From the category archives:

Materials

Singing in the Rain

March 2, 2012 Activities

It’s raining again here. And raining, and raining. So I’m updating a post from over two years ago when I was starting out – it’s still fun today. Firstly – get out there! Before you go, get some towels and nice warm clothes ready and some soup or hot chocolate that can be easily heated. [...]

9 Things to do with Bicarb Soda and Acid

March 1, 2012 Activities

Bicarbonate soda and acid is one of the most common and fun chemical reactions. It’s closely related chemically to an extremely important environmental reaction – calcium carbonate and acid. This is the one where slightly acidic water slowly wears away limestone cliffs, but it is also extremely important to balance in the oceans and the [...]

Checking Out Cheese

February 28, 2012 Food

Cheese is a very early form of food processing to improve storage. Milk is a valuable food because it is an excellent source of protein, energy from both fat and sugars and nutrients like calcium and phosphorus, but it has to be used right away or it spoils. The very first cheeses and yoghurts were [...]

Girly Construction (Boys can do it too)

February 16, 2012 Activities

Sometimes it is brought sharply home to me that I have girls. And not just girls but fairy princesses. I don’t know if this is popular culture or some sort of cosmic payback, because I’m one of the least girly women you could think of. I don’t know if I even own high heels although [...]

Marvellous Marbling

February 2, 2012 Activities

The big girl received an art book for Christmas. Most of it is way too old for her, but she loves picking things out and then we get to work out how to modify them for her. She wanted to try marbling, but we had a few problems to solve so we tried lots of [...]

Engineer’s Report: Gingerbread House

December 22, 2011 Activities

Location: Slab has been well prepared, very smooth and level on a hard substrate. Block is minimum size, house too close to front boundary. Floorplan: A simple rectangle with only one room and firepit in the centre for cooking. Entrance centre front is decorative only, 6 windows give adequate light and ventilation but difficult to [...]

Wordless Wednesday – Rubbings

December 14, 2011 Materials

Do you have any idea how many patterned, textured surfaces you have around your home? Hundreds. Trust me. Obligatory Christmas tie-in – use rubbings to make wrapping paper, just use crayons or pencils on butcher’s paper. Kidlet’s creatively entertained and personalised paper as elaborate as you want.

Grass Weaving

December 1, 2011 Activities

Learning about materials is a good way for little kids to learn about, well, materials. It’s a great start because they are something they know and are familiar with, and they can easily see and feel differences in their own clothes. We are always having discussions about whether clothes will be too hot or too [...]

Wordless Wednesday – Mocktails

November 9, 2011 Materials

Water Answers

November 4, 2011 Earth and Beyond

How much do you know about water? Check back to the quiz for the questions. 1. Generally the solid form of something is heavier than the liquid because it’s packed together more tightly and there’s more in it. But ice is less dense than water, which means for the same volume there are [...]