Mad Science, Groovy Art for Kids

Save Our Planet from Vampires

2011-01-11T09:58:00.000-05:00

My friend Sue Heavenrich just started a wonderful new blog called Archimedes Notebook. This blog "for curious children and their parents" features hands-on science activities for kids and occasional book reviews. Be sure to check it out.

The following activity accompanies my Kids’ Ocean Acidification page.

Believe it or not, there are probably vampires lurking in your house right now. But these vampires don’t suck blood, they suck electricity. To find electricity-sucking vampires, turn off the lights and look for glowing digital displays. These displays may be simple glowing dots, or they may tell the time or give you information about the “vampire” device; for example, a telephone answering machine might tell you how many messages you have.

Now, turn the lights back on and look for power adapters, those little box-shaped objects that you plug in to charge items like cell phones and laptops. These adapters suck electricity even when they are not in use, and do not always have an associated light to indicate that they are drawing power.

Make a list of all the vampire devices you have in your house. Some of these, such as answering machines, need to be plugged in continuously to function properly. But others, such as coffee makers and many power adapters, do not. To save electricity and money, unplug vampire devices that are not in use. If you have a lot of vampire devices in one area, plug them into a power strip so you can switch off the power all at once.

Banishing electricity-sucking vampires is a great way to save energy. Here are some others:

1. Think before you buy. Yes, that new toy looks cool, but are you really going to play with it? Before you make a purchase, decide whether the item is something you really want or need. And if you own something you don’t want or need anymore, don’t throw it away, recycle it!

2. Ride public transportation, share a ride, walk or ride your bike. You’ll have more fun and get more exercise.

3. Replace energy-hogging traditional light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs), and turn off the lights when you leave a room. Remember, light bulbs suck electricity too!

To learn more about vampire power (also known as standby power or phantom load), visit the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory website. For more ways to save energy, visit the US Department of Energy website.

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-22T08:45:00.000-05:00

In celebration of the holiday season, this week's activity is a snowman coloring page. Best wishes in the coming year!
click on image to enlarge or download PDF

Disappearing Shell Egg-speriment

2010-12-16T08:50:00.002-05:00

An egg floats after its shell dissolves

This activity complements my website's Ocean Acidification Kids' Page. Ocean acidification is happening because about a third of the carbon dioxide released from the burning of fossil fuels ends up in the ocean, where it reacts with ocean water, causing the water to grow more acidic.

The creatures most likely to be affected by ocean acidification are corals, shellfish, and some types of plankton that have shells or skeletons made of calcium carbonate. This is because acid is corrosive to calcium carbonate.

Bird eggshells are also made from calcium carbonate. In the following experiment you will see what happens when you put an egg in vinegar.

Ages 7 and up; click here for PDF

You will need:
egg
cup or jar
bowl
white vinegar
knife

Preparation
Place the egg in a cup, and cover with vinegar overnight.

Observation
Look at the egg. Do you notice anything unusual about it? For one thing, it now floats. For another, it is probably covered with tiny bubbles. Carefully pick it up and place it in a bowl. The egg’s surface feels soft because the calcium carbonate shell has dissolved, and all that is left is an opaque white membrane. The egg looks and feels hard boiled, but if you puncture the membrane, you'll see that it is raw.

What’s Happening?
Bird eggshells are made from calcium carbonate. Acid is corrosive to calcium carbonate, so vinegar dissolves the shell. All that is left is the membrane that lines the inside of the shell. Since the egg isn’t as dense without its shell, it now floats. Air bubbles form when the dissolved carbonate from the shell reacts to form carbon dioxide gas.

More to Try
Like eggshells, seashells are made from calcium carbonate. Try putting a seashell in vinegar and see what happens. Don’t do this with a seashell you like, however, because chances are it won’t look the same when you are done!

Blowing Bubbles Makes Water More Acidic

2010-12-10T13:32:00.005-05:00

In the following experiment you will make your own pH indicator from red cabbage. Using this pH indicator, you can see for yourself how carbon dioxide acidifies water. For more on acids, bases and pH, go to my Ocean Acidification Kids' Page.

Ages 7 and up; click here for PDF

You will need:
red cabbage
knife
large pot
stove
clear bowl
measuring cup
clear plastic cups
spoons
straw
chemicals to test (water, baking soda, vinegar, lemon juice, ammonia, soda pop, etc.; clear liquids work best)

from left to right: vinegar, lemon juice, Sprite, water, baking soda, ammonia

Preparation
Place half the cabbage in a large pot and cover with water. Boil until the water turns a purplish green. After the juice has cooled, pour some into a clear bowl and dilute as necessary so you can see to the other side of the container. Congratulations! You have just made a pH indicator, a substance that changes color with pH.

Instructions
Set out a clear plastic cup for each chemical you plan to test, and pour a quarter cup of your pH indicator into each. Pour or spoon a little of each substance into the appropriate cup, and stir. Make sure to test some acids (like soda pop, vinegar, and lemon juice); some bases (like baking soda and ammonia); and water.

If you add water the pH stays neutral and the indicator has a blue color. Add a mild acid like fruit juice and the indicator turns purple. Add a stronger acid like vinegar and it turns pink. Add a base like baking soda or detergent and it turns green.

Watch carbon dioxide acidify water

Pour a quarter cup of pH indicator into a cup. Using a straw, blow bubbles into one of the cups for about a minute. Compare the color of the liquid in the two cups.

What’s Happening?
When you exhale, you breathe out carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide reacts with the water to form carbonic acid, which acidifies the water and turns the pH indicator more blue.

