Art and Science Weeks!!!

We joined some friends for the Crayola Factory! At first I thought, "Crayola Factory? That's what I feel like my house is sometimes with endless fun art projects to do, why do I need to go pay for this? But, then I saw it was also educational. They showed us how they make crayons and markers and we got free merchandise. The kids all loved doing the art projects they had there and easily could have spent much longer than me there. Also, our Crayola admission got us into the Canal Museum, which showed a little about how canals work with each child getting their own boat to take through the river. They also had ways to learn about pulley's and turning a boat. Then the kids spent time building with blocks and playing together. All in all it was a fun day! Little J started to get car sick but a few minutes outside the car and the books put away helped. Whew!

Cute little kidlets with Mr. Crayon

We also successfully grew our own crystals!! We tried once, but mostly failed--the crystals only grew on the string, not the snowflake. But, I reviewed the instructions again since it'd been a while since I'd read them and tried again. This time--GREEN CRYSTALS!!!! And we also made blue salt crystals so we could compare the two but there weren't as many of those so we didn't photograph it. But, the kids observed that the two types of crystals were quite different in size and shape so the experiment was successful! For these green crystals you just put 1 cup boiling water into a plastic jar and slowly stir in 1 Tbsp. Borax. Then you can color it with food coloring and put in this snowflake (or any shape) as shown and wait about 24 hours and voila! Crystals!! And if you need Borax I have a TON so come get some! The salt crystals work just about the same way but I think it was 1/4-1/2 c. salt to 1 c. boiling water and used a paperclip instead.

And, speaking of science, we didn't picture it but we went to the mall one day where they were having a guy, who was obviously very pumped up about this lesson, demonstrate how liquid nitrogen works. What?! So cool!!! The demo was quite a bit longer than we expected but worth it. The kids were so into it. At the end he made ice cream with the liquid nitrogen. He surprised me by adding the liquid nitrogen right into the milk/cream mixture. So cool! And the kids all agreed that it was super yummy!!! The way he presented it reminded me of the kind of science 'magic' some friends here did and I loved it! Thanks Wondergy science guy!