Things have been moving along. It is still butt cold. And for anyone not familiar with that term, it is COLD. We were teased with 2 days of weather above 40 degrees but now….cold again.
Kei and I enjoyed the warmer weather. She played outside while I read a book. It will be nice to have such a big yard for her to play in if it ever warms up!
We did science experiments this week. We both love them and love this site. Great science site with experiments
Chemistry with Pennies
You will need:
* A few old (not shiny) pennies
* 1/4 cup white vinegar
* 1 teaspoon salt
* Non-metal bowl
* Paper towels
What to do:
- Pour the vinegar into the bowl and add the salt – stir it up.
- Put about 5 pennies into the bowl and count to 10 slowly.
- Take out the pennies and rinse them out in some water. Admire their shininess!
How does it work?
There is some pretty fancy chemistry going on in that little bowl of yours. It turns out that vinegar is an acid, and the acid in the vinegar reacts with the salt to remove what chemists call copper oxide which was making your pennies dull. You’re not done yet, though, lets try another experiment:
Add more pennies to the bowl for 10 seconds, but this time , don’t rinse them off. Place them on a paper towel to dry off. In time the pennies will turn greenish-blue as a chemical called malachite forms on your pennies. But wait, your still not done yet.
Place some nuts and bolts in the vinegar and watch – they become COPPER in color! The vinegar removed some copper from the pennies and that copper was attracted by to the metal in the nuts and bolts – cool.
The project above is a DEMONSTRATION. To make it a true experiment, you can try to answer these questions:
1. Will other acids (like lemon juice or orange juice) work as well?
2. Does this cleaning chemistry work on other coins?
3. Do other amounts of salt make a difference in the chemistry of the experiment?
Kei, being the eco friendly girl that she is decided to make a doll using trash. She used a Sprite can, a yogurt container, suckers for the eyes, sucker stick for the nose, gum wrapper for the arms and a restaurant butter container for the hat. It was too cute.
Tuesday was Heather’s birthday and we met at Chuck E. Cheese for kid play and Mom talk. Then we went to everyone’s favorite place…Books A Million. It was a great day.
Kei, Heather and some of Esther 🙂
Required Kid’s Shot
Super Hero Kids
Kei bought a book “Funky Things to Draw”. She is in there now drawing away.
Lovely day…
Peace,