Did you know?
Chemicals called anthocyanins are responsible for red or purple pigmentation in many other plants, including red cabbage, berries, grapes, and red fall foliage. Anthocyanins change color with pH, and anthocyanins extracted from almost any red pigmented plant can be used to make a pH indicator.

pH indicator color before (left) and after (right) blowing carbon dioxide bubbles into the liquid

Homonym Word Play Coloring Page

2010-12-03T08:02:00.002-05:00

I am pleased to announce that my Homonym Word Play game appears in the December, 2010 issue of Literacy LAVA. This wonderful newsletter, published by children's author Susan Stephenson on her Book Chook blog, features fun games and activities that encourage young readers.

The coloring page to the right features two of the silly sentences found in my Homonym Word Play game. Be sure to check out this month's Literacy Lava for the other eight! Click on image to enlarge, or click here for PDF.

Make a Thankful Box

2010-11-19T08:29:00.000-05:00

Several years ago on Thanksgiving my daughter made a thankful box. Before dinner, each person wrote down what they were thankful for and put their thankful note in the box. Then, as we ate our dessert we opened the box and read all the thanks. It was a really wonderful experience!

For all ages

You will need:

• a shoe box

• large sheets of paper (construction or white)

• scissors, knife

• scotch tape

• crayons or markers

• paper, cut into small squares

• a pencil

Making Your Box
Cover the exterior of the box with paper; tape into place. Cut a slit into the top of the box big enough to insert a small piece of paper. Use crayons or markers to decorate the outside- maybe you can draw pictures of some things you are thankful for!

Giving Thanks
On Thanksgiving or some other appropriate occasion, have everyone who is present write down one thing they are thankful for and put their thankful note in the box. Then open the box and read all the thanks.

Kids Bookfest 2010: Make Your Own Stamp

2010-11-15T09:37:00.001-05:00

On Saturday the Family Reading Partnership hosted its annual Kids Book Fest, a wonderful event that features music, crafts and activities for young readers. My own children enjoyed the festival when they were little but have since outgrown it, which means that for several years, I didn't have an excuse to attend. So this year I felt very fortunate to be able to participate as a volunteer. I gave away over forty books and helped kids stamp designs onto paper. Instructions for making stamps like the ones I used are given below. Thanks to all the hard working organizers who made this event possible!

Make Your Own Stamp

Ages 6 and up; click here for PDF

You will need:

• craft foam (get the kind with a sticky back, if you can)

• glue if your foam doesn’t have a sticky back

• pencil

• scissors

• Tempura paint or ink

• foam paint brushes

• small plastic containers

• paper

• newspaper to contain spills

*for the image shown, I used Speedball water-based block printing inks purchased from Dick Blick. These inks are non-toxic and available in a wide variety of colors.

Making Your Stamp
Draw the shape you want to stamp onto a piece of foam. Stray lines don’t matter, but you might want to make a practice design on paper first, and keep it simple: intricate designs are tricky to cut. Once you’ve finished drawing your design, cut it out. Remove the adhesive back of the craft foam, and stick it down to a second piece of foam (use glue if your foam doesn’t have an adhesive backing). Leaving the adhesive backing in place, cut the second piece of foam around the design you’ve just made.

note: You might want to make a different stamp for each color you use. For example, if you want the center of a flower to be a different color than the petals, make one stamp for the petals and another for the center. (in the lower photograph, the small dot in the middle is the center of the flower on the upper left).

Using Your Stamp
Pour the Tempura paint or ink into plastic containers. If you use ink, dilute it with a little water so that it brushes easily onto the stamp. Using a foam brush, paint the ink onto the raised part of the stamp (try not to get any ink onto the bottom part- an adult may need to do this for younger children). Now, turn the stamp upside down and press it firmly onto a piece of paper. Experiment as necessary to get the paint thickness right.

Invisible Ink & vitamin C

2010-11-05T06:46:00.001-04:00

Who says science has to be boring? In this experiment, kids write a secret message to their friends. In the process, they learn that iodine can be used to test for the presence of vitamin C. That’s because iodine is a vitamin C indicator. In other words, it is a chemical that can be used to test for the presence another chemical.

Ages 6 and up; click here for PDF

You will need:

measuring cup

teaspoon measure

Q-tip or small paint brush

large paint brush
lemon juice

printer paper

iodine solution (available at drug stores)

newspaper to absorb spills

Preparation
Stir 2 teaspoons of 10 % iodine solution into 1 cup of water.

Instructions

write your message Using a small paint brush or Q-tip as pen and lemon juice as ink, write a message on your paper. Let dry.

reveal your secret Using a large paintbrush, coat the paper with a thin layer of iodine solution. Your message will be revealed!

What’s Happening?
The simple explanation Paper has starch in it, which reacts with iodine to form a purple complex. The vitamin C in lemon juice blocks this reaction, so areas of the paper coated in lemon juice remain white. Scientists use iodine as an indicator to tell whether or not vitamin C is present. If they measure carefully, they can even find out how much vitamin C is present.

The hard-core chemical explanation A form of iodine called triiodide [I3-] reacts with starch to form a purple complex:

[I3-] + starch [ [I3-• starch complex]

In the presence of vitamin C, triiodide [I3-] is converted to iodide ion [I-], which doesn’t react with starch:

Since there is no triiodide to react with the starch, no purple color is formed.

More to try

Use your iodine vitamin C indicator to find out if other juices contain vitamin C. Just paint a patch of liquid onto paper as you did the lemon juice, and coat the paper with iodine solution to see if the patch remains white. You might also want to try milk, white vinegar, and dissolved solid foods. Some foods naturally contain vitamin C, and sometimes vitamin C is added to food. To find out if vitamin C has been added, check the ingredient list (note: vitamin C is also called ascorbic acid).

Did you know?
People who don’t get enough vitamin C can develop a disease called scurvy. Scurvy used to be common among sailors who had no access to fresh fruit. Today scurvy is rare, but it’s still important to get enough vitamin C. So make sure to eat plenty of fruit!

Halloween StoryArt

2010-10-29T06:57:00.003-04:00

Happy Halloween! In celebration of the holiday I made a piece of Halloween StoryArt.

