Bottle Bowling – Trash To Treasure

March 29, 2008 at 12:49 pm · Comments (8)
Wordcount: 307

Being a single mother, I know sometimes it’s hard to find fun things for kids to do that doesn’t really cost anything. With that being said, I’ve decided to start a new category here called “Trash to Treasure”. (No, I did not come up with the idea, though I’d like to take credit for it, since it’s kinda neat.) The whole idea behind Trash To Treasure is coming up with fun games or projects that you and your children can do that don’t require any money. You just use items you already have or that you would normally throw out. My first trash to treasure project is called bottle bowling. We did it, and it was pretty cool.

Bottle Bowling

1. Wash and dry 10 plastic bottles. (20 oz coke bottles work best)
2. Fill them with shredded paper or at least halfway with water. This keeps them from falling over too easily. Put the caps on tightly.
3. Set up your bottles in a triangle on a large flat surface.
4. Stand about 10 feet away from the bottles and roll a ball, trying to knock over as many bottles as possible. Set the bottles back up.
5. If you want to keep score, take two rolls per turn, trying to knock over as many pins (bottles) as you can. Set the pins back up after each turn. You get ten turns in a regular game. Add up the pins from each turn to see how many points you have scored. If you are playing with another player, then alternate turns.

Fun/helpful ideas:
1. Decorate the bottles with markers and stickers. To make them look like bowling pins, place red stickers around the outside of the bottles near the top.
2. If you don’t have a rubber ball to use, try making your own ball out of wadded-up aluminum foil.

Have fun bowling!

Commenters: Amanda, Amanda, Ana, Holly, Julie, Piper, Tro

The Easter Bunny

March 28, 2008 at 11:55 am · Comments (5)
Wordcount: 174

My son no longer believes in the “Easter Bunny”. I mean, I think he had an idea all along, but he just needed proof. He got it when he found empty candy bags in my trash and the “extra candy” stash in my computer desk. Well, it’s about time anyways. I haven’t led him on about the easter bunny, if he had asked me point blank I would not have been able to lie to him, but I think he knew that somewhat and that’s why he never directly asked. I knew when he was ready to accept it, he would. He finally came to me and said “I know you are the Easter Bunny”. LOL. What could I say to that? He’s also skeptical of Santa Claus, but I don’t think he’s quite prepared to give up on that one just yet. I think this year will be his last “Santa” Christmas though.

Question: When did you stop believing in the Easter Bunny? Was there an incident that led you to stop believing?

Commenters: Ana, Julie, tracy

Money In A Blender – An Experiment

March 21, 2008 at 3:41 am · Comments (12)
Wordcount: 330

One of my son’s favorite websites is SteveSpanglerScience.Com. He visits that site as often as possible to look for new and fun “experiments”. One of the more recent experiments we’ve tried is the “Money In A Blender”. See, in an effort to prevent counterfeiting, U.S Dollars are printed with special ink that contains traces of iron and other magnetic materials. The idea of this experiment is to extract the iron from a dollar bill. So here goes:

Materials:
You’ll need:
- A $1 bill
- A kitchen blender
- Water
- A zipper-lock bag
- Super Strong Neodymium Magnet (we didn’t have one of these so we used a magnet out of his “magnetix” collection. It worked just as well.
- Some adult supervision.

Follow these steps:
1. Fill the blender half full with water (about 3-4 cups)
2. Place the dollar bill in the blender and pop on the lid.
3. Blend, liquify, grind the dollar bill til it looks like soup.
4. After the dollar bill is thoroughly “blended”, pour the contents into a ziplock bag and make sure to seal it.
5. Place the magnet in the palm of your hand and place the bag of money soup on top of the magnet. Place your last remaining hand on top of the bag and rock the slurry back and forth in an effort to draw all of the iron to the magnet. Flip your hands over and look closely at the iron that is attracted to the magnet. You can slowly pull the magnet away from the bag to reveal the iron!

Isn’t that neat? The video can be found here.

My son enjoyed this experiment so much he took the contents to school to show his class how he extracted iron from a dollar bill.

**The U.S. Treasury has an unofficial comment on this activity “ As long as you don’t try to spend your ˜liquid money”, you can do whatever you want with your dollar bill, I guess.” So, don’t try to spend the money after you blend it.

Commenters: Amanda, Amanda, Ana, Anna, Heather, Julie, Lisa, Mishie, tracy