News Junkie and Algae Experiment

I am a bit of a news junkie.  Towards the end of the school day, the news is on.  If you have been watching the news you know, Ebola, is all over the news.  Yesterday, early morning, my son got sick, and then again later in the morning.  My 10 yr old was convinced he probably had Ebola.  She pays more attention to the news than I thought.  Which gets me to my point.  If I am going to watch the news, which is usually not good news and often embellished, I better be prepared for some weird reactions and questions.  Of course my son does not have Ebola, he was fine after the second incident and we have had no contact, direct or otherwise with anyone from West Africa.  It was probably our Science experiment, because he did not follow the directions clearly.

About 10 days ago, we tried to see if there was anything living in our pool.  There wasn't, but I think things are starting to grow in their now, lol.  Anyway we have a rain collection bucket, that I water plants with.  I had not messed with it for a while, and that did have algae in it.  It also had a tiny ant head, with algae growing around it, that was really cool to look at under the microscope.  We did this on Sunday.  As I was looking I could see little critters moving around.  Our microscope is not super strong, so I couldn't tell exactly what they were, but there was a lot of them.  I told DJ to be sure and not touch his face, before he got to wash his hands, after handling the sample.  He might not have listened.  None of his friends, or us got it, but it could have just been something he ate.  But we all ate the same thing.  I have dumped the bucket and sanitized it, since to dog likes to drink out of it now and then.  From now on I will have the hand sanitizer right there to clean hands, and then wash them with soap and water when all experiments have been completed.

The second experiment we did, was to watch a seed grow.  You need six seeds.  We used Magnolia seeds, because they are all over the back yard.  You soak them over night, then gently remove the out covering of the seed.  It should be slimy and slide right off.  This was really cool under the microscope.  We couldn't get our seed to slice open, no matter how much we tried, so we skipped seeing the inside.  Next you put about 6 tsp of dirt in a ziplock bag and push the seed down into the dirt.  Seal the bag, most of the way, leave a small area for evaporation to occur.  Place it in a sunny spot, and then check it in a few days.  You should be able to see the seed starting the growing process.  I think this would work better in a tight fitting case, like a clear CD case, but we will see how it goes.  These are easy, fun, and educational experiments that anyone can do. 

Even though my son was not feeling well, he made it through the whole school day, Monday, slowly but still, and is all better today.  This week is a normal school week, and then next week we have some fun, educational things going on.  More on those later this week.

Grid Art, Snake Skin Under Microscope, and Our Week In Review

The drawing assignment for this week was a grid drawing. I just couldn't get into it. Those lines drive me crazy. Caitlin did hers, you can see it below. DJ has one printed and ready, just has to draw it out. Next week should be perspective, which is always hard. If you have been following this blog, you know that on Sept 1st I posted the Earth Kids project for this month. Tonight is the results night. If you go back in the blog to the first, you will see we were all gung ho. Put all kinds of stuff in our glass containers with colored marbles. It was so pretty. I actually wanted to see if root vegetables, like onions and carrots, would grow in the water with no dirt. I use them as compost and they do grow in the dirt without even being planted. But no, after a few days all they did was rot and stink up the water bad. So we added clean water, that did not help. It was quite gross. So, last Friday, we emptied out the jars, cleaned them, added fresh water and plants that we pulled out by the roots. One of them, in the tall skinny jar, is actually a potato. If you look real close you can see a small potato starting to grow in the roots. They have stayed beautiful for the week, and just needed some new water due to evaporation. I am going to leave these and see what they end up doing. There are some flowers in there too, both wild flowers, and a rose piece we pulled out. As you can see by looking at the jar, this experiment also shows condensation, and it also covered photosynthesis.  You can't see the tiny bubbles but they are there.

Today, we finally got to dig out our new microscope and use it. Again, if you follow along, the kids had found a snake skin at the springs, and brought it home. Today we put it under the microscope. The assignment was to look at it and draw what you see. There are two different shots, they look a little different due to the magnification of each. The third magnification no one could actually see anything or get it to focus.

Migraine on Monday, and Celery Experiment

Our celery experiment is complete. As you can see from the images the leaves did in fact turn pink, not red though, but pink. The stalk however did not change color, as I was lead to believe they would. I think a darker color, like blue, would have stuck out more, the pink was very faint. But, the kids did get to learn through, a hands on lesson, how plants get nutrients from their roots to their leaves. The second part of the experiment, I won't know if it worked, until the other family lets me know how it went. I will report on that later.

Yesterday, I had a terrible migraine, so there was no school. Today, was a normal and full day of school. Tomorrow, if it doesn't rain, we will have Run Club and school, plus church later in the evening.

Starting next year, this blog will again take on a record keeping mood. My son will be in High School, and rather than losing papers, or discs, I can record everything I need right here, and it will never get lost. I will of course continue to blog about all our fun stuff, and my daughter will be in fifth grade, so there is lots to talk about there.

Monarch Chrysalis

Ábout a week ago, I talked about how it was cold and we brought into the house two Monarch Caterpillars. A couple days later and they both had made a Chrysalis. Actually it was Sunday, the 5th, and Monday the 6th. In about two weeks they will hatch into a beautiful Monarch butterfly, at which time we will release them to the wild. Yesterday, we found one more caterpillar on the Milkweed plant, and we brought that one in too, since it was going to be so cold last night, and tonight. So far it is munching away at the milkweed plant supplied to it, and will make a Chrysalis soon, too.

Now, we have tried this before, but without success. Not with Monarchs though. We have a Milkweed plant out back, it is a huge plant, but it does not attract Monarch caterpillars. Some kind of moth lies its eggs on it over the summer. We have never seen it make its cocoon though. At the end of May, of last year, we visited the Greathouse Butterfly Farm, on a field trip. They gave each of the kids a Milkweed plant, and they assured me it was the kind that would attract Monarchs. So we planted them, and while not huge, they have grown nicely.

So, that brings us to the past few days. I really did not expect to find caterpillars this time of year, but am glad we noticed them. I don't think they would have survived the cold, but I could be wrong. We have noticed lots of tiny orange eggs, on the plant, but they must not be eggs, because they never hatch. I am not sure what they are, but they are on both plants.

So, in a couple of weeks, I will be sharing our newly born butterflies. We did have one of those expensive fancy butterfly houses, and nothing ever grew in there. I think it was too cold. These babies are in a large plastic container with a lid. It stays nice and warm in there.

This is how we like to learn about Science.  Note, in the picture only one caterpillar has made a Chrysalis, the other one did it over night into the next day.