What's StoryArt? It's a picture that tells a story. Look at the picture and think about what's happening now. What might have happened before, and what do you think will happen next?
Activity appropriate for ages 4 to 7. Click to enlarge.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

2010-10-22T11:57:00.002-04:00

This is a great Halloween Craft! Click here for PDF.

Ages 5 and up

You will need:

• an egg carton (Styrofoam works best)

•black Tempura paint

• black chenille, 4 strands per spider

• googly eyes

• glue

• paint brush

• sharp knife

• scissors

Preparation
Cut out the egg carton compartments; these will be your spider bodies. Paint the outside black and let the paint dry. Cut the chenille into ten-inch strands.

Construction
Poke the Chenille into one side of the spider body and out the other. Repeat with three more strands of chenille to make eight spider legs. Bend the legs into shape. Glue on the googly eyes.

note: The chenille can be pushed through a Styrofoam egg carton relatively easily, but for cardboard cartons an adult will need to use a sharp knife to create holes before pushing the chenille through.

Did you know?

• The modern Jack-O-Lantern got its start in Ireland and Scotland, where people carved scary faces into turnips and potatoes.

• The Portia spider doesn’t make its own web. Instead, it climbs onto another spider’s web and plucks the fibers. The resident spider feels the vibrations and, thinking it has caught an insect, approaches the Portia spider. The Portia then pounces, and eats the web’s rightful owner.

Get Up and Move! into Literacy

2010-10-15T09:08:00.002-04:00

When my son was in second grade he had a hard time sitting still long enough to memorize spelling words, so we invented a game called 'Spin and Spell'. I recited the words, and he spelled them out loud while spinning in a circle. According to the game rules, he couldn’t stop spinning until he had spelled all the words correctly. The game turned a dreaded task into a fun one, and it worked: my son’s ability to spell a word correctly improved after a few rounds of the game.

It turns out that Spin and Spell is a form of kinesthetic learning, and there’s evidence to suggest that kinesthetic learning improves student success by:

• increasing blood flow, which stimulates learning.

• stimulating the release of dopamine and noradrenalin in the brain, which also enhances learning. Dopamine is released when we are happy, so children who exercise while learning may associate that learning with happy feelings.

• combining cross-body movements with learning. Evidence suggests that cross body movements integrate the right and left hemispheres of the brain and facilitate new learning.

I’ve known for some time that a company local to my area, Math Made Fun, produces kinesthetic math products, but didn’t know that they had branched into kinesthetic reading material until I ran into company president Suzy Koontz at a book festival. For the October I can Read! Blog carnival I’d like to share some information about the innovative products this company sells.

a little girl using a Math Made Fun Alphabet Hop Mat

Math Made Fun makes several types of literacy and math exercise mats as well as workbooks and a curriculum for teaching children to skip count through dance exercises. Skip counting, in which a child counts 2,4,6,8…, 3,6,9,12… and so on, facilitates the learning of multiplication facts. To see the Math Made Fun kinesthetic learning program in action, watch this video. For research on the success of this type of kinesthetic learning, visit the company's Math and Movement page.

The durable mats that the company now sells are meant for long-term classroom use and are rather expensive, but Koontz says that the company is developing a line of more inexpensive mats for home use that should be available before Christmas.

Pressed Autumn Leaves

2010-10-08T06:47:00.003-04:00

I just found out that Getting Kids Reading is hosting a giveaway of Picture It! picture books. These books have text and a place for children to make their own illustrations- what a clever idea! Be sure to enter if you've got young kids.

Now, onto our activity of the week...

My kids made pressed leaves like these in kindergarten; their clever teacher had them include crayon shavings for added color. This craft looks best in a window, where the light catches the color.

Ages 5 and up; click here for PDF

You will need:

• leaves

• waxed paper

• crayons

• sharp knife

• scissors

Preparation
Use a sharp knife to flake shavings off several different colored crayons.

Construction
Arrange leaves on a piece of waxed paper so that the waxy side is up. Sprinkle crayon shavings between the leaves. Place another piece of waxed paper on top of the leaves, waxy side down. Iron until the crayon melts and the paper sticks together. Cut to desired shape.

note: This works best if you used the shaved crayon sparingly- the crayon really spreads out when it melts, and can obscure the leaves if you use too much.

Did you know?

In autumn, two processes cause leaves of deciduous plants to change color and fall:

• A corky plug grows between the stem and leaf. This plug stops the flow of nutrients, and eventually severs the connection between the leaf and the rest of the plant.

• The leaf stops making green chlorophyll, revealing yellow or orange pigments that were there all along. Red and purple colors are the result of new pigments that are typically produced only in fall.

Professor Madd Coloring Page

2010-10-01T08:49:00.000-04:00

I just finished remodeling my blog, and you might wonder, who are those weird characters splashed across the top of it?

On the left is Professor Madd, his three-eyed newts, two-tailed lemurs and talking rutabaga. Professor Madd and his menagerie are all brilliant scientists.

On the right is Pete the gnome, artist extraordinaire.

I'm a lucky blogger because Professor Madd, Pete and the plant and animals help me come up with fun new kids activities. I really like having them around and thought you might too, so this week's activity is a Professor Madd coloring page. Click on the image to enlarge or download a PDF.

All About Mixtures: Sweet Solutions, Silty Suspensions & Creamy Colloids

2010-09-24T11:03:00.004-04:00

Mix a spoonful of sugar into a glass of water and you can’t see the sugar, because it goes into solution. But if you stir cornstarch into water, no matter how much you stir the mixture remains cloudy. Cornstarch forms a suspension in water that settles out over time. However, if you heat the cornstarch-water mixture (or better yet, heat a mixture of cornstarch, milk, sugar, cocoa and vanilla), you end up with a creamy (and, in the latter case, yummy!) colloid.

