It might be grey out. It might be weird that we are at home right now, and not together at school, but today is Friday, and today is Spring. Last night was the Vernal Equinox!
Today's selections include a sunny spring inspired art project from Meg, some Friday Firework Science brought to us from Aurora, & some indoor active time from Veronica!
Sunburst Art
Location: Your house! Ideally at a table.
Materials/equipment needed:
Ruler
Paper
Small circular object
Painters tape
Piece of cardboard to tape paper to
Watercolors/paint brush (if you don’t have paint, you can use markers, crayons, or colored pencils)
Instructions:
1. Tape your paper to the piece of cardboard-tape with painters tape (when you take it off, you’ll have a nice white border)
2. Find the middle of your paper with your ruler, and mark it with a dot
3. Use your small circular object to draw a circle around the dot
4. Use your ruler to draw different lines through the dot
5. Once your lines are drawn, erase the ones in the circle
6. Now-time to paint! Be as creative as you want, using different colors.
7. Once the paint has dried, peel off the painter’s tape. You now have a beautiful sunburst painting!
Sample and credit to the Art Bar Blog
Fireworks in a Glass
Name of the activity: Fireworks in a Glass
Grade Level: K-5
Individual or multiple people: Either. Younger children will need adult supervision.
Theme: Chemistry
Materials:
-Water
-Oil (vegetable, olive, etc.)
-Food coloring
-2 glasses or clear cups
-a fork
Location: A smooth, flat, and easily cleanable surface - like the kitchen counter or dining table
instructions:
1. Fill a glass ~¾ of the way with water. (~ means approximately)
2. In a separate glass or cup, mix 3 tablespoons of oil and up to five drops of food coloring. 3. Mix with a fork until the food coloring breaks up into many small beads.
4. Pour the oil/food coloring mix on top of the water. What do you see?
The science of it:
You will notice that the food coloring starts to drop out of the vegetable oil and spreads out into the water, creating a firework like effect. This is because molecules of water and food coloring are what scientists call “hydrophilic” or “polar” molecules. Hydrophilic because they are attracted to water, or polar because every tiny molecule has a positive and a negative side, like a magnet!
This causes the water and food coloring to attract, so the food coloring spreads out into the water as soon as it has the chance.
The oil is different. It’s molecules are called “hydrophobic” or “non-polar”. Hydrophobic literally means “fear of water”, and it refers to the fact that oil will not mix with water. Non-polar means that oil molecules do not have positive and negative sides, meaning that it can’t mix with polar molecules like water or food coloring. Trying to get food coloring to mix into oil is like trying to stick a magnet to a piece of wood -- it just doesn’t work!
Bulls Eye
Grade Level: K-5
Materials: Socks, 5 empty water bottles, stickers, paint, markers, rice, dried beans, or buttons
Location: anywhere in the home without breakables nearby
Instructions:
1. First the student should decorate the water bottles using whatever art materials they desire. You can add even smaller targets on the bottles to increase difficulty!
2. Then if they would like a little noise in the game they should add dried beans, rice or buttons to the bottles.
3. Line the bottles up about 5 feet away then toss the socks at the bottles. You can vary distances and angles to modify the "level".
4. The bottles may also be lined up in a bowling formation to spice up the game a little.
5. What other challenges could you add? Want to pop up from behind a couch to throw? Add obstacles between you and the targets? Can you compete with someone else?
Comments