Hunting animals with a camera

The child must understand there is live everywhere, under the stones, near the pool, on the sand under our feet...

What we need:

• a camera, preferably cheap, the child can broke it, it can be a cell phone or disposable, for example,
• a computer, for downloading photos,
• a notebook,
• a pen.

The project is simple but requires some hard work:  

1. Stimulate your child to find a spot with live. Let him/her to take the camera everywhere he goes. Let him to look, to find and to capture the moment with it;
2. Its allowed to capture same species in different locations;
3. Tell him to take note of the place, time of the day, and other important information when shooting, for example, "Park, 2:30PM, very hot, 5 animals photographed in the grass, 2 near the swing";
4. Download photographs to your computer;
5. Place them is a special folder, named it after the place and/or the day where your child took the photos, your restless can do this, on the notebook write down the name of the folder corresponding to the location described previously;
6. Let your restless child name each photo with the animal real name. Let him look for the names he doesn't know on the internet and/or books…;
7. To finish you can place all the pictures on a slide show, he will be amazed with all the animals he saw.

The duration of this project is variable, only parents and/or educators can evaluate the availability of children for this project.
Set a day, or a specific hour during the day to catalogue and download the photos, or, and trust me on this one, it will be the chaos.

Attention: 

Explain to the child that in any case he/she should arm the animals he/she is shooting, tell him/her not to hold them in his/her hands... any of this actions can lead to the animal dead or trigger defensive reactions.

If the child prefer use the vegetable kingdom

Et Voilá!
Life is everywhere waiting to be found!

Enjoy!

The shrinking bottle

We already did several demonstrations here to prove that the air takes up space.
Today the demonstration is another way to play with the air.

What we need:

• plastic bottle, with cap,
• hot water,
• funnel.

How to:

1. Wash the bottle;
2. Let it dry;
3. Heat up the water, don’t let it boil, its not necessary;
4. With the funnel pour the water in the bottle;
5. Wait for 10 sec;
6. Reject the water to the sink;
7. Quickly cap the bottle again, you have to be fast.

What happen?
The bottle shrinks.
In other words, the bottle walls collapse.

Remember this? What happens to the bottle is exactly the same thing.
Before further explanations is very important to understand two things:
First: air exerts pressure on the bottle, like in everything around us, including ourselves.
Second: any forces system tends to look for equilibrium.

So,
The hot water heats the air inside the bottle. Try to close the bottle immediately after pour the water inside, the bottle will swell, that’s because hot air can't escape to atmosphere. When you reject the water, the air inside the bottle rapidly cool. The cool air occupies less space then the hot air, and, theoretically there will be a lot of "empty space" inside the bottle, because of that the plastic walls collapse under the pressure of the air outside the bottle.

Et voilá!
Another fun way to spend some time

Enjoy!

How to do a parachute toy

This is a old toy, no batteries needed, no updates or upgrades, just the plastic soldier and the plastic bag. Today we are going to see how to build a parachute and how it works.

We will need:

• plastic square with a 40cm (about 15in) side. You can use a garbage plastic bag,
• Scissors,
• Ruler,
• Pen,
• 8 strings with 30cm (12in) length,
• A small toy, like a plastic soldier.

How to:

1. On each side of square measure and mark, with a pen, 4, 8 and 12in, like the image bellow;
2. Cut off the shaded parts;
3. With the scissors punch a hole on each corner of the plastic, like the picture, holes must be small, large holes will compromise the parachute;
4. Attach one string to each punch you made, with a knot;
5. Attach the other string end to the toy; the toy must have no more then 10cm (4in) height.

   

   Figure2

   
   

   
   



Figure1

6. Throw the parachute from a height place, like a balcony; remember the goal is to land the toy gently.

Results:
We hope your parachute landed gently giving an opportunity to your toy to survive.
When you throw the parachute the toy (the weight) pulls down the strings, forcing the plastic to open. Now the parachute contact surface with the air is bigger, the air resistance is also bigger and that’s why the parachute goes down slowly. The greater the air resistance the smoothly the parachute falls.

Try this with your restless:

• Throw the parachute from different heights, keep a record of your results and variables:
• Compare the falling times,
• The parachute always opens?
• Cut a small hole on center of the plastic, this will help the air to escape:
• Does it fall faster with or without the hole?

Et Voilá!
A plastic soldier parachute

Enjoy!

Giant soap bubbles

Blowing Bubbles

Dip your pipe and gently blow.
Watch the tiny bubble grow
Big and bigger, round and fat,
Rainbow-colored, and then
SPLAT!