In the following experiments kids can make, play with and eat three kinds of mixtures: solutions, suspensions and colloids.

Ages 6 and up; click here for PDF

Experiment 1: Sweet Solution, Silty Suspension

You will need:
Two clear glasses
Measuring cup
1 Tsp Measure
spoon
sugar
cornstarch
printer paper
funnel
bottle

Instructions
Step 1 Fill each of two glasses with 1 cup of hot tap water. Add 2 teaspoons of sugar to one glass and 2 teaspoons of cornstarch to the other and stir (hot tap water works better than cold water, because more sugar dissolves in warm water; if the sugar doesn’t dissolve, heat it in the microwave for a bit.) Take a look at your two mixtures: does the sugar mixture look different than the cornstarch mixture? Does the sugar water taste sweet?

Step 2 Fold a piece of paper into a cone shape, place it in the funnel and put the funnel in the bottle. Pour the sugar water through the paper filter, and let it drain into the bottle. Look at the paper. Can you see any sugar on it? Taste the filtred water. Does it taste sweet? Make a new cone-shaped filter, and repeat with the cornstarch mixture. Can you see any cornstarch on the paper filter? What about the liquid in the bottle- does it look cloudy or clear?

Notes: (1) Printer paper seems to work better than coffee filters as coffee filters are too porous and the cornstarch seeps through. (2) It takes a while for the liquid to drain; while you're waiting you can go on to experiment 2.

What’s Happening?
Sugar water is a special kind of mixture called a solution. The solid in a solution interacts very strongly with the liquid. Solutions are clear, and cannot be separated by a filter. Cornstarch forms a suspension in water. The solid in a suspension doesn't interact very strongly with the liquid, and can be separated from it by a filter. Suspensions typically look cloudy.

Experiment 2: Fun with Gooblek

You Will Need:
cornstarch
food coloring
measuring cups
a bowl
a spoon
newspapers to cover table

Instructions
To make your Gooblek, mix together 1/2 cup cornstarch and 1/3 cup water in a bowl and a couple of drops of food coloring. Now, play with your goo. If you try to stir it quickly what happens? What happens if you stir slowly? Note: Be careful- Gooblek can clog the drains!

What’s Happening?
If you stir the Gooblek quickly it seems like a solid because the grains of cornstarch get crammed together and can’t move. If you stir slowly, however, water has time to ooze between the grains of cornstarch so they are free to move and the Gooblek seems liquidy.

Experiment 3: Make a Yummy, Edible Colloid

You will Need:
instant pudding mix
milk
mixing bowl
whisk
measuring cup
spoons and bowls

Instructions
Make instant pudding according to package directions. Now, scoop your pudding with a spoon. How does it behave? Take a bite. What kind of texture does it have?

What’s happening?
The simple explanation The pudding is smooth and creamy because an ingredient in the mix interacts with the water in the milk, causing the pudding to thicken into a mixture called a colloid.

Interestingly, the ingredient that causes pudding to thicken (modified food starch) is very similar to the solid ingredient in Gooblek (cornstarch). Instant pudding has a very different consistency than Gooblek, though, because modified food starch interacts more closely with the water than does the cornstarch. Cornstarch can be forced to interact more directly with water by heating, and many cooked pudding recipes use cornstarch as a thickener.

The hard-core chemical explanation Cornstarch is made up of long, stringy molecules called starch. In the Gooblek suspension, the starch molecules form large clumps that can’t interact very well with the water, and settle out over time.

Modified food starch is cornstarch that has been treated so that the starch molecules interact more easily with water. In instant pudding, the interaction of the starch molecules with the water tends to immobilize the water, causing the mixture to thicken. With heating, unmodified cornstarch can be made to interact directly with water. Flour also contains starch, and both cornstarch and flour can be used to thicken sauces with heating.

Did you know?
There are four different kinds of colloids:
A gel is a colloid of a solid in a liquid; pudding is a gel of starch and water.
An aerosol is a colloid of a liquid in a gas; fog is an aerosol of water in air.
A foam is a colloid of a gas in a liquid; whipped cream is a foam of air in cream.
An emulsion is a colloid of liquid in a liquid; ayonnaise is an emulsion of egg yolk in oil.

Make Your Own StoryArt

2010-09-14T17:05:00.006-04:00

I’m an illustrator, which means that I make pictures that tell stories. I've also, over the past few years, developed two activities that use illustrations to enhance writing and reading comprehension skills, and have decided to share these activities for the September 2010 I Can Read! Blog Carnival.

The first activity, for pre-readers, involves “reading” an illustration, like the one below:

Even without words, it's pretty obvious what's happening in this picture. Young children can interpret, or “read” illustrations before they can read text, a satisfying experience that encourages them to want to learn how to read for real. Picture books, of course, have pictures that can be read, and the pictures often tell part of the story that isn’t described by the text (and usually it’s preschoolers, not adults, who notice this). I also create illustrations like the one above, called StoryArt, that tell stories.

To help your child “read” a picture, ask her to describe what's happening, who it's happening to and where it's happening (plot, characters, setting). This will help her with reading comprehension when she begins to read text.

The second activity, for readers, involves making StoryArt. My colleague Johanna van der Sterre and I teach a fifth grade StoryArt making workshop. Through this workshop we’ve discovered that children who might struggle to write a story have no trouble illustrating a story; thus, the activity inspires confidence and creativity which spills over into literacy. We teach the workshop to fifth-graders because these older elementary students have less opportunity to do art in the classroom than do younger students, but the activity should work for younger students students as well, and is suitable for both the home and the classroom. Briefly, this is what the kids do when we teach the workshop:

Make Your Own StoryArt

For first grade and up; click here for PDF instructions.

