Creepy Crawlies and other Cool Stuff

We got some petrie dishes on Amazon a few weeks ago and have been having a lot of fun investigating bugs.  First we got a bunch of ants and watched their behavior for a while.  Fascinating how they circled the dish, found each other and started to work as a team.  They spent long periods of time in a huddle, talking things over.  We also collected grubs, worms, and beetles in various dishes. The most recent one we did with rolly-polly bugs.  Once we'd collected them and observed them in empty dishes, we placed various foods in the dishes to see which would attract their attention the fastest and hold it the longest.

We also placed a wet paper towel one half of the dish and saw if they would stay on the dry side or on the wet.  We made half dark and left the other light to see which they preferred.  If I'd really wanted to make it educational, I'd have had the kids write down all their predictions and findings, but it was some great weather on those days outside and we were just having fun in the mud, so we did it all orally.  Forgot to take pictures too, unfortunately, on all but the last ones.  We'll definitely be doing more again sometime.

Another cool thing we did recently was make a circuit out of lemons that lit up an LED light.  Not a lot of power coursing through those wires, but it was pretty fun to see it light up using nothing more than fruit.  The second pic is without flash, so it's blurry, but you can see the light better.

They'd had so much fun making their marshmallow-toothpick structures a couple weeks ago, that they wanted to do it again.  I thought we'd try a different medium this time and so we used cheese cubes.  Paired with crackers, it made a fun snack and activity.   Although they were so against breaking their structures in order to eat them, that I ended up wasting quite a bit of cheese!  :)

Benjamin had a day off school last week, so we attended a magic show during which the magician did tricks with balloon animals.  Benjamin was fascinated and desperately wanted to make his own.  Here are his first attempts - a pretzel and a dog with no front legs.  Not bad for a beginner, I'd say.  I looked up instructions on line and tried it myself and Bella begged me to give her my first dog balloon creation.  They all stupidly unwound within minutes and were back to being snakes, but it was fun.  I mentioned to Benjamin that he could practice and get good at doing those and make a little money doing it at fairs or places like where he's gotten balloon animals in the past.  "Really?  I could earn money for my balloons?  Let's go sell my pretzel!  I need some money.  Can we go sell my pretzel?  Please?!"  Some how the words "practice" and "get good" passed him by.  I guess it's nice to be confident in one's abilities.