxygen tanks". And when he's not in this uniform, he likes to approach people and announce to them "I'm going to be an astronaut when I grow up". He then proceeds to introduce me as Ms. Frizzle (the awesome, but strangely-dressed teacher from The Magic School Bus series).

He addresses me as Ms. Frizzle throughout the day as in "Ms. Frizzle, we have a problem" or "Ms. Frizzle, you are the strangest teacher in school" or "Ms. Frizzle, I have a question for you" or "Ms. Frizzle, take us to the magic school bus". And yes, he addresses himself in plural sometimes because while I'm Ms. Frizzle, he is her entire class. Oh, and our cat, Xander, is renamed "Liz, the lizard" on these occasions.

Being Ms. Frizzle is really not so bad at all. Especially compared to all my previous gigs as Winni the Pooh, the ghost, Lolochka the puppy, Zamatayu the dog, Luna 3 the lunar module, the witch, etc, etc. At least I no longer have to speak in alarmingly low, startlingly high or unnaturally constipated voices. And I get to hear things such as "That was a great field trip, Ms. Frizzle" pretty much after every playdate and outing.

But I started running out of ideas for space-related games and craft activities. Thankfully, our local teacher's store had this awesome book - Solar System - Curriculum Based Hands-on Activities. It's for Grades 1-3, but I looked through it quickly and it seemed that many of the activities could be easily adapted to a younger child.

M was very excited when I told him we'll be doing more space experiments. So far we've done the experiment to see how impact craters are formed and why a space ship can't land on a gas giant. This sounds fancy, but all it took was some sand and potatoes for the former and an egg and a coin for the latter.

We also made a couple of catapults. One was large, simple and not very spectacular. The other one, slightly more complicated and much smaller was awesome. It shot little foil projectiles clear across the room!

Then we took a little break to look at some pictures of space stuff. And that's how we accidentally stumbled upon a new game. We lined up the cards, set the catapult some distance away and tried landing foil meteors on different space objects. Then M tried to launch the little astronaut into a black hole to see him get spaghettified.

Candy Science

Since this year's Halloween was on a Sunday, we didn't get as many visitors as we planned for and, consequently, had lots of candy left.

So the next day I asked M if he wanted to try a few candy experiments. He's all excited about experiments since, you know, that's what astronauts do on the space station. Our experiments were nothing fancy - just mixing hard candy with hot and cold water, soda, vinegar, flour, and salt. Oh, and we microwaved a few of the concoctions. Soda and vinegar mixes were huge hits as well as nuking the mixtures. We also finally learned that not everything that smells good tastes good. That's a huge breakthrough, don't you think?!

Rockets, Luna 3 and the Gas Giant Jupiter

Yep, we're still in the space age here at home. M still dons his astronaut suit almost every day and calls himself "космонавт Марк" or "ashtronaut Mark" (depending on who he's talking to). He takes his new mission very seriously too!

Just this past Monday he wanted to play with a slightly older boy. So I told him to first introduce himself and then invite the boy to play. So M immediately went over to the boy and said in his high-pitched voice: "Hi! I'm Mark. I'm ashtronaut." When the boy didn't respond, M explained himself further "One, two, three... Blast-off!" with an unmistakeable geasture of a rocket that's taking off.

Seriously though, not a day goes by without him requesting to make some new decorations for our Space Room (that's our family room and the adjacent hallway).

In addition to our pumpkin-box turned spaceship, two rockets from SparkCon festival (yes, they are still surviving) and a small, but ever-growing collection of space shuttles and plastic astronauts, we now have all of these:

Spaceships Taking Off from the Surface of Mars (you can see the big bright Sun and if you look very carefully right next to it there's Mercury). This particular art project, done about 3 weeks ago, used up a ton of glitter and left even more of it all over the family room.

"Luna 3" probe - my proudest creation! It looks just like the real thing (at least based on a picture in a sticker book). We used egg cartons, foil and some odds and ends.

Another large-size undertaking that we call "Earth-rise Seen from the Moon by the Apollo Crew" (you can see all the stickers of the Apollo modules, the astronaut, the lunar buggy and, of all things, a spiral galaxy). It actually looks good enough that for a while M pretended that it was an IMAX screen - he'd pull up a chair, sit down and "watch a movie".

Then we had a bit of a break and went to the Life and Science Museum in Durham. You know, the one with the drums. You know, the ones that M used to drum on for hours on end refusing to see or try anything else in the museum. You know, that's why we didn't renew our membership there last year (plus it's quite a drive from us).

Anyway, they have a life size model of an Apollo module, space costumes, a walk-in Apollo control module and some space-themed hands-on displays. Oh, and a big rocket right in front of the museum! Sure, this time around M spent most of the time inside the Apollo capsule pretending to count-down to blast-off.

Back home we also made this little display that we decided to call "Moon in the Sky" (yeah, not very original, I know).

and the "Solar System" mobile (again, not very original, but that's what this mobile is all about).

and also this "Space Shuttle Taking Off from the Launch Pad" picture (ok, so I did draw all the elements, but M helped me glue them on and he was responsible for the fire and clouds of smoke from the engines).
Then also there are these two original paintings. One is called "Canstellation of Stars with Glitter" and the other one - "Spiral Galaxies in Space". Guess which one is which.

Oh, I just realized that I still haven't taken pictures of our pumpkin-box spaceship and three other solar systems that decorate the family room. Hmm, well, to be continued...

Ice Painting

A very quick, simple and frugal art project M and I did the other day when I just couldn't think of anything else to do (after we role-played Honey Cake Mixup story 10 times in a row).

All it takes is an ice-cube tray and food coloring. Oh, and of course some water. Pour, mix colors, freeze, then paint with colorful ice-cubes. And they look utterly delicious too. Actually, M ended up eating a couple of them after cubes melted down to a more managable size.

The result was very messy and cold, but after drying looked like watercolors. And believe it or not, this arts-science-sensory-fine motor skills activity kept M occupied for a whole half an hour!

Simple Machines - Incline Plane Fun

Without a car on Thursday we had lots and lots of time on our hands and not much to do. And it was just too cold to go outside, especially early in the morning.

Instead we had a little science lesson and learned about simple machines. Actually, we only learned about an incline plane (since it's so simple to set up). All it took was a cardboard mailer tube (with both ends openned), an empty box, some tape, a cookie tray and an assortment of pebbles and seashells (any other small objects will do).

It took me maybe 2 minutes to set up and show to M. and he spent the next 15 minutes exploring all the possibilities this toy provided. He seemed particularly excited to find out that different objects made different sounds when landing on the tray. So I added a tamburine for more sound effects.