You will need:

Small objects (stamps, coins, small toys, other small objects)

drawing or Bristol paper, 11 x 14"

Scrap paper

Pencil

Thin black marker

Colored pencils

Construction paper, 12 x 18"

Scotch tape (double sided if you have it)

Glue or glue gun

The activity (we do this in four, one-hour sessions):

Step 1: Formulate the Story Have the children select from a variety of ordinary objects (we pass these out on a tray). After the objects are chosen, tell the children that they will use the objects as inspiration to create a story. To do this, they should imagine what the object might represent, where it might be found, who may be present, and what might be happening. For example, a marble might represent a planet in a distant galaxy being visited by two astronauts in a spaceship. Or, the marble might be just a marble that fell through a hole in someone’s pocket and got lost. A simple story is fine!

Tips: (1) Before you begin, it helps to go over the components of a story: plot, characters, setting and title. A story must have all these components, and so should the StoryArt. (2) To give children an idea of what they are supposed to do, model the story-making process with an object that no child has chosen. Once they get the idea, they can be really creative; we’ve taught this workshop for four years, and never had a child not come up with a story. (3) Provide a brainstorming worksheet so children can put their ideas on paper.

Step 2: Create the Illustration From their imaginings, the children sketch their story onto drawing paper. After the sketch is done they then go over the final pencil lines with thin black marker, and color in the illustration with colored pencil.

Tip: As the children draw, ask them to think about details they can add to their story. This really gets the creative juices flowing; for example, in the illustration titled "The Mice"(see below) the student came up with the idea of cats parachuting onto the roof after he had drawn the house and mice.

Step 3: Mount the Artwork Students summarize their story on a small piece of paper (we provide a form with space for a title and a brief description of characters, plot and setting), and mount the StoryArt, form and object on construction paper.

Step 4: Share the Stories! When the students are done, we have them share their stories in a round table discussion. Another great idea: share the stories with pre-readers.

Now, here are examples of StoryArt from some incredibly talented students from South Hill Elementary School (click to enlarge):

School A girl named Rachel is sitting at her desk taking a math test. inspired by an eraser

The Airboard A ten year old boy named Matt is riding his airboard. inspired by a wrench

Uses of a lost shoe Two mice use a lost shoe to hide from a passing snake. inspired by a toy shoe

The Mice As mice in a toy car steal food, cats parachute onto the roof to stop them. inspired by a toy car

Stonehenge Story A girl finds an ancient necklace and hands it to her mother. They are transported back in time to an ancient magic civilization and their quest is to get back home. inspired by a gold trinket

Make a Clown Fish/Sea Anemone Habitat

2010-09-10T07:49:00.002-04:00

I came up with this unlikely sounding craft just before my daughter's seventh birthday. The Nemo movie had just come out, and she informed me that, for her party, she wanted all the partygoers to make clownfish and sea anemones. I told her this was too difficult, but after some pleading, tears, brainstorming, and a last minute run to the craft store, we managed to come up with a reasonable clownfish/sea anemone craft.

Ages 5 and up; click here for PDF

You will need:

• 2-3” Styrofoam ball

• Pink spray paint (florist’s paint works well)

• ~ 10 Strands of pink chenille per anemone

• Oven bake clay

• Florist’s or similar wire

• Sharp knife

• Wire cutters or scissors

Adult Preparation: Use a sharp knife to cut the Stryrofoam ball in half. Spray paint the round surface pink; allow to dry. Cut the chenille in half.

Kid Construction: Fold the chenille and insert both ends into the round surface of the Styrofoam. Make clown fishes out of oven bake clay (see illustration). Insert wire into the bottom of the fish. Ask an adult to bake the clay as directed. Insert clownfish into their anemone home.

Did you know?

• Stinging anemones produce a toxin that paralyzes fish so they can eat them. Clownfish are not affected by the toxin, and stay close to the anemone’s tentacles to avoid predators.

• You might not think that an anemone would like having clownfish around, but the clownfish actually helps the anemone by eating debris and parasites.

• All clownfish start out male, but turn into females as they mature. Male clownfish care for the eggs.

Jazz! Coloring Page

2010-09-02T07:32:00.002-04:00

This week's post, a coloring page entitled "Jazz!", features ungulate musicians. Click on image to enlarge or download PDF. Or, for a color version of the same artwork, visit the art page of my website and click on the yak.

Recess Storyart

2010-08-27T07:06:00.003-04:00

One of my followers tells me she added a Forensic Science for Kids Page to her Criminology Degree Website. Here, the budding young detective can learn how to investigate a crime scene and hunt for fingerprints- pretty cool! Adults might also want to visit the Forensic Science Careers Page to learn how forensic science got its start in thirteenth century China, an interesting tidbit even if you have no interest in a career in forensic science. I was so inspired by this site that I decided to add a list of Cool Websites for Kids to my blog. If you have any other sites to suggest, please send them!

Now, on to my children’s activity of the week: StoryArt. In celebration of the start of the school year, the title of this month’s StoryArt Recess.

Don’t know what StoryArt is? It's a picture that tells a story. Parents/caregivers: ask your child to look at the picture and think about what is happening now. What might have happened before, and what might happen next? Appropriate for ages 3-7. Click to enlarge.

All About Density: Layered Liquids and Sinking Ice

2010-08-20T07:15:00.004-04:00

Ice floats because it is less dense than water: if you weigh a cube of ice, and weigh exactly the same volume of water, the ice will weigh a little bit less. But you can make ice sink by putting it in a liquid that less dense than water. Here are some fun experiments with density.

Ages 5 and up; click here for PDF

Experiment 1: Layered Liquids

You will need:
clear plastic cups
newspapers (to contain spills)
corn syrup

vegetable oil

food coloring
objects to test (cherry tomatos, grapes, chocolate, hard candy, small metal objects, beads, bits of Styrofoam...)

