homemade rain gauge

Over the summer, we did a little theme unit on water and weather. One easy project is to make a simple homemade rain gauge. You can use any plastic bottle and write on it with a Sharpie. A 2-liter bottle works well because you can invert the lid and duct tape it on, keeping out bugs and debris.

Whenever it rains, Nora cries, "MOM! We need to put out the rain gauge!" It's exciting for her to see how much rain we got, although she always expects a lot more. I guess one or two inches of rain doesn't really LOOK like much to a 5-year-old!

bringing snow indoors

Baby, it's cold outside. When the weather's in the single digits, don't make your kids suffer (and possibly lose their OWN digits. ha, ha). Just bring the snow inside!

You can scoop it, bury stuff in it, spray or paint it with food coloring, bring out the kitchen utensils and sand toys...and, of course, you can always just eat it.

trapped in the ice!

My husband teases me that the kids and I do every possible activity we can involving ice and snow. I can only blame my California childhood and the fact that snow is an exciting novelty for me.

One night, we set out some pans of water with a few toys in them. The kids' mission: to rescue their friends from the ice! It took a considerable amount of work!

We even tried drilling:

The kids sprinkled salt, chipped and dug, and sprayed and poured warm water on the ice, finally freeing each and every toy. (Their motto: "No toy left behind.")

maple syrup candy

We've been looking up old recipes made with ice and snow. Apparently, folks used to make this simple candy by throwing boiled maple syrup onto fresh snow and letting their kids pick up the candy strands.

It had been a couple of days since the snow fell, so we made this on crushed ice instead. It's easy:

-- Heat a half-cup or so of maple syrup to boiling. Then, pour it over ice or snow. A couple of minutes later, it will have hardened somewhat into chewy strands that taste just like, well, maple syrup. Yes, it looks a bit like boogers on ice, but the kids thought it was fun and tasty.

salt and ice

The other morning, Nora saw her dad salting our icy driveway, and asked why.

I asked her, "Why do YOU think we spread salt on an icy sidewalk? Can you guess?"

She guessed, "The salt melts the ice?"

We decided to see if this were true. I said, "We'll see if ice added to water makes it harder for the water to freeze."

-- We filled two small glass bowls each with 1/2 cup water. To one of these, we added 1 Tbsp salt, and stirred it in. The other, we left plain. We put them both in the freezer for an hour.

-- An hour later, the bowl of plain water (on the right) was frozen about halfway through. The bowl with salt water (on the left) was still mostly liquid, with just a small coating of ice on top. (When I tilted the bowl, the water sloshed all around.)

I explained (after quickly Googling this to make sure I didn't spread misinformation) that salt speeds up the melting of the ice because it can make ice melt at a lower temperature.  Salt also helps keep the ice from re-freezing.....which we saw when we put the salt water in the freezer!

I later came across an experiment where kids can use salt to "glue" an ice cube to a string, and then lift it up. This is exactly the sort of thing that sets my geek heart aflutter.

(I may be a geek, but I'm not a science whiz, so preschool science experiments may be as good as it gets for me. I plan to enjoy this while it lasts, and before I become unable to comprehend any of it.)

SPRING RAINBOW

This sweet and simple suncatcher is a fun craft to make for spring. My daughter enjoyed it so much, we made another one the next day! This would also make a good Sunday school craft, or a gift from a small child to a teacher at the end of the year.

You'll need:
-- a sheet of wax paper
-- a sheet of white paper
-- dyed pasta (instructions below)
-- glue

1. Have your child draw the outline of a rainbow on a sheet of white paper (or draw it for them). (My 3-year-old was able to draw the outline, but I had to draw the inside lines for her.) Lay the white paper beneath the wax paper as a template.

2. Arrange dots or stripes of glue along each "color strip" of the rainbow.

3. Arrange pasta, color by color, along each strip. (You will see that my daughter insisted on making a "reverse rainbow," foiling what I thought was foresight in dyeing the most pasta red and the least pasta purple).

4. Let dry. When dry, punch a small hole between the red and orange strips of color and hang with ribbon, yarn, or string in a sunny window.

There you have it. A rainbow!

