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| Rainbow |
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| Butterflies |
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| Friends |
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| The Mallard |
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| Fun with colour |
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| Red house |
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| Ever decreasing circles |
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| Soapy fun |
We had a interesting science activity, simple yet mind boggling. Have you ever wondered what would happen if you were to put soap in the microwave? I confess that I hadn't but the children were definitely intrigued.
Despite lots of reassurance on the Internet about how safe this activity is we decided to proceed with caution and used our own microwave rather than the hall's and situated it next to an open door in case of fumes. An adult supervised at all times. These bowls come out very hot!
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| It goes fluffy! |
The soap was microwaved on full power for a few seconds at a time. They came out looking like fluffy clouds.
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| Been in the microwave for too long - soap is melting |
Don't let it overcook!
Results may vary depending on the type of soap used, we had Tesco everyday value soap.
The science bit (from http://chemistry.about.com ):
Two processes occur when you microwave the soap. First, you are heating the soap, which softens it. Second, you are heating the air and water trapped inside the soap, causing the water to vaporize and the air to expand. The expanding gases push on the softened soap, causing it to expand and become a foam. Popping popcorn works in much the same way. When you microwave Ivory™, the appearance of the soap is changed, but no chemical reaction occurs. This is an example of a physical change. It also demonstrates Charles' Law, which states the volume of a gas increases with its temperature. The microwaves impart energy into the soap, water, and air molecules, causing them to move faster and further away from each other. The result is that the soap puffs up. Other brands of soap don't contain as much whipped air and simply melt in the microwave.
As well as making soap foam we also did some soap carving. Here we found that the cheap soap was ideal as it is already fairly soft and that made it easier to carve rather than crumble.
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| Beading |
Some lovely wind bead's were made (I don't know their proper name so wind beads it is). These were based on the idea of a windchime.
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| Playing with sensory rice |
The sensory rice was such a big hit last time that it came out again. Lots of mess was made but most of the rice was caught on the towel and clean up was easy thanks to the wooden floor. For the amount of play it has generated this is a brilliant activity.
And the investigation table was in use again, the scales were as popular as ever! We'll have to get our thinking caps on for some new additions.
And next time...
Next week is half term so we will be having a weeks break. Unfortunately the hall is unavailable the following week so we will be having a day out at West Bay, near Bridport. More details about this visit can be found on the North Dorset Home Education facebook group.
We return to the hall on Tuesday 10th June.
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