Objects from top to bottom:
Styrofoam
wood bead
pecan/cherry tomato
blueberry
chocolate chip
steel bolt/ hard candy

Preparation
Pour corn syrup into a plastic cup until the cup is ~1/4 full. In another cup, mix water and food coloring (don't make the liquid too dark- you want to be able to see through it). Slowly pour water over the corn syrup until the cup is about half full. Then slowly pour vegetable oil over the water layer until the cup is 3/4 full. The liquids should remain in three separate layers (the corn syrup and water will eventually mix with the water, but if you pour carefully, this will take time).

Instructions
Carefully drop objects such as bits of styrofoam, wood, nuts or bolts, cherry tomatos, and grapes into the layered liquid. List the objects and liquids in order of increasing density (from top to bottom).

What’s Happening?
Think about the compositions of the objects you have chosen. How do they compare to the composition of the liquids in the glass? In the example above, the hard candy is mostly sugar, and has a density near that of corn syrup, which is also mostly sugar. The nut has a high fat content, and a density similar to oil. The chocolate chip contains both sugar and oil, and has a desity intermediate to that of water and corn syrup. The blueberry and tomato are mostly water, and have densities similar to that of water. The wood and styrofoam are filled with pockets of air, and float in oil. The steel bolt is quite dense, of course, and sinks in all the liquids.

Experiment 2: Sinking Ice

You Will Need:
cups
vegetable oil
corn syrup
water
ice cubes

Instructions
Fill one cup with water, another cup with corn syrup, and a third with oil. Drop an ice cube into each cup. Does it float or sink?

What's happening

The simple explanation: Different liquids have different densities, which means some liquids will float on top of other liquids. Likewise, different solids have different densities. Ice is less dense than water and corn syrup, and floats in these two liquids. Ice is denser than oil, however, and sinks in this liquid.

The hard core chemical explantation: Scientists define density as mass per unit volume (density = mass/volume)
Volume is an easy concept to understand: it is the amount of space something occupies. Kids, for example, are typically smaller than grownups and occupy less space. So, you could say that the volume of a kid is less than the volume of a grownup.

Mass is a bit trickier. We measure mass using a scale, but what are we really measuring? A chemist might say that we are measuring the amount of matter in a sample: the more matter a sample has, the higher the mass. Imagine you are holding a brick and a Styrofoam block of exactly the same size and shape. The volume of each is the same. But the brick has a higher mass than the Styrofoam block because it contains more matter; it is therefore more dense.

A physicist defines mass a little differently. According to a simplified physical definition, mass is a measure of the acceleration a body will experience when a given force is applied. This sounds pretty complicated, but in our everyday experience, the only important force is the force of gravity. A brick feels heavier to us than a Styrofoam block because the Earth is pulling on it with more force. In space, there would be no difference in how heavy each one felt. When we use a scale, we are actually measuring the pull of the Earth on an object; in the absence of gravity, a scale would not work. So, next time you pick up a brick, think about how hard the Earth is pulling it away from you.

Did you Know?

The Great Salt Lake is very salty, and people who swim in it float higher than they do in fresh water. Do you think salt water is more or less dense than fresh water?

Make a Vacation Journal

2010-07-30T06:38:00.003-04:00

When they were younger, my kids always kept a journal of our family vacations. They recorded what we did each day, and highlighted our route on a map I stapled into the journal. Years later these journals still bring back fond memories.

Ages 5 and up; click here for PDF

An entry from my daughter's journal; the text (corrected for spelling errors) reads:

We Saw a moose while we were canoeing. There were lots and lots of blueberries on Blueberry Island. There were long hikes everywhere (from a trip to Algonquin Provincial Park in Canada)

To Construct Your Journal You will Need:

printer paper

construction paper (two sheets of 9 x 12 or one sheet of 12 x18)

photocopied map, if desired

ruler

stapler

pencil

To Make Journal Entries You Will need:

Your journal (of course!)

a Pencil and crayons, markers or colored pencils

a highlighter

stickers, if desired

Adult Construction:

1. Make the pages of your journal (one page for each day of vacation works well). Use a ruler to draw parallel lines on each piece of printer paper; this is where written entries will go (lines may be spaced further apart for younger children, closer together for older children, or omitted for very young children). Leave the top half of the paper blank for sketches. Note: to save time, you can draw lines on one sheet of paper and photocopy it.

2. Print or photocopy a map of the place or places you plan to visit.

3. Place the map and lined paper between two sheets of construction paper. Staple along the left side.

Kid Entries:

Now you are ready for vacation! Label the cover of their journal, and decorate with drawings and stickers as desired. Use a highlighter to mark each place you visit on the map, record what happens each day and, of course, have fun!

The Cat and the Rat Coloring Page

2010-07-23T07:52:00.004-04:00

This week I've decided to post a coloring page from the last page of book two of my easy reader series, Can the Cat Fit? As you can see from the illustration, the story has a happy ending. Click on image to enlarge or download PDF.

The Beach StoryArt

2010-07-16T12:43:00.002-04:00

My family is planning to spend the weekend at the beach, and in celebration, I've created a piece of beach StoryArt.

StoryArt is a picture that tells a story. Parents/caregivers: ask your child to look at the picture and think about what is happening now. What might have happened before, and what might happen next?

for ages 3-7

Buried Treasures

2010-07-09T14:11:00.002-04:00

Kids use a hammer and chisel to unearth treasures buried in plaster of Paris. This is a great activity for a paleontology-themed birthday party!

Ages 5 and up; click here for PDF

You will need:

Cupcake pan

Plastic wrap

Plaster of Paris

Treasures to bury (coins, fake gems, beads, durable plastic figurines)

Measuring cups

Large spoon

A disposable container, such as an old coffee can

Small hammer

Screwdriver or chisel

Plastic bags to store treasures, if desired

Ages 5 and up

This is messy. Do it outdoors if possible.

