TTT- DNA

My 7th grader has been studying DNA in (BJ Life) Science.
I added this clever activity to reinforce what he was learning.

download using link below
Have Your DNA and Eat It Too!

I studied the In-Depth background information, then gave a simplified lesson to all of the children. Yip, even my 2 year old was learning about DNA.

We built the strands, and discussed the chemical base parts.

My 4 year old was very proud of her DNA Strand. She mixed a few of the chemical base pairs up, but lets be honest, it was a bit over her head :)

Science IS fun & tasty too!

Our God is Amazing

I first saw these pictures here, at Savvy Little Women.

I was in awe!
Look at the detail, and intricate design of each object.
Do you know what the pictures are?

They are snowflakes under a microscope.
Aren't they AMAZING!!!

Each snowflake is unique, created by an amazing God.
The cool thing is, before Christmas we started studying snowflakes. These pictures show {my children} up close views of them.

I am excited to continue our study about snowflakes. It is especially fun when we have fresh snow outside to look at, hopefully soon!

The site the pictures are taken from is Wired Science, be sure to check it out.
So Cool!!

Meet Tad

Tad is our newest family member.
Tad is a tadpole.
Yes, we are very original with names I know.
Tad arrived by first class mail in this little vial.
You know no idea how cool this is for a 6 year old boy!!! He was bursting at the seems with excitement!

Can you see him in there, he is pretty tiny.
And yes, my son has a blue mustache, he drank a blue Gatorade...

Tad was born March 11th.

And this is his home.

In about 90 days Tad will be a completely developed frog.

...Be sure to check back for updates as Tad develops...

Tad was a gift from an aunt, we gave her son an ant farm when he was little. She was a little nicer to us :)

What is it?

We purchased a new toy educational device for school.

It is a Digital Microscope, and it has taken up a lot of our afternoon.
It is very cool!
The microscope is hooked up to our computer making the images appear on the screen. We've had fun looking at many different things this afternoon.
You can find out more about it here.
Below are a few of the things the boys checked out.
Can you guess what they are?
#1
#2
#3
#4

Rock Candy

Our Rock candy is growing!

Check out my previous post on instructions on making your own.

This is Day 7

We are still letting it grow.
How big will it get?

Alka Seltzer Explosions

What you need:
Seltzer tablets (Alka Seltzer)
Plastic film Canister with a tight fighting lid
Warm Water

Fill the canister 1/2 full with water.
Break the seltzer tablet into thirds or quarters.
Drop one section into the film canister, quickly and tightly put the lid on and flip it over onto a hard surface (lid side down).
Watch what happens...

Try it again for fun

More Bridges

We made two arch bridges, one with vertical supports and the other without.
Which one would be stronger?

We started adding nickles one by one. It didn't take long for the arch bridge without supports to collapse.

Then we added arch supports to the unstable bridge. One of the bridges had two supports on each side the other had one support on each side. It was amazing how many more nickles the bridge with two supports could hold.

The books on each end of the bridge are only to keep the bridge ends vertical. The paper isn't tucked under the books.

Rock Candy Day 1 to 4

What you need:
2 cups of sugar (we used cane sugar which is why ours looks caramel-ly)
4 cups water
cotton string
a weight (metal screw or washer)
*Bring water and sugar to a boil. Boil at a medium rolling boil until all of the sugar has melted and your mixture goes from cloudy to clear.

Carefully pour the mixture into the bottom 1/2 of a glass jar. Tie one end of your string to a weight. Tie the other end to the middle of a pencil. The length of your string should be 2/3 to 3/4 the length of your jar. Dip the weight and string in the water mixture. Then lay it out on a piece of wax paper to dry (24- 48 hours). Cover the jar with wax paper.

When your string is dry, place the weight end in the jar with the sugar water and rest the pencil over the top of the jar so your string is dangling into the sugar water. Cover it with wax paper and let it sit for 4-7 days.

Crystals will begin to form as show below on day 4.

Check back next week to see how our crystals continue to grow.

The White Egg & Vinegar

Remember this post on our brown egg?
Well we tried with a white egg this time.

Day 2

Day4

Day 5

Day 6

Not totally transparent, but a little different looking than the brown egg.
I think our white egg swelled up a lot more than our brown egg. Compare the extra room in the glass on day 2 to day 5. Doesn't the egg look huge! Maybe next time we'll take measurements.
Take it in a dark room with a small flash light. What do you see?
This week we are going to make rockets, Rock Candy and more bridges.
What are you favorite science activities?

Egg Fun Day 4

Remember this post at the beginning of the week?
The vinegar has 'eaten' away at the shell of our egg.
And....

Amazing!
Look how squishy it is!

We are experimenting now with a white egg. The instructions said we should be able to see through our egg.
Did we not leave it sit long enough or will white vs brown make a difference?
What do you think?
We'll let you know next week :)

Egg Fun

Try this one at home...
(it will take 4-7 days)
Submerge a raw egg in vinegar.

Watch as almost immediately bubbles start to form around the shell.

Track what happens by taking a picture each day.

Our egg after 24 hours.
Can you see what is happening?

Check back later in the week to see what happens...