How goes it?

It's rather busy here! I bought a 2nd hand science text book - although I have no idea why - and Stylish has started doing it off her own bat. She can't STOP doing it actually. Todays efforts were about food additives, pesticides, and a few other foody things. She raided out cupboard and read food labels, wrote down her findings, and was assisted by Spikee.

The bird is going well, it's drivimg me mad coz it's so loud, but hopefull it'll grow tail feathers and be ready to get back to nature soon. It's flying quite efficiently now, but apparently they grow tail feathers before they leave the next.

The rat is doing well too, but she still refuses to look at rat food. You wouldn't know that a few short weeks ago she was at death's door!

solar system link

http://www.kidsastronomy.com/solar_system.htm

That's a great link to a website with plenty of info, and a moving diagram of the solar system, showing how the planets all orbit around the sun! 

discussions of orbit over sultanas for lunch

Today Spikee asked me where the sun went to bed. I explained how we orbit around the sun to him while he ate sultanas and corn biscuits.

He wiggled his fingers at me, pretending to be the suns rays. I pretended to be the earth, and turned around discussing how I could or couldn't see the sun. Of course that was such fun that I ended up doing it about three hundred times!

Then he asked me where the sun had gone today, it's a very grey cloudy day here. So Stylish pretended to be the clouds and writhed around in his face while I pretended to be the earth, unable to see the sun!

Spikee was impressed enough to warrant some further research later, to show him some pictures of the solar system, the sun, the moon, and our measly planet Earth.

our pantry science experiments!

We have been doing some simple science experiments lately. We tested alkaline and acids using purple cabbage water, bi-carb soda, and vinegar. It's like litmus paper, but more fun!

How to do it!

Boil some purple cabbage in a saucepan. Strain the water into a clear jar.

Add some bi-carb soda. This is an alkaline - or base, neutral - substance so it causes the purple water to change to pink.

Add some vinegar (make sure the container is over a bowl because the reaction of the bi-carb and vinegar can get exciting) and the water will change to blue! That's because vinegar is an acid!

We also made a compass using basic household equipment!

All you need is a round cork - the sort found in the top of jars, not bottles - a magnet, some sticky tape, and a needle, a bowl large enough to fit the cork in, and water.

What to do .....

Stroke the magnet in one direction down the needle for three to five minutes.

Use a small bit of sticky tape to stick it to the top of the cork.

Place the cork in the bowl of water and watch the needle spin until the end faces due north!

This shows the properties of magnetism and how they interact with the earth. it's pretty amazing if I do say so myself.