Adult Preparation: Line the cupcake pan with plastic wrap and lay out your treasures so they are easy to grab (once you prepare the plaster of Paris, you need to work quickly!) Scoop plaster of Paris into container and add water as directed (two parts plaster of Paris to one part water for the brand I used). Stir until smooth; when you are done the plaster of Paris should have the consistency of cake batter. Drop spoonfuls of Plaster of Paris into the lined cupcake holes, and drop treasures onto the plaster of Paris. Drop more plaster of Paris over the top to bury the treasures.

Notes: (1) Kids have a lot of fun helping with the preparation, and it is good to have two people working together (one to pour the plaster of Paris, and one to add the treasures). (2) Don’t worry if the plaster of Paris begins to set before you are done. I’ve even run out, gone to the store, come back and finished, and it still works. (3) Yield will depend on how thick your treasure nuggets are, but I found that one 4 pound tub of plaster of Paris yields about 20 nuggets. (5) Plaster of Paris does seem to come off of cake pans and spoons; at least it did for me. (6) This is a great activity for a dinosaur or paleontology-themed birthday party!

Kid activity: Using the screwdriver as a chisel, hammer open the plaster of Paris to reveal the treasures. Wash off the dust and store in a plastic bag, if desired.

Blow up a Balloon with Chemistry

2010-07-02T08:46:00.004-04:00

Chemicals come in three familiar forms: solids, liquids and gasses. Sometimes when two chemicals mix together they interact to form an entirely new chemical: we call this a chemical reaction. In Experiment 1 kid scientists can perform their own chemical reaction to form a gas from a solid and a liquid.

Living organisms are essentially chemical factories. In experiment 2 kids utilize yeast digestion to blow up a balloon.

Ages 6 and up; click here for PDF

EXPERIMENT 1: BLOW UP A BALLOON WITH CHEMISTRY

You will need:
measuring cup
tablespoon
funnel
small necked bottle
baking soda
white vinegar
balloon

Preparation

Secure the neck of the balloon over the tip of the funnel, then pour ~2 tablespoons of baking soda through the funnel into the balloon; remove funnel. Pour ~1 cup of vinegar into the bottle. Taking care not to let any baking soda enter the bottle, secure the neck of the balloon over the neck of the bottle.

Instructions

Grip the neck of the balloon to secure it onto the bottle, then lift the body of the balloon and shake to pour the baking soda into the bottle. Watch the balloon inflate. Note: This can be messy. Do outdoors if possible.

More You Can Try

Erupting volcanos
Pour ~1/4 cup baking soda into a narrow neck bottle. If you’ve got a sandbox available, bury the bottle in the sand up to its neck; this is your volcano. In a measuring cup, add a couple of drops of food coloring to ~1/2 cup of vinegar. Pour the vinegar into your volcano and watch it erupt. Baking soda-free cupcake
Prepare a homemade cupcake recipe but don’t add the baking soda or baking powder. Make one cupcake and insert a toothpick into the batter (so you know that this cupcake doesn’t contain baking soda/powder), then add the baking soda/powder to the remaining batter. Make the remaining cupcakes and bake as directed. Cut one regular cupcake and one soda-less cupcake in half. Did the baking soda/powder-less cupcake turn out differently than the others? If so, why do you think this is true?

What’s Happening?

The simple explanation: When baking soda and vinegar are mixed together, they undergo a chemical reaction to create an altogether new chemical, carbon dioxide gas, which fills the balloon and causes it to inflate.

Baking soda is commonly used to add air bubbles (actually carbon dioxide bubbles) to baked goods such as cakes and cookies. The air bubbles give the baked goods a light, airy texture.

The hard-core chemical explanation: Baking soda is sodium carbonate (NaHCO3) and vinegar is acetic acid (CH3COOH). In water, acetic acid breaks down into CH3COO- and H+. The H+ reacts with the NaHCO3 to make carbon dioxide:

NaHCO 3 + H+ = Na+ + CO2 + H2O

EXPERIMENT 2: LET YEAST BLOW UP A BALLOON FOR YOU

You will need:
a funnel
a balloon
yeast
sugar
water

Secure a funnel onto the neck of a balloon. Pour ~1 Tbsp of sugar, ~1 tsp of yeast and ~2 Tbsp water into the balloon. Tie the balloon and observe it over the course of several hours. What happens?

What's Happening?
The yeast digests the sugar and produces carbon dioxide gas, causing the balloon to inflate. Humans also produce carbon dioxide gas when we digest food, which we exhale when we breath out. Bakers add yeast to bread to make it rise.

Did you know?
• Many recipes that require baking soda also require an acid, such as lemon juice or vinegar. Why do you think this is true?

• Baking powder is another chemical commonly added to baked goods to give them a light, airy texture. Baking powder is actually a mixture of baking soda and acidic powders that react in water to make carbon dioxide gas. Most modern baking powder is “Double Acting”. This means it contains two acidic powders: one that reacts at room temperature, and one that reacts at the higher temperatures used during baking.

© 2010, Andrea Hazard

Frog and Duck Coloring Page

2010-06-25T07:57:00.002-04:00

For a children's book writer and illustrator there's nothing more satisfying than watching a child read one of your books. So I was really excited when ABeCeDarian Company founder Michael Bend, who is also a reading tutor, sent me YouTube video of a child reading one of my books.

This week I’ve decided to post a coloring page of two of my favorite characters from the series, Frog and Duck. Click on the image to enlarge it, or download a PDF.

The Swimming Pool StoryArt

2010-06-18T09:16:00.001-04:00

In celebration of summer I made this StoryArt image of three kids in a swimming pool. What is StoryArt? A picture that tells a story. Parents/caregivers: ask your child to look at the picture and think about what is happening now. What might have happened before, and what might happen next? (for ages 3-7)

That's the Way the Ball Bounces

2010-06-11T10:18:00.004-04:00

Why do some balls bounce more than others? Why do they bounce at all? The following experiments, sure to please the child and adult sports fans alike, explore the science of bounce.

