Monday, June 27, 2011

science week: WIND and BUBBLES

friday we learned about WIND. i got some ideas from this site.
we learned that wind is just air that is moving.
wind is caused by cool air and warm air trading places.
we read a fun book called Feel the Wind.
we learned how hot air rises and that is how hot air balloons work
and then we made some bubbles so we could see the wind for ourselves.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN BUBBLE SOLUTION:
10 cups of water (some people use distilled water, we did not)
1 cup of NON ULTRA dish soap
1/2 cup of light corn syrup

there are tons of different concoctions out there. just find one that you think you like best. i picked this one since it seemed most simple and had ingredients that i could get easily. i thought it worked great.
we also read a book all about bubbles and gave us great ideas on how to make bubble blowers with things around the house.

Plastic Bottle bubble blower:
all you need is an empty plastic water bottle
a pair of scissors
all you do is cut the bottom off the bottle and then cut little slits around the edge and fold bend them outward. side note...chipped nail polish = sad. not sure why i even paint my fingers nails, it never lasts longer than 6 hours.
dip bottle in bubble solution and blow away. see how big you can get your bubble before it pops.
also since the bubbles dont normally release from the bottle, after you blow your hot air in (while bubble is still on end of bottle) move the bottle over to your cheek and you can feel the bubble push all your hot air back out. garret thought this was so cool.

Straw Bubble Blower:
all you need is a straw
cut it in the same way as the water bottle, dip and blow. this makes lots of really fun little bubbles.
TIP!!! if you have younger children, make sure they remember to blow out and NOT suck up. brenna can tell you that she learned that lesson from experience.

A GIANT bubble making wand:
two dowels about 14 inches long ( really they can just be sticks in the yard or whatever you can find.)
some COTTON string- i found mine in the laundry section by the clothes lines at Family Dollar
2 eye hooks to screw into the ends of your dowels (or you can just tie it on)

i am going to share this link where they give you many more details on how to make this wand. i always seem to "just make it work with what i have." but i know some people like real specific instructions. there are many, many links to this as well. but this is the one i (kind of) followed.
it takes some practice but we ended up making some really GIANT bubbles. garret was a pro by the end of the day and really loved this project.

dave and i had a blast making these too. we made them all weekend.

if any of you try it. let me know what you think! this was a great end to our science week. hope you enjoyed.

TIPS:
bubbles last longer on warmer humid days
less wind is actually better
dont give up... try, try again


2 comments:

Tara said...

Real cool bubbles and wands! Looks like all had a blast!

leah said...

This is AWESOME. I love how creative you are with them, and it's so fun too. Can't wait to do some of these with Emery once she gets big enough :)