That’s one of our favourite books and while we don’t collect animals, we do all sorts of other things.  We are enjoying our brief spell of good weather between the rain and scorching heat to walk the big girl to preschool every day.  Which means the little girl and I walk home by ourselves and take our time.  On the first day I picked up lots of branches (this is just the beginning of the haul) so the little one decided that trips home must be about collecting.  And what a collection she has.

I’d love to know what it is that prompts her to pick up some rocks and not others.  The white one in the middle of gravel I get, but others appear to be exactly the same as the rock next to them.  And she’s very caring – rock for me, rock for Mummy, rock for Daddy.  Plus all the leaves, flowers, sticks, and bottle tops.  She’s noticed bits of glass are different to the other rocks, now I want to wash them all and she can see the colours and do some sorting.

Tracks and footprints are great fun too.  We noticed some really fine dirt that took brilliant prints from the pram tyres.  Pull the pram through it,

Admire the tracks,

then mess it up and do it again!

Exploration, observation and experimentation doesn’t have to mean going to a park or reserve.  It can be as simple as taking your time on a walk around the block or putting your baby in a different area of the garden.

So we all play with lots of solids all the time – rice, textures, stones, playdough, even leaves.  But for some reason (um, mess maybe?) we don’t tend to play with liquids as much.  So it’s something new for babies, and it really makes kids feel like little chemists.  I touched on some when we were playing with colour, here are some other ideas of ways to play with liquids.

1. Dissolving – sugar and salt are both good and you can play with mixing, crystal size and using hot water.
2. Detergent – Put some in a bottle with water and shake it up for babies, or even better in a large bowl and use an egg beater for toddlers.
3. Make layers – lots of liquids don’t mix and will make layers if you pour them in carefully.  Oil and water is and easy one, but try coloured salt water as well.  This is another one you can put in a bottle for older babies, especially if you use coloured water.
4. Sparkling water – come on, don’t you want to?  We have a soda stream which is the best, but soda water from the shop is good too.  Put some in a little popper bottle, take it outside, shake it up and have fun!
5. Squash it – It’s quite easy to get hold of syringes, either through a pharmacy or with lots of children’s medicines.  Big ones work best for this.  Fill it with water and squeeze the plunger, either with your finger over the end or otherwise closing it.  You can actually squash the water a little bit (and then shoot it everywhere).
6. Drips or shots? – use an eye-dropper or syringe to drip water onto a cloth, it usually forms balls and can run over the surface rather than soaking in.  Then try shooting it quickly.
7. Vinegar – Pour vinegar over some bicarb soda for lots of fun
8. Vinegar (again) – put a chicken bone in vinegar for a few days and it will come out bendy!  (Must do this one for the blog.)
9. Toothpaste – Squeeze some into a clear container with a lid, then shake and see what happens.  Try adding some water and making a lather.
10. Conditioner – try it on wool, cotton and other threads to see what it does.
11. Glues – there are so many different glues to compare, they are great fun to experiment with.  Some easy ones to find or make are paste (Clag), clear gum, PVA (white glue) and flour paste then there are two part glues that need to be mixed and hot glue.  You can compare the look, smell, feel and drying time, try gluing different materials and see which ones are easy to work with.
12. Paint – Squishing finger paint is so much fun!  Plus there are two types of homemade paint I’ve seen around the bloggy world we’ll be trying – puff paint over at Bilbified and homemade flour paint coloured with food from Stuff with Thing.
13. Goo – I really want to do cornflour goo on Science@home.  Really, really want to.  Unfortunately it only works with real cornflour made from corn, and the only brand I can get is ‘wheaten’ cornflour, which means wheat.  So you’ll just have to go out and make it on your own and tell me all about it.  And if you do manage it, let me know what brand and where you got it (in Australia, I don’t think customs would let us ship it in from overseas)!  Good for babies to squish if you make it up a bit thicker.

Have fun!

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It is, in fact, the most amazing scent.  We walk past this bush every day and it is enough to stop you in your tracks and make you breathe deeply to fully enjoy the lovely smell.  I thought I’d share with you – just reach forward and scratch your computer screen.  Isn’t that gorgeous?

I’d love to know what it is if there are any botanists or gardeners out there, here are some closeups:

Even some ideas so I know what to Google would be good, ‘white flowers’ doesn’t get me very far!  Thanks

This post is part of the Childhood 101 We Play linkup.  We are huge fans of homemade toys, although that doesn’t stop us having far too many of the shop bought ones as well!  And the simpler the toy, the more kids get to think about what to do with it, rather than doing what it tells them to.  For the last week our best bath toys were a packet of ping pong balls and an old bottle.

The girls have been having a great time with the balls, watching them float, moving the water to move the balls in the current, pulling them under then letting them bob back up and throwing them down into the water.  They remembered some of the games from playing in the pool earlier in the year and had fun trying them again inside.

