School
Science Experiment: Why Do Leaves Change Colors?
Why do leaves change colors?
Recently we did a science experiment with the kids. We were talking about leaves and why they change colors. In the Spring and Summer they are various shades of green, but once the cold weather of Fall hits the leaves start changing colors.
What is chromatography? The definition of chromatography is the separation of mixtures into their constituents by preferential adsorption by a solid, as a column of silica (column chromatography) or a strip of filter paper (paper chromatography) or by a gel. We decided to uncover the rainbow of colors found in each leaf. The kids picked 9 leaves to experiment.
Science Experiment Items:
- Leaves (different colors and types)
- White Coffee Filters
- Rubbing Alcohol
- Scissors
The leaves contain a green pigment, chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is used to capture sunlight. By using chromatography you will be able to see the different colors present in the leaves.
Collect a variety of leaves to test. Pour 1/4 inch of rubbing alcohol into the bottom of a jar. Cut the leaves into small pieces and put each leaf into its own container. Cut the coffee filter into 1 inch strips. Put a strip of coffee filter in each container (the bottom of the strip should touch the rubbing alcohol) and you can fold the top of the strip over the top of the container.
Watch carefully as the rubbing alcohol moves up the coffee filter paper. You will notice the colors moving up the paper as well. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes for the rubbing to move up the paper.
We did the experiment saw the results and then “just for fun” we left it overnight to see what would happen.
One of the girls picked out 2 dark green leaves and one flower petal to test in this experiment. I figured they might as well see what happens with it too!
One of the girls picked out a red, yellow, and orange leaf to experiment with today!
Check out the cool colors!
What one of the leaves looked after sitting over night; after the rubbing alcohol evaporated.
As you can see the red flower petals (in the container on the left) did not amount to much color on the paper. The other two leaves did great!
Some cool colors found in these leaves.
Our 9 different leaf experiments and the colors we found inside them. We found the most variety of colors in the dark green leaves. The lighter colors on the left were ones that were turning colors (yellow, orange, and red leaves). The one on the right that looks almost white with a very faint yellow color is the red flower petal. Glad I let the kids experiment with that too even though it wasn’t a leaf, it was still a good learning lesson.School Projects: Book Report on Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne
Brina’s Book Report
Recently, the girls had to the do a book report for school. Brina read the book Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne for her book report. She had to come up with a box or container for her book report. Jake helped her put together this super cool tree house for her book report. She had a blast picking out the perfect branch, helping Jake cut it, glue together the pieces, put the tree house together, and decorate it. Karlie read the book Foal in the Fog by Ben M. Baglio for her book report.
Brina’s tree house had a slot in the top where she could store all her book report papers and items for her presentation.
Brina picked out a variety of pictures and put her information on the base of the tree house.
Her tree house turned out really well and she did awesome well on her book report presentation! Her tree house was picked to be put on display in their school library!
School Projects: Book Report on Foal in the Fog by Ben M. Baglio
Karlie’s Book Report
Recently, the girls had to the do a book report for school. Karlie read the book Foal in the Fog by Ben M. Baglio for her book report. She had to come up with a box or container for her book report. The barn was the perfect box for this book report. She was really excited about doing her book report. Brina did a book report too on Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne
Foal in the Fog with pictures of horses and ponies on the outside!
The other side of her barn with more pictures!
Her book report with all the details of the book per the teacher’s instructions. Inside the box she put items that relate to her book – horse, black lab, saddle, pictures, bales of hay, fences, and horse shoes.
Karlie’s barn box for her book report turned out really well and she did a great job on her presentation! Her barn is on display at their school library!
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School Projects: Science Current Event Articles
The kids recently did a school project for Science Extra Credit. They had to compile a variety of science current event articles. The articles were cut out of current local newspapers, Wall Street Journal, magazines, and more. They read the articles, glued them to construction paper, and wrote a summary about each one.
The articles were on the following science categories – Animals, Electricity, Plants, Space, and Weather. All the subjects are ones that the kids will be studying this year in school. The kids had one week to put together all their articles for science extra credit. The girls worked on their articles every day after homework, before school each morning, and even gave up some of their free time to do more articles.
We are so proud of how hard they worked all week. By the end of the week they learned a lot about the various science subjects they will be studying in school. They did more articles than we realized too. Between the two girls these are the number of science articles they completed in one week:
- Animals – 9
- Electricity – 7
- Plants – 8
- Space -10
- Weather – 8
Way to go kids! Thrilled that they love learning so much! It will benefit them throughout the entire year!
A Couch Full of Books
Karlie has all her library books spread out over the couch so she can choose which one to read first. Not sure if the line of books are placed in random or specific order. She is very thoroughly in picking out what book she wanted to read.
She has been reading through the South Carolina Children’s Book Award Nominee list. For her Gifted & Talent class she is suppose to read at least four of the SC Children’s Book Award and pass an Accelerated Reading on them. We pick up several of the books from our local library and she has been working her way through them. A couple of the books Jake and I decided we didn’t want her to read for various reasons, but otherwise we want to encourage her to read as much as she wants.
Karlie loves reading! She was finished reading her four required books within a week. Now she is continuing to read just for fun and taking the tests. It is wonderful seeing her read and it amazes how quickly she can get through a book, sometimes one that is several hundred pages! If she really likes the book finish it and read it again the next day! Her stack of library books has been higher than mine lately!
