Mixing Colors

 I've been wanting to try this experiment with Scientist for awhile now, so I made a bunch of red, yellow, and blue ice cubes using food coloring and froze them. But things kept coming up and we never got around to getting them out. Then the other day we went to the library and by chance, Scientist picked out a book called Blue Goose. It's about animals that paint their farmyard different colors while the farmer is away, and it talks about mixing two colors together to make a new color. Scientist loves the book, and asks to have it read to him all the time. So I decided it was time to pull out the ice cubes. We did red and blue first, because those are the first colors they mix together in the book. I put a red ice cube and a blue ice cube in a plastic sandwich baggy and taped it shut (I didn't have any zip locks). I gave one bag to Scientist and one bag to Sponge. They played with the ice cubes while they melted, and then I pointed out how when the ice melted the different colors mixed together to make purple water.

I didn't know if it would be over Scientist's head or not, but he really caught on quickly. Now, whenever we read the book and I ask what color you get when you mix red and blue, he says purple every time. And I think he really does understand the concept, instead of just spitting out a memorized answer. We only did red and blue, because of attention span, but another one of these days we'll try out yellow and blue, and red and yellow to see what happens. :) Also, I think once we've done all the different variations in ice cube form, we'll mix paint to solidify the concept. Anyone know of anything else you can mix?

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Spring Science

We are really looking forward to spring at our house, and have been trying to encourage it to get here as quickly as possible. Today we did a spring science project, that can be started indoors. We took an egg carton and filled each space with half an egg shell. Inside the egg shell we put potting soil. Then I showed Scientist how to use his finger to poke a hole in the dirt in the middle of each egg shell. We put a few wildflower seeds in each hole and covered them back up again. (I chose wildflower seeds because they are drought tolerant and require very minimal care. I wanted something that was almost guaranteed to grow, so that Scientist could see how seeds work. I've heard that marigold seeds, bean seeds, and grass seed, also work really well.)

Next we put a teaspoon of water in each shell. When we were done we put the lid on carton (so it would stay warmer) and put the carton in the window. Every day until the seeds sprouted, we would open the lid while the sun was out, and close it at night. After only a few days, we were rewarded with results.


Once the sprouts are a little bigger and the weather a little warmer, we will take these outside and dig a small hole and plant each egg shell. The nice thing about using the eggshell as a container is that you don't have to remove it before planting, just lightly crush it in your hand, and place in the hole.