Bending bones with vinegar, the rubber bone

We can have lots of fun with vinegar. We leave you with another demonstration with this stinky friend.
Bending bones
What? Bending bones? How?

Yes, bending bones, the effect works best if we use a bird bone, that’s because this bones are hallow.

What we need:

• a jar, with lid, big enough to the bone,
• 1 chicken bone, Lucky bone or the leg bone works best,
• Vinegar, no flavors, no additions.

How to:

1. Wash the bone, with running water;
2. Show the bone to your restless, show him/her how hard is to bend it;
3. Place the bone on the jar;
4. Cover it with vinegar;
5. Screw the bottle cap;
6. Let it rest for 3 days, place the jar in a safe place, you don’t want your kitchen smelling like vinegar;
7. Remove the bone;
8. Wash it on running water;

Results:
Bend it, tcham tcham! Is it really a rubber bone? Well it looks like one

Why?
Like our bones, chicken bone have calcium, this mineral gives it hardness.
What does the vinegar do to make this happen?
Vinegar is a weak acid, but it's strong enough to dissolve the bone calcium. Once the calcium gone there is nothing more to make it hard- all that remains is the soft bone tissue. Just like what happened here with the naked egg.
 
Ask your restless to answer this questions:

• Does the number of hours the bone is in the vinegar affects the final outcome? How?
• Does the size of the bone affect the demonstration? How?
• Using different kinds of vinegar will lead to different results?

Et voilá!
A rubber bone

Enjoy!

Painting old CD's

We found this Tutorial here it’s a very good idea to reuse old CD's and DVD's rather than throw them in the trash and besides, this will keep children occupied for a while

What we need:

• Paint tutorial says it can be acrylic or nail polish. Use synthetic lacquer for longstanding results,
• CDs and/or DVD's old and broken,
• Varnish.

How to:

1. If you want to leave your CD or DVD transparent, sand it, with thin sand paper, when you done wash it and dry it well;
2. If you want to keep the "mirror" effect just clean it with alcohol to remove any grass and dust. You can apply paint on the "label" side;
3. Let your restless paint the CD/DVD;
4. Wait at least 24h before you varnish it.

You can paint geometric figures or use a stencil.

This CD/DVD's can be used for a lot of things. We can place them in the wall, one by one or as a set, we can frame them, or build some, dream catchers...

Et voilá!
Young restless will love to explore this circular canvas.

Enjoy!

The air takes space- Try this

Another simple and basic science demonstration. Restless Minds already played with air a few times, check it out.

What we need:

• flask with lid, metallic works best,
• nail,
• hammer,
• straw,
• molding clay,
• water.

How to do it:

1. Use the nail, and with the hammer punch a hole on the lid big enough for the straw. Don't let your child use the hammer;
2. Fill the flask with water to 2/3, you can use juice;
3. Close the flask with the lid;
4. Place the straw in the hole;
5. Seal the hole with the clay;
6. Drink it, using the straw.

Results:
You can't drink. At beginning this looked a bit stupid right? But now you understand.

Why?
When we use the straw we don’t really think about what happens in the plastic tube, but the straw only works because the liquid we suck is replaced with air. In fact is all about pressure.

• When, in optimal conditions, we place a straw in a drink, the air pressure in the drink in exactly the same inside the liquid on the straw.
• When we pull the liquid up, we remove some air from inside the straw, and the pressure inside the plastic tube drops.
• While this is happening inside the straw the pressure on the surface of the liquid remains the same.
• This pressure variation, between surface and straw interior, makes the liquid to be pushed through the tube.
• If we close the flask, and prevent the air from circulating freely there is no way to create a pressure differential and therefore there isn't nothing to push the liquid into the straw!

Et voilá!
The juice will stay there, until you unseal the jar!

Enjoy!

Instant facts- Just add water 7

World Population:
is currently growing at a rate of around 1.15 % per year.
growth rate reached its peak in the late 1960s, when it was at 2%.
in http://www.worldometers.info/

Needle magic trick

We saw here several demonstrations that give incredible magic shows. It'e a fact the balloon trick is an oldie, but is also true that sometimes the simple is the most interesting.

Before anything else: When does a balloon bursts? When the air inside is suddenly expelled, otherwise the balloon doesn't burst, just empties.
We say it bursts because it makes a big BOOM!
 
What we need:

• balloon,
• sewing pins ,
• strong tape,

How to:

1. Fill the balloon half way;
2. Glue small pieces of tape, 2, 3 ,4 ... as you wish, it will depends on the number of pins you have and on balloon size;
3. Make sure that the tape is well glued to the balloon, air bubbles will lead to a big BOOM!;
4. Gently, but without fear, stuck a pin in the center of duct tape;
5. Repeat this to all pieces of tape in the balloon.

What happens?
Balloon doesn't burst!

Why?
The balloon burst when the air is suddenly forced out the rubber coat. In this demonstration it doesn't burst because we made a "seal"- with the tape- around the spot where we pin it, here the rubber is reinforced.

We can try to take the pins of the balloon, which will make the balloon emptying slowly. While the tape
resist the balloon will not burst.

Try to observe the rubber ripping beneath the tape, near the spot where you place the pin, when the air pressure, inside the balloon, overcome the tape "seal" we can observe a small tear underneath the  tape.  The more the balloon is filled, the greater the pressure is, and faster the pressure overcomes adhesive and tear appears, the next step is Bang!

Note:

• Glue the tape pieces apart from each other;
• Use light color balloons, it will be easier to observe;
• Use strong tape, works best

Variations:
You can try to understand better this pin magic:

• Use several balloons, same sized; fill them with different air quantities. Use a chronometer and see how long the air pressure takes to beat the rubber "seal". 
• What is the ideal volume air?
• Use more then 1 pin, and on each balloon vary the space between the tape pieces. 
• Does this have any influence on the time the balloon takes to lose the air? 
• And does it simply lose all the air or does it burst?

Et voilá!
It's magic

Enjoy!

Dye techniques for T-shirts

Dye a T-shirt with the desired pattern, or at least a minimally predictable pattern, it is not a random challenge, today we share with you some techniques you can use, you can check the information on dying techniques here: Stamp and dye t-shirts, summer DIY.

Note:
Make sure the rubber bands are tight!

Knot technique

• Grab the T-shirt on both ends and twist it, like a rope,

 

• Tie a knot in the fabric. 

Spiral

• Place the T-shirt in a plain surface.
• Place your thumb on the fabric; exactly in the place you want the spiral central.
• Use your fingers to secure the fabric in place, and start to twist.
• After each twist, with your free hand, flatten the fabric to prevent the spiral to fall apart.
• At the end of the twists you must have something that looks like a giant flattened biscuit;
• Put the rubber bands in place, like the picture.

Rosett:

• This effect creates a pattern of overlapping or close circles;
• Use a pencil to mark on the t-shirt a few points, these points will be the center of the dyed circles;
• Use the thumb and forefinger to pick up the fabric in the same place you painted the point;
• Hold this "tab" with the other hand;
• Repeat the process for all the dots;
• When finished you must have several of this "tabs" in your hand.
• Wrap a rubber band around each "tab", and wrap 2 or 3 around all the set.

Stripes

• Wrap the t-shirt forming a long tube. The lists will be dyed perpendicular to the tube.
• Squeeze the tube with the rubber bands, the more the bands are spaced thicker will be the lists.

Source: this idea came from here

Et Voilá!
Exclusive T-Shirts! 
Lean how to dye

Enjoy!

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!