Ages 7-99; click here for PDF

Experiment 1: What happens when you freeze a rubber ball?

You will need:

A solid rubber ball (super balls work well)
a freezer
a yardstick (optional)

Instructions
Drop the ball from a given height, say, waist level, and note how high it bounces (use a yardstick if you wish, or just make an eyeball measurement). Now, put the ball in the freezer a few hours. When it’s good and cold take it out and drop it again. Does the ball bounce as high when it's cold?

What's Happening?
Rubber is made of tiny strings called elastomers. At room temperature the elastomers are stretchy, like rubber bands. Squeeze a warm rubber ball and the elastomers compress, flattening the ball. Let go, the elastomers relax and the ball returns to its round shape. The same thing happens when a dropped rubber ball hits the floor: the elastomers compress on impact, then snap back to their original shape. In so doing, they launch the ball upwards, giving it bounce. But at cold temperatures the elastomers become rigid and inflexible. The ball can’t compress, has no way to push off the floor and loses its bounce.
Experiment 2: Do All Balls Have the Same Bounce?
You will need:

Different types of balls (baseballs, tennis balls, soccer balls, rubber balls, ping pong balls…)
A yardstick
Paper and pencil to record measurements

Instructions
This works best with two people: one to drop the ball, and one to measure its bounce. Prop up the yardstick against a wall so that it is flush with the ground, with the 0-inch mark facing down. To do the experiment, the first person should drop one of the balls from one yard up, and the other person should squat in front of the yardstick so she can measure how high the ball rises on the first bounce (measure from the ball’s bottom; it may take 2 or 3 tries to get an accurate measurement). Record the results, and repeat the experiment with other ball types. Do all balls have the same bounce?
What's Happening?

When a ball hits the floor the impact flattens it a bit. It then snaps back to its original shape, which pushes it off the floor and causes it to bounce. How much a ball bounces depends on how much it squishes on impact, and how well it snaps back to its original shape. Bowling balls don’t bounce very well because they aren’t very squishy. Deflated balls are really squishy but they don’t bounce well because they don’t snap back to a round shape.

More bounce isn’t always better, though. If you try playing tennis with a baseball, or baseball with a tennis ball, you will realize that a certain amount of bounce is just right for a certain kind of ball.

Did you know?
On cold days golfers put their balls in a pocket to keep them warm. Why do you think they do this?

Turtle Bank Craft

2010-06-04T09:36:00.002-04:00

Children visiting the children's tent at this weekend's 2010 Ithaca Festival will have the opportunity to do this craft. It's fun, easy and inexpensive, and works well with groups of children.

Ages 2-7; click here for PDF

You will need: 

6-inch paper or Styrofoam bowls
Green construction paper or poster board
Scissors
Tissue paper, at least two shades of green
White glue
Paint brushes
Googly eyes
Stapler
Turtle Banks

Adult Preparation:
Cut tissue paper into ~1 1/2 inch squares. Using the turtle body pattern, cut turtle bodies from green construction paper or poster board. Dilute glue with water in a bowls so it spreads easily. 

Kid Construction: Paint glue onto the outside of a bowl. Cover with overlapping squares of tissue paper. Paint another layer of glue over the tissue paper (the glue dries clear and makes a nice, shiny surface when dry). Staple the shell to the turtle body, and glue on googly eyes. When glue dries, an adult can cut a hole in the top of the shell to make it into a bank, if desired. 

Did you know? 

The turtle’s shell is fused to its backbone and ribcage. 
Turtles do not have teeth, and use horny ridges on their jaws to chew food.
The biggest turtle, the Leatherback sea turtle, can reach 8 feet in length and weigh nearly a ton!

ABeCeDarian easy reader series

2010-05-28T11:20:00.010-04:00

About a year after I first put finger to keyboard, the ten book easy reader series I wrote and illustrated for ABeCeDarian Company is available for purchase!

The series follows the ABeCeDarian method, which introduces children to letter sounds a few at a time. This means that storybook 1 only uses 2-3 letter words with the consonants c, f, m, p, s, and t and the short vowels a and o, along with the high frequency word 'the'. Before I started to write, I made a list of all the 2-3 letter words I could think of that use only these letter sounds:

am at can cap cat cot Dan fan fat mad map mat nag nap pad pan pat sad Sam sat tap did dim din dip fib fig fin fit hid in it pin pit rib rid rim rip sip sit tin tip mom mop not on cod cop cot dot mom mop nod pod pop pot sop Tom top tot

It’s a short list and, needless to say, writing the first book was a challenge. With the help of ABeCeDarian founder Michael Bend, I settled on a question format for this and two other books in the series. In these books children are asked questions such as, “Did the cat sit on the map?” The answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no, and the child must read the text accurately to answer correctly.

Coloring Page from ABeCeDarian Level A, storybook 1. Click on image to enlarge or download PDF

I felt it was important that there be continuity through the series, so books 1-8 (including the three question-format books) all involve a boy named Sam, his pets and his family. Books 9 and 10 introduce two entirely new characters, Frog and Duck.

Writing and illustrating the books was a blast, and I hope kids have as much fun reading them as I had writing them.

The Library StoryArt

2010-05-21T08:13:00.009-04:00

Welcome to my blog!

I'm a writer, illustrator scientist, mom, and educator and over the years I've developed a wide variety of science and art activities for kids, and I started this blog so that I can share these activities with others. I also plan to share coloring pages and StoryArt.

What is StoryArt? It's a picture that tells a story. For my first post I'll provide an example titled "The Library":

Young children can "read" a wordless picture like this before they can read words, a satisfying experience that encourages them to want to read for real. If you'd like your child to "read" the above piece of StoryArt, ask him to look at the picture and think about what is happening now. What might have happened before, and what might happen next? (click to enlarge) This activity is suitable for children aged 3-7.