Wednesday, November 16, 2011

From the Desks of Isaiah, Elijah and Hannah Cells part 3

First up HANNAH! She is just changing so much. Talking, it seems like she says everything, or at least tries to. She is so FUNNY! I love that about her. I appreciate her mischievous sense of humor. I pulled out the finger paints for the first time with Hannah. I can't believe she's over 2 and this is the first time she's finger painted. I knew it would be interesting because she HATES having her hands messing. But she did good. I had to have a box of wipes right next to her so she could was her fingers off at will. But it was super cute.
"Red and Blue" she knows all her colors.
"Look Mommy Mess"
Elijah has been studying knights and castles....I DO not enjoy this time period and will be very happy to move on but I thought we could have some fun while we're here. Elijah made his shield with his own personalized coat of arms.
My plan was just the shield. But Elijah had other plans...helmet and sword. He had a blast. And I did too!


Time to watch how carrots absorb water...sort of like the celery experiment with the celery.
Two carrots, one in blue colored water the other in just plain water to compare. Let them sit overnight.
Carrot experiment 2...take two pieces of carrots, tie string super tight on each one.
One carrot will go into a glass of salt water the other will go in a plain glass of water. Very much like the potato and bean experiment we did. Let them sit over night.
The next day they took out their carrots and compared. The water carrot was much firmer than the salt carrot. And the string on the water carrot was still super tight, and the the string on the salt carrot slid right off.
To see how the water traveled up the carrot they slices in sideways in half.
3 dishes....one dog drool sample (thanks Axle) And two boy drool samples, Isaiah and Elijah. Who has the cleaner mouth dog or human? We let our specimens grow for about 3 days....
The results? Axle had by far less bacteria, than Isaiah and Elijah. Now some bacteria is good, the boys concluded Axle had the cleaner mouth.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

From the Desks of Isaiah, Elijah CELLS part 2

Bring on the science fun!!It's a race! Well sort of...we wanted to watch some celery tissue carry water up the stalk to the leaves. We cut the celery up the middle, placed one half in a blue water and the other half in red water. And we waited.....
This experiment allows you to see the process of osmosis in action.
I only added the above picture because Elijah looked SOOO cute in it. We sliced a potato,placed one slice in regular water and the other in salt water and WAITED.
The potato slice in the fresh water became a little stiffer, while the potato in salt water became rather flimsy. The water outside the cell is saltier than the water inside, water will move from the inside of the cell to the outside. As the water left the cell it was like letting the air out of a balloon. As more and more of the cells lost water, the slice of potato became soft and flexible. If the water inside was saltier, the opposite happens, and some water goes into the cells, stiffening them up.
We also did it with beans

Checking out the results of the celery race. the blue and the red seem to be neck and neck.
We weren't seeing the leaves of our celery change color as quickly as we wanted to see decided to get white carnations....the result?
How many cotton balls can you fit in a full glass of water without spilling any of the water? Isaiah 4 Elijah 5.
The cell wall organelle supports and protects the cell. Cell walls have small holes, called pores, in them. This lets water, nutrients, and other substances into the cell.
Keep going...
Final count...Isaiah 27 Elijah 34....that's a lot of cotton balls.
In this experiment, you were able to get the cotton balls in the water because cotton balls are mostly air. Even the strands of cotton are mostly air, because the strand is just the cell wall from the cotton plant.
Here are our flowers. We're going to let them hang out for the week and see them change more.
Super cool!

Monday, November 7, 2011

From the Desks of Isaiah, Elijah CELLS

I wasn't sure how this year's science would work out...after last year's thrilling ride of hover crafts, robots, white light, and electricity I thought "life science" might not be as thrilling for the boys. But leave it supercharged science to turn up the excitement level. How is a balloon like a cell membrane? Find out...put vanilla extract in a balloon, blow it up.
And take a good sniff...smell anything? We did! The balloon kept air in but also let some out. Sounds like a cell membrane to me.
We started with something that smelled GOOD and then went to something that smelled HORRIBLE!!! I mean HORRIBLE. For days Peter and I kept saying to each other "what is that smell?" well we found out when it was time to check out out protozoa specimen. (Made with water, dead grass from the back yard and yeast, and let it sit and grow) The boys were pretty grossed out and said it smelled like....well you don't need to know. =) BUT I wish I would have recorded their reaction to looking at their specimen under the microscope. I had no idea it would have been such a BIG hit. "WOW no way" "check it out" "things are moving" "what are they" "let's stain the slide" "You've got to check this out" "are they really alive" "so cool"
Just as important as observing is recording. The next week in science will be even more thrilling and we'll return to our specimen jar to see if more critters have grown!!

Friday, November 4, 2011

From the ART desks of Isaiah and Elijah

Have I mentioned the boys take Art from an amazing lady named Brenda. You can check out her blog here. She taught them last year it was such a blessing that I couldn't wait to sign them up this year. Here are a few projects they have worked on.
African Lion
Elijah "mini" African Lion
Cheetah by Elijah Scratch art!
Crocodile by Isaiah Scratch art