Healthy Snacks: Grapes on a Stick
It is fun surprising the girls with healthy treats in their school lunch bags. The girls love it when I put grapes on a stick for their fruit snack. For an extra touch you can add eyes on the grapes and call them caterpillars. Every time we have grapes they request this simple treat to be added to their lunch bag.
Fresh & Healthy: Fun Fall Fruit to Add to Your Kids Lunch
Are you are looking for a sweet and healthy Fall or Halloween treat to send in your kids school lunch? Grab an orange, draw a pumpkin face on it, and stick it in their lunch box. They will love it! It is a fun, sweet, and healthy food for them to eat. They will be excited to eat their fruit at lunch. Doing something as simple as adding a face to an orange can motivate the kids to eat more fruit!
Thankfully, our kids have always enjoyed eating their fruits and vegetables, but adding a little extra surprise (like a pumpkin face) during the various Holiday Seasons gets them even more excited. What are your favorite healthy Halloween snacks that you like to send in your kids lunches? Our kids get enough candy sweets around Halloween Holiday so offering more healthier food options is always something we want to encourage. Another bonus is the orange provides extra vitamin C which is perfect boost for the kids immune systems as we enter the seasons were colds seem to spread like wildfire through school.
School Projects: The Eye Ball Donut Creation & Writing Assignment
A tray of “The Eye Ball” Donuts ready to take to school
The girls recently had a writing assignment that they had to do for school. Brina came up with The Eye Ball Donut creation. For extra credit they could make their creations and share them with their classmates and teachers at school. We came up with a cookie creation using all the ingredients she mentioned in her writing assignment and they turned out fairly well. Instead of using cookies for Brina’s we used a powdered doughnut or in this case a munchkin for Dunkin Donuts. The donuts were a perfect treat to share with her classmates instead of cupcakes on Halloween. Karlie also did a cookie creation and writing assignment called Inside Your Feet.
The Eye Ball was super easy to put together and a big hit with Brina’s classmates.
Her tray of eye balls ready to be wrapped and delivered to school.
The Eye Balls did exactly what we wanted them to do – overnight the blue frosting that we used to attach the pupil part of the eye spread a little giving The Eye Balls blue colored eyes!
The Eye Ball Items:
- White Powdered Donuts (Dunkin Donut sells white powdered munchkins which are perfect for this treat, but you can make homemade if you want)
- Blue Frosting (we used the blue writing frosting but you could use brown or green, etc…)
- Edible Eyes (you can pick these up at Hobby Lobby, Walmart, etc…)
- Red Sprinkles
Once you have your white powdered donuts add a small drop of blue frosting and attached the pupil of your eye to your eye ball. Dip the bottom of the donut into red sprinkles and place on a tray. Let set overnight so the blue frosting will spread a little bit giving you a blue eye color.
The donuts turned out well and were a big hit with Brina’s class. It was a lot of fun putting these together with her and they were super simple. These would be an easy Fall or Halloween treat to do for a party or for fun.
School Projects: Inside Your Feet Cookie Creation & Writing Assignment
A tray of “Inside Your Feet” Cookies ready to take to school
The girls recently had a writing assignment that they had to do for school. Karlie came up with an Inside Your Feet Cookie creation. For extra credit they could make their creations and share them with their classmates and teachers at school. We came up with a cookie creation using all the ingredients she mentioned in her writing assignment and they turned out fairly well. The cookies were a perfect treat to share with her classmates instead of cupcakes on Halloween. Brina also did a cookie creation and writing assignment called The Eye Ball.
A few days before the actual assignment due date we did a trial run and experimented to make sure we could make her “skin, blood, bones, and ankle joint” to reflect the Inside Your Feet cookie as accurately as possible. We tried white sparkle writing gel (bottom right) but is blended too much, we tried straight white sprinkles (bottom middle) it was a lot of work and hard to get straight, we tried round white sprinkles (bottom left) too difficult to get straight, we tried pearl balls (top left) wasn’t too bad and would have been a more do-able option, and the final attempt was our favorite and probably the easiest option too, we used white writing frosting.
We didn’t have any feet cookie cutters and the stores we checked didn’t carry any so Jake made a set we could use with his 3D printer. Once again it saves the day!
Up close of the Inside Your Feet Cookie
Inside Your Feet Items:
- Sugar Cookie Dough or Brownies(we did some of each)
- Red Frosting (or white frosting with red dye)
- White Writing Frosting
- Red and White Mint
Make your favorite sugar cookie dough or brownies (your can make from scratch or buy a mix). The sugar cookies seemed to look more like feet with toes, but the brown mix had less steps to put together. Make your sugar cookie dough, roll it out, cut out your feet, and bake. OR Make your brownies first and cut out your feet after they are baked and cooled.
Once the cookies are cooled you can decorate by putting red frosting on the cookie. We did not go to the edge of the cookie with the frosting because Karlie wanted to show the layers of the Inside Your Feet Cookie (bottom – skin, frosting – blood and muscles, white – bones, and mint – ankle joint). Next add your red and white mint. Draw your foot bones with the white writing frosting.
The cookies turned out well and were a big hit with Karlie’s class. It was a lot of fun putting together with her.
What the different parts of the cookies represent:
- Bottom Sugar Cookie or Brownies- skin
- Red Frosting – blood and muscles
- White Writing Frosting – bones
- Red & White Mint – ankle joint
