mystery powder

rI found this large bag discounted at the local grocery store. It was onbly 50 cents! SO I brought it home and started soem detective work.
FIrst, we observed the powder, and , considering the context (grocery store) hypothesized about what it could be.
powdered milk, flour, rice flour, biscuit mix, pancake mix.

the kids tasted the stuff, and said that it tasted like flour. They still wanted to add baking soda to see if it would fizz, but I advised against it.
then we performed the cooking test. I mixed a small amount with water, then cooked it like a pancake. the powder definatly fluffed up during cooking, so it probably contains some baking soda. It also tasted great, so it is some sort of baking mix.

I then mixed it up as if it were biscuits, cooked it, and they tasted great.

I am secretly relieved that it wasn't plaster of paris or something. Tasting mysterious white powder is not always a great idea, but here it worked. FYI: when we invite people to come and eat at our house, we don't serve mystery food.

candlelight hike

we recently attended the candlelight hike ski & snowshoe event at governor dodge state park. A 2 mile ski path was lined with little paper lanterns. There were also a few ice lanterns, which looked especially neat. I think that I will try to create my own ice lanterns this winter.

There was very little snow, so most people just hiked. We put Reed in the stroller to keep him warm, but no one really got cold.

Afterwards there was a large bonfire for roasting marshmallows. Cookies and hot chocolate were available by donation. My kids, like children everywhere, enjoy cooking things over the fire.

Winter hiking is fun, but winter hiking at night is even better.
This activity showed me that my kids can hike 3 miles in the snow without getting tired or complaining, as long as there is hot chocolate and marshmallows at the end.

ice fishing and other news

Icefishing



We went ice fishing at kids' ice fishing day at Brittingham park. We even got our very own free ice fishing rod. It was incredibly cold.

Martin really likes to fish and will probably want to go ice fishing again. Caleb and Maddie enjoyed the free hot chocolate and Bonfire. It was a good experience. They always are interested in the icefishing houses on the lake, now we know a little bit more about what they are doing.






In other news, Maddie has acquired another costume. She has been making saddles for herself, so Reed can ride around the house on her back, so I made her a horse costume. It turned out well.

Maddie does not usually like to wear barrettes in her hair, but she recently wore this lovely outfit to church. She told us that she was the 'flower fairy'.


Everyone dresses up to go to church, Maddie just takes it a step further.

Quiet Book

The awesomest Craft project I have ever made is my children's little genius quiet book.



A few years ago,I was really annoyed by these "baby Einstein" toys that claimed to make your kid smart- but then offered a bunch of colored balls and blocks. No theory of relativity anywhere.

So I made a quiet book that fitting a true baby genius; full of basic scientific and mathematical principles, or atleast the ones that were easy to represent with felt and velcro.


Here Galileo is dropping 1lb and 10lb weights off the top of the tower of pisa. Kids pull the string to see which hit the ground fist, and ofcourse, they hit at the same time.



fractions and radions
This page features a circle and pieces of felt that are 1/2 ,1/3 and 1/4 of the circle. the circle is also labeled in radions.

Help Pythagorus show the pythagorean theorom.
Here kids use velcro felt triangles and squares to show a geometric "proof" of the pythagorean theorem. Here one of the four red triangles is missing, but the principle is illustrated. There is a pocket behind Pythagoreus to store all of the felt pieces.


Here kids lace a string around the circumference of the earth to help Eristothenes find its' circumference. The actual circumference (24,901.55 miles) is written on the back of the earth,
Eriostithenes actually used a well at the equator on the equinox and the distance to another point, as well as its angle to figure out the distance around the earth. He was accurate to within 1000 miles.



This is My favorite page. It is DNA transcription and translation.
First children are instructed to "unzip" the DNA ( there is a zipper at the top of the page) and then take out individual adenine, uracil, uracil, and guanine and match them up to the DNA,they all snap together to form an RNA chain, which is then taken to the facing page, and near the large black ribosome is a pocket full of amino acids, these match up with the RNA codons to form a protein.



Help the Mole find Avogaldro's numbers.
The felt mole can go over and under the felt bushes. Avogadro's number is under a rock in the corner of the page.
avogadro's number is used, along with an elements' chemeical number to figure out the number of molecules per mass.

Carl linaeus is known as the father of taxonomy. On this page we match several scientific names with their corresponding common species.



This page features a magnetic OH- and H+ they stick to eachother to make H2O!!




Help Marin Mersenne catch the prime fish. All the fish have prime numbers, and the page contains the formulas for both Mersenne prime numbers and perfect numbers.
Pick the Perfect Apples.... The apples have perfect numbers on them. Perfect numbers are ones which the factors except itself, add up to the number. As you can imagine, these are quite rare and are often quite large. The two smallest examples are 6 and 28;
6 = 3+2+1
28 = 14+7+4+2+1




Pick the Square roots! and then feed them to the rabbit.
the facing page features velcro flowers with petals in Fibonacci numbers; 1,1,2,3,5,8,13, etc


Help Galileo chart the 4 moons of jupiter. The 4rth moon is behind Jupiter.

I don't imagine that my kids will actually grasp the principles around all of this stuff, but some of it might sink in somewhere. I want my kids to learn that science can be fun, accessible, and interesting. A part of the natural world that we all love and enjoy.

Christmas

Christmas was really fun! The kids love a day devoted to opening presents and playing with new toys. Maddie wore her Santa Hat all morning.

I got a pair of VIbram 5-fingers. I will have to wait for spring to really try them out, as they aren't really suited for running on snow.


Everyone got lots of stuff. The highlight of the day was family tickets to a waterpark this summer (thanks Christi!)

Childrens' Museum

We recently visited the Childrens' Museum. Everyone loves the CHildrens' museum. The place is laid out pretty well, so The older kids can run around and I can keep track of them while I watch the younger kids more closely.

Caleb's favorite thing to do id paint with water colors on a giant window. The paint and then use a spray bottle and squeegee to clean the window and make another picture.

Maddie , Caleb and Martin love the climbing structure. Reed is too small for it, so he just gets to play on the Car and sit on the saddle on the slide.


Martin made a giant house, and Caleb and Reed played inside of it.


This place is fun for everyone, and better yet, it is indoors!

WINTER!!

It is winter! We have a lot of snow on the ground. This snow is from a storm in December. We all went out afterwards and built snow forts.

I made this big pile of snow, and Martin is burrowing out an igloo! I am so glad that He is old enough to build his own fort.

It was very cold, and perhaps this is why the sky was a brilliant deep blue. I know that Low temperatures as usually accompanied by high pressure systems- perhaps high pressure means more nitrogen in the air which makes the sky especially blue?

Or maybe When you are outside on a very cold day after a very big snow storm, you get to participate in a very special sort of day. Building giant snow structures is so fun, that even the sky appears to be more than the usual color of blue.

I love winter in Wisconsin.