Peanut Butter Popcorn

We've been playing a lot with alliteration this week, probably because we started reading the A to Z Mysteries by Ron Roy. So, when I was speaking to a childhood chum on the phone, and she mentioned she was making Peanut Butter Popcorn, I thought - perfect!

I popped up a pile for our story time picnic, and parceled it out to my preteen progeny, who pronounced it preferable to plain.

Peanut Butter Popcorn

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup peanut butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

6-8 cups of popped popcorn

In a small pan, dissolve the sugar into the corn syrup, just bringing it to boil. Remove from heat, and stir in the peanut butter and vanilla. Pour, immediately, over the popcorn, and mix it in. If you don't mind chewie popcorn, it's ready to eat. If you prefer a little more crunch, place the peanut butter covered popcorn into a roasting or cake pan, and into the oven at 250 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes. Stir midway through. Remove from the oven, and enjoy.

It's great to be a homeschooler!

Paper Chromatography - Reverse Color Mixing Using Capillary Action

We've been doing quite a bit of color mixing lately with the paints and crayons. I thought it might be fun for the kids to see the process in reverse (besides, check out the title of this post - look at all the big words we get use!). Of course, before you can separate colors, you have to put them together.

We started by filling a jar about a quarter full of clear water.


We added two drops each of blue, red, and yellow food coloring.




Then, we folded up a coffee filter, and stuck the bottom of it into the colored water. If you wanted to get really properly scientific with this one, you would suspend the paper from the jar lid, so that it was not touching the sides, or the bottom of the jar. But, for our purposes, this was good enough.










The water, and food coloring, were drawn up the coffee filter by capillary action. Capillary action is what is used by plants to draw water and nutrients from their roots to their leaves. Because of the different absorption rate of the different colors (something that happens on a molecular level), the colors will separate out as they rise. Blue goes farther than yellow, and yellow farther than red.


This can be done with plants as well.

We started by picking a few leaves, and cutting up some fruits and vegetables (the carrot did not end up working for us, but I understand fresh, or frozen spinach works great).


We placed them in jars filled part way with rubbing alcohol.

Then we put the jars into a pan of warm water, and kept replacing the water until we saw the color from the plants in the alcohol (we left our jars to sit overnight).


We folded up some more coffee filters, and placed them into the jars, and watched as the colors from the plants rose up the filters. If you want to know why the green leaves produce lines of green, brown and yellow, but not blue and yellow, check out www.chem.purdue.edu/teacher/table_of_contents/UVVUS/UVVIS.Plant%20Pigments_CH.pdf.


Finally, we poured all our plant solutions together (except for the carrots), and drew the colors out again - which was pretty cool. The colors don't show very well in the picture, but we got really clear bands of color for each different plant.













You can find out more about the science and uses of chromatography at www.sciencebuddies.org/mentoring/project_ideas/Chem_p008.shtml Or, you can just add a few pipe cleaners to make butterflies, and move on from science to art.


It's great to be a homeschooler!

30 Second Science - Experiments With Static Electricity

If your looking for a way to squeeze a little science into to a busy day, or add some zing to a dull day, try a few of these simple experiments with static electricity. They don't require a lot in the way of time or materials, but they offer up a pretty good "wow" factor.

Start by making the cereal dance at breakfast. This can be done a couple of different ways. The simplest, is to toss few Rice Krispies onto the table, and then pass a statically charged balloon over them (charge the balloon by rubbing it in one of the kid's hair).

The slightly more complicated version goes like this:

• Lay two boxes of cereal down flat on the table, leaving two or three inches between them.

• Pour a thin layer of Rice Krispies into the gap between the boxes.



• Place a piece of Plexiglas (like from an inexpensive picture frame) on top of the boxes, over the cereal.


• Rub the top of the Plexiglas with a piece of wool. We used one of the felt balls the kids made earlier this week.



• Move one of the cereal boxes aside, so that one side of the Plexiglas falls to the table, and watch the cereal dance!

This experiment deals with opposite charges attracting each other. If you want to demonstrate like charges repelling each other, try rubbing the wool on a piece of plastic grocery bag. Then, set it on top of the Plexiglas (you might want to give it another good rub with the wool). The piece of plastic will try to jump off of the Plexiglas.