How to dye craft pasta

Craft pasta is so pretty,

 

and the possibilities are nearly endless!

It's easy to dye your own craft pasta. You'll need:

-- dry pasta
-- food coloring (squirty dropper-tubes, you know, the regular ol' fashioned kind)
-- newspaper to cover your surface
-- rubbing alcohol

Here's how you do it:

1. Protect your surface by laying out newspaper.

2. Splash a dab (about quarter-cup) of rubbing alcohol into a Ziploc baggie. Then squeeze in as many droplets of food coloring as you'd like, to get the desired color. (You'll see in the pictures above that Nora's rainbow is much lighter; that was the first batch of pasta. I wanted the colors darker, so I re-dyed the remaining pasta that night -- my husband was shaking his head at me -- and we made a brighter rainbow the next day. It all depends on how you like it!)

3. Toss in handfuls of pasta. Seal the bag. Shake it around to evenly distribute liquid.

4. Lay flat, turning bags over occasionally. If you want bright colors, use plenty of food coloring and let it sit for a while!

 

5. Shake the pasta directly onto the newsprint to dry. It dries quickly, within a couple of hours. Don't worry about separating each little piece of pasta because they break apart easily once fully dry.

You need to use the rubbing alcohol because it keeps the pasta from turning into mooshy, starchy goo. In fact, it has a great feel when it's finished. However, it is INEDIBLE. Make that clear to your kid, 'cause it looks like candy!

Now that we all know how to dye our own pasta, I'm going to look up all kinds of crafts that we can do with it.

CLOUDS

To make your own puffy clouds,

you'll need:
-- quilt batting or stuffed animal filler
-- blue construction paper
-- glue

Simply let your child squirt away with glue on the blue paper. Cut or tear the batting into various shapes, and make some fun clouds!

We printed out pictures of the three main types of clouds and chatted about how they looked different, and when you might see each one. Then, Nora made her own clouds. We made each of the three main types, and then she decided she was fondest of Cumulus clouds (the big puffy ones), so she made a few more sheets of those. This simple little activity was a hit; we made more clouds again over the next few days!

CLOUD IN A JAR

When I read this one online, I knew I had to try it. (See Nora above -- the anticipation was killing her!) :)

To make a cloud in a jar, you need:

-- a vase or jar
-- a match
-- a bag of ice (we used frozen hash browns)

Run your tap water til it's good and hot; fill the jar about half full. After a minute, pour out all but an inch or so of water.

Light a match. Hold it inside the mouth of the jar for about twenty seconds (or until you have to let go of it!). (You'll see I have black paper around our jar because I read online to do that, but it was an unnecessary step.)

Quickly put the bag of ice on the mouth of the jar to cover it. A small cloud should form inside your jar.

This did work, although the actual event was so thrilling that we didn't get any pictures of it. However, remember your audience: Nora was slightly disappointed. "Is it gone?" she cried. "I wanted to let it out of the jar to play with me."

GREAT CLOUD SITES FOR KIDS

--"Clouds That Look Like Things" -- see pictures of clouds that look like animals, trains, and more! Fun!

-- "Pretty Clouds" -- same web site, different focus

-- NASA's web page about clouds for kids. Great photos; info is slightly more advanced, but you can choose what to read to your child from the web site if s/he doesn't read yet.

-- Did your child ask you a question about weather or clouds that you don't know the answer to? It's probably here.

OTHER CLOUD ACTIVITIES:

-- Child Fun suggests letting your child finger paint in shades of blue, gray, and white on a two sheets of paper. Turn the sheets back-to-back and cut out a cloud shape. Staple around most of the shape, leaving enough room to stuff the cloud with tissue paper, batting, or crumpled newspaper. Then staple it all up. You can hang it with string/yarn/ribbon for a window. If your child did a few, I bet they'd look really pretty together!


-- Your child can make a "cloud" on the back of a spoon:

Have your child blow warm air into her hand. Explain that the air feels warm and moist because it is full of tiny water droplets, just like in a cloud.

Hand your child a cool spoon. Have her blow on the rounded back of the spoon. See how "fog" forms on the spoon.

Explain that this is exactly like a cloud you'd see in the sky. It's made when cool air and warm, moist air come together!