Margaret Hillert
Yes, today we are going to play with giant soap bubbles.
Not much to say about them, just that they make children smile and adults dream ... give a child a bubble, and its like you are giving her/him the magic itself.

What we need:

• 2 cups of washing dish detergent,
• 3 cups of warm water,
• four ounces of glycerine, buy it at the drugstore, the secret ingredient,
• large bucket, preferably with a lid,
• "Hula Hoop",
• small stool,
• rubber pool, the hula hoop must fit

How to:

1. Mix all ingredients in the bucket, water, detergent and glycerine;
2. Upon mixing the solution pour it in the pool;
3. Put the bow in the pool;
4. Place the stool inside it;
5. Equip your restless with goggles, fins, swimming suit, and whatever else you can remember of;
6. Lift the Hula Hoop in order to cover the child, he will found himself inside a giant soap bubble!;
7. Now, let your restless try it, replace him/her in the pool.

For better results:
The weather must be warm, wet weather works best
Heavy water makes this demonstration more difficult

But what happen in a soap bubble?

Surface tension
H2O molecules are in red and white
Blue circle:
hydrophilic end of the soap molecule,
Black "tail":
hydrophobic end of sap molecule

The soap is the main ingredient on a soap bubble; moreover, if you want to try, brands and different types of dishwasher detergent give different results. Soap is made of molecules with two distinct ends, one hydrophilic and another one hydrophobic. The first one attracts the water, the second repels it.
If we could cut a bubble we would see something like the picture, a water layer surrounded by two soap layers, one inside the other outside the bubble.
The interaction between the soap bubbles pushes the water molecules away from each other relieving surface tension.
On the other hand glycerine bonds with hydrogen in water preventing evaporation.
 
But a question remains:
With the hula hoop we can make spherical giant soap bubbles, but if we use a square form can we make square bubbles?...
 
Answer
No
 
Why?
Because everything in Nature happens with the minimum possible energy spent. This is a basic fact of Nature.
Surface tension of the bubble "is going to shape" it in a form with the less possible area to contain that volume. That shape is the sphere- also called bubble- the most effective shape in universe when comes to energy saving. Look the Sun, the planets, the water drops, the berries, and I am sure you can remember a few more spheres

Et Voilá!
Who would say we can learn with sop bubbles?
 
Enjoy!

Making a shower- air pressure

Today we are going to see something we see every day but we are not trained to think about it. In fact is very simple and very easy to understand.

When we uncap a bottle and we turn i upside down, the liquid inside is spilled. But it will go slowly if you maintain the botlle at the 90 degrees angle, if you reduce the angle to 45 or even 30 degrees the flow of liquid increases . 

If it's your job to refill the cruet you know exactly what we are talking about.

What we need 

• plastic bottle,
• water,
• hammer.
• nail,
• big bowl.

How to:

1. Fill the bowl with water;
2. With the hammer and the nail open 3 small holes on the bottom of the bottle, don't make them to large;
3. Place the bottle inside de bowl;
4. Fill the bottle with water;
5. Close it tight;
6. Grab the bottle by its neck and lift it, don't squeeze;

What happen? 
Nothing, water remains inside.
Slightly uncap the bottle, and now?
Close it again, and now?
We easily observe that even with a punched bottle the water stays inside, however, if we uncap the bottle the water flows.
Why?
The bottle is filled with water, but in order to make the water come out the bottle it is necessary that something "takes its place" inside the bottle.

Since the bottle is closed and the bottleneck is the only place where "something" can go in the bottle, the water stays in.
This something is the air. When we slight uncap the bottle the air goes in and push the water down, through the holes, taking its space inside the bottle.

In other words:
Atmospheric pressure.
 
When the cap is tight, the atmospheric pressure, which acts in all directions, apply force through the holes and secure the water inside the bottle.
If the bottle is closed, that pressure doesn’t act directly on the surface of water, the water remains inside.
If you uncap the bottle, atmospheric pressure acts in water surface and the water falls through the holes.

Et voilá!
Tricky uh?
 
Enjoy!

Instant facts- Just add water 6

Humanity's right-hand dominance might be more than 500,000 years old.
http://www.livescience.com/13951-neanderthals-hand-dominance-language.html

Instant facts- Just add water 5

Children laugh about 400 times a day, while adults laugh on average only 15 times a day.
http://www.funfactz.com/people-facts/