Don't worry if you don't have any Plexiglas, there are a number of fun experiments that can be done with a balloon (if you don't keep a bag of balloons hidden around somewhere, you need to. They are great boredom busters, and cost very little - just keep them out of reach of little ones who might choke on them).

• Bend water by rubbing a balloon on your child's head, and then holding it next to a running faucet.

• Move an empty pop can across the counter by moving a charged balloon along in front of it.


• Light a fluorescent light bulb, or tube with a charged balloon. Unscrew the bulb from your lamp first though, and be careful, these bulbs shatter when they break! But, they do light up when you touch them with a balloon that has been rubbed on someones head.

We tried the light trick with both a tube and a coily bulb (like what the power companies keep sending out free coupons for). The bulb was impressive, it kind of snapped and flickered when the balloon touched it. We had more fun with the tube, though. The light follows the balloon as it is moved back and forth, underneath the tube.

Check out sciencemadesimple.com for a really easy to understand explanation of the science behind these experiments.

It's great to be a homeschooler!

Cookie Monster Cupcakes

After a week or so of making paint, and playdough with Kool-Aid, cooking wool dye on the stove, and making crayons in our cake pans, the children suggested, that it might be fun to make something in our kitchen we could actually eat. It was a novel idea, but it just so happened that I'd been thinking about this cupcake recipe, I'd seen floating around the Web, for a while now.

The most perfect example I've seen of how this recipe can turn out is at www.goodthingscatered.blogspot.com/2009/04/cookie-monster-cupcakes.html. I knew ours wouldn't be anywhere near as cute, but that's never stopped us from plunging into a project before. Besides, the children aren't all that picky about their cupcake design.

The kids broke apart twelve chocolate sandwich cookies, and placed them in the bottom of lined muffin pans. The oldest two set about mixing up a Betty Crocker chocolate cake batter, while I added a few drops of blue food coloring to a bowl of sugar (I did this right away, because I was using a liquid food coloring. This allowed it time to dry, and then we stirred it to break up the clumps).

The batter was poured on top of the cookies, in the muffin cups, and then baked as usual. Once they were done, and cooled, we added a blue tinted butter cream frosting. I wanted to add the cookie crumb and cream filling like the recipe on Good Things Catered, but we didn't get the cookie crumbs quite fine enough, and so exploded our pastry bag while trying to squeeze out the filling.

We dipped the frosted cupcakes into the colored sugar...

...fed them a half a cookie...

...added some eyes (a Ziploc baggie replaced our pastry bag)...

...a couple of chocolate chips and...

...we were done.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Crocheting With Wool Roving - Unspun Wool

There was a tiny bit of roving left over after our felting project, that I didn't want to let go to waste. I thought about turning it into beads, but I didn't think there would be enough beads to make anything interesting. I considered storing it in the closet with all the other left over bits a pieces of supplies, but that seemed a shame after all the work we put into dyeing it.

Finally, I picked up my crochet hook, and turned it into a little heart to hang on a doorknob or chair back. I actually started out to make a flower, but I didn't even have enough roving left for that, so with two petals on, it became a heart. I've never tried crocheting roving before (plastic bags yes - unspun wool no). It was interesting, and surprisingly easy.

In order to join the fiber pieces together, I just overlapped them a little and gave them a bit of a twist. I crocheted loosely, so as not to pull to hard on the loose fiber. It wasn't really that much different than crocheting with yarn. And, it increased my appreciation of the Kool-Aid dye we had used - the colors were soft and beautiful as they moved past the hook.

I'm not sure I'd want to try a large project this way, but it has definitely piqued my interest for hand spinning fiber. I did a quick search on YouTube, and found quite a few tutorials on hand spinning with a drop spindle. Maybe we'll start a new family hobby when the weather drives us back inside this winter. Of course, then maybe we'd better learn how to really crochet or knit, before we start making our own yarn. How many loomed hats and purses can one family need?

It's great to be a homeschooler!

