From the category archives:

Energy and Change

Shadow puppets

October 5, 2012 Activities

I‘ve had a soft spot for shadow puppets ever since the big girl was a baby and would get hysterical in the car at night. A little torch shining at her feet or the toys dangling over her and she would stop screaming and happily watch the dancing shadows. I was very disappointed to discover [...]

Wordless Wednesday – Levers

September 26, 2012 Energy and Change

I got a rare chance to play with my girls at the museum. Big girl’s explanation is that they must weigh different amounts, so she was testing it. She did explain why they went up to different heights. And I heroically did not tell her the answer, she can play with it another day.

Straw Rockets

September 21, 2012 Activities

Remember these? I was inspired by Kate at Picklebums, but with our own twist. Because we’re not about the art, we’re about the science. So we didn’t make pretty rockets, we compared all sorts of different materials to see which goes the furthest. On second thoughts, maybe we’re not scientists so much as insanely competitive. And [...]

Take 2 marbles, …

August 17, 2012 Activities

Some spoons, boxes, lids and other small bits and pieces. Clear a hallway or space on the floor. Let the kids go, while they make up weird and bizarre rules about where the marbles have to go and how they have to get there. Science? Well, I suppose you could count the gravity weight comparisons [...]

Frozen Candles

August 10, 2012 Activities

A little while ago we made ice lanterns, remember? Something interesting happened with the tea lights, and led to many more happy burning sessions while the girls worked it out. This is one of the candles from the ice lantern, if you have a look you can see that the top still has a thick, [...]

Wordless Wednesday – More Weird Bathroom Light

August 8, 2012 Energy and Change

Obviously this is reflecting off something round, but we can’t work out what. I thought it was the metal corner strip, but we tried covering it up and the pattern was still there. In fact we seem to have tried covering pretty much everything reflective in the bathroom and we still get these starbursts all [...]

Tossing Pegs

June 14, 2012 Activities

It sounds wrong, but balls are not really the best things to throw. Not unless you want them to bounce, and then they are awesome. But if you are tired of chasing things that hit an angle and head off in a different random direction just as you are about to grab them, balls are [...]

Wordless Wednesday – 7 Super Shots

June 13, 2012 Earth and Beyond

A couple of weeks ago Penny from Wildlife Fun 4 Kids tagged me in 7 Super Shots. I’m not much of a meme girl, but I do like using photos and they’re different prompts to my normal. Plus it was fun going through my thousands of photos, the difficulty was in whittling it down to [...]

Inventing the Wheel

June 11, 2012 Energy and Change

As part of my series on changes in everyday things my husband suggested tyres, which started me looking at iron rims, rubber and pneumatic tyres. And as a title, the obvious has to be that well-known phrase ‘Re-inventing the wheel.’ Except I hate that phrase so much that I got side tracked, and instead this post [...]