Making Felt Balls and Beads With Children

The process of turning wool roving (cleaned, carded, but unspun wool), into felt balls, or beads is not very complicated, just time consuming, and a little messy. However, most of the mess comes from soap suds - so by the time your done, you already have a head start on the cleanup. We are a long way from experts on this process (in fact we're complete beginners), but this is one of those projects you can pretty well count on success for right from your first try.

First, take a small amount of fiber from your roving (it just pulls apart like cotton candy).




Roll it into a ball in the same way you would roll up a ball of yarn. It does not need to be a perfect ball at this point, just all rolled together. You want it to be slightly larger than the end result your aiming for.

Add a drop of dish soap, and some warm water, and roll the ball in your hand, like you would a ball of playdough. It will look discouraging at first, like it's not going to hold together, but keep rolling! After a while, the fibers of the wool become intertwined, and your ball takes shape and holds. At this point you can squish it, and roll it into the shape you want for your bead.


Rinse the ball off with cold water, to remove the soap. Leave it to dry.

The steps for larger balls are just the same, except you use more wool. My five year old loved the process of felting the ball. Just watch out, the wool gets very slippery once you add the soap, it's easy to send the sudsy ball careening across the kitchen.

Once the beads are dry, you can string them onto a thread or fishing line with a needle. The end result is a one of a kind piece of jewelry. Making the beads is a bit labor intensive, larger balls are definitely more fun, and if you make three of them, you can take up juggling when your done.

It's great to be a homeschooler!

Dyeing Wool Roving With Kool-Aid

Since we've been in an artsy crafty kind of mood the last week or so, I figured we might as well continue on today. We decided to try our hands at crafting some felt beads for bracelets. Since we've never tried to make felt before, this was totally uncharted territory.

We picked up a few ounces of wool roving (cleaned, carded, but unspun wool), at the farmer's market on Saturday. It was Alpaca wool, but we were assured that it could be made into felt as well as sheep's wool. We even got to see a picture of the Alpaca our wool had come from, and received an invition to tour the Alpaca farm when we get a chance.

So, wool in hand, we began searching the Internet for instructions on making felt. The wool we picked out was a lovely cream color. However, for children's jewelry, we decided some brighter colors might be in order. And so, we returned to our stash of Kool-Aid.

After doing quite a bit of searching, and reading, we discovered that there seem to be three camps of thought when it comes to dying wool with Kool-Aid.

1. The wool should be wet (soaked in warm water), and vinegar should be added to the Kool-Aid in order to set the dye.


2. The wool can be added to the Kool-Aid dry, but vinegar should be added to the Kool-Aid.


3. The dry wool can be plopped right into the Kool-Aid without vinegar, since the Kool-Aid is acidic enough to set the dye on it's own.
   

We, of course, went with the easiest method. We filled a pot with enough water to cover the wool, and brought it to boil. Since Kool-Aid is a food stuff (at least loosely), it's okay to use your normal cooking pots, and utensils.

We dissolved two packs of Kool-Aid into the water. We actually divided our wool in half, and dyed half with Pink Lemonade, and half with a mixture of Grape and Berry Blue.

Then, we turned off the burner, and added our wool to the dye mixture. We ended up using a couple of spatulas to hold the wool under the water. I read many accounts of the lovely smell that fills the house when using Kool-Aid dye. Let me tell you, we did not find these accounts to be true. If there's one thing that smells worse than wet Alpaca wool, it's wet Alpaca wool soaking in a fruity smelling dye.

After about an hour, the wool had soaked up all of the dye. We carefully drained off the clear water that remained, and placed the wool on old towels to dry. You can see from the picture that our dyeing is not consistent - I think that is probably because we did not presoak our wool.

This, however, has given our wool and interesting heathery look, that turned out pretty nice. Once it is completely dry, we'll move on to making some beads, I hope. I should mention too, that all of the instructions we read, recommended using gloves to keep your hands from turning colors. In our typical, rush-ahead-without-double-checking-the-instructions manner, we forgot about the gloves. I am happy to report, that the Kool-Aid dyed the wool, but not our hands, even without gloves (that's really good, because I'm still trying to get all the crayon bits out from under my nails from yesterday's project).

It's great to be a homeschooler!