And then the old bottle wasn’t just a bottle with the top cut off – it also had holes punched in the bottom!

And did you know ping pong balls are exactly the right size

to fit in your mouth

and shoot!  Their aim is actually quite good.

What sort of simple toys do you make at home?

Professor Ian Frazer is originally from Scotland, where he studied medicine.  He moved to Australia to do research in immunology, and helped confirm that HIV was the cause of AIDS.  He was involved in the discovery that Human Papillomavirus (HPV) was causing precancerous changes in cells, and is one of the causes of cervical cancer, as well as anal, vulvar, penile and throat cancers.  Worldwide, cervical cancer is the 5th most deadly cancer for women, it is estimated that there are 473,000 cases of cervical cancer and 253,500 deaths per year.  Unfortunately HPV can only be grown in living tissue, but Frazer’s team managed to combine two proteins to create a virus-like particle which the immune system will react to, leading to the development of a vaccine for some strains of HPV.  In other words, the HPV vaccine cannot infect anyone because it does not contain any virus, it is monitored in Australia and is a safe vaccine.  These achievements led to him being named 2006 Australian of the Year and over 20 other science awards.

What do you actually do all day?

About half of my time is spent talking about science with my students, and the members of my research team, and looking at their results with them. The rest of the time I’m writing papers about our research, grant applications to get more money for our research, and being an administrator of the institute I direct.

Do you have memories of science as a child?  Doing it or reading about/watching it?

In childhood, somewhere, I picked up this real interest in infectious diseases and how we got rid of them. And it’s difficult to actually pin down where that came from, but there were certainly a number of experiences along the way of my contemporaries at school who had had infectious disease.   I was fascinated by the study of science at school – I just liked finding out how things worked, and eventually how we work!

Why did you choose to go into science as a career?

My parents were Medical Researchers.  I was  interested in physics and how the world and the universe worked on a large scale – however I realized that biology was equally interesting on the small scale through the work that they did,  and the challenges posed by health problems.  I changed my university studies from Physics to Medicine largely because biology seemed a more interesting science and medicine a more secure career option.

Who are/were your role models in science?

Gus Nossal and Peter Doherty [Both immunologists and Australian Living Treasures.  Peter Doherty won the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery with Rolf Zinkernagel of how T cells recognize their target antigens in combination with major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins.]

What is one thing you would like to teach all children?

We learn about how the world works and about how to solve problems by doing research and experiments, not by guessing!

Thank you Professor Frazer.  I love what you would like to teach people, the 99% perspiration that actually makes things work.

Thanks to everyone who entered, I’m glad because they are gorgeous books!  Our two winners chosen by Random.org are:

Cassie Thompson

and

Zoe at Playing By the Book

I will be emailing you and sending the books off this week.

A couple of weeks ago my husband got me an iPhone.  I was resistant, sure my mobile was held together with MacGuyver tape and only lasted 30 seconds if not plugged in (making it pretty immobile), but I only use it when we’re on holidays so he can phone me when we’re separated.  He pointed out that the immobility issue meant I had to stay home for it to work, so he didn’t care what I thought he was getting me an iPhone.

But I wasn’t going to put any apps on.  Or only boring ones like Twitter, Facebook and banking.  Because I live in the middle of nowhere and don’t need most of it, and I’m definitely not putting games on.  I procrastinate enough as it is.

Two days later the lovely Vito Technology contacted me and asked me to try two of their apps and run a giveaway on them.  Oh dear.  You mean there are educational apps?  Lock up my credit card.

So I downloaded iTunes (seriously, I hadn’t even got that yet, what sort of blogger am I?) and found Star Walk and Solar Walk.  They are AU$3.99 each, and after playing with them for a week my review is Buy Them.  Now.  I am in luuurve.  And so is the 4 year old, and given the temperature outside at night right now that’s as good a recommendation as anything you can imagine.  There are versions for iPhone 3G/3GS and 4 and iPad.

Imagine being outside, lifting your phone and having it show you all the stars above you with labels.  Move it around and the view changes to match whatever you are pointing at.  You think one is interesting, so you tap on it to zoom in, tap the information tab and get its vital statistics in as much, sometimes more detail than an astronomy book.  (This works with 3GS, it needs the magnetometer to work out where you are pointing.)  Tap on the time control and see the sky moving above you as you scroll through the hours, days or even years.  Tap the location button and the view flips to earth, it will track your own location or you can choose anywhere you want and see what the sky looks like there.  Or use the time control again and see the day/night divide sweep across the earth.

Interested in a particular constellation or star?  It will find it for you and show you the star map, including compass points and the horizon to help you find it.  And then there are the little details – background music, stunning astronomy photo of the day (like the beautiful spiral galaxy at the top) and the ability to bookmark, tweet, or send to Facebook or email.  Rising and setting times for the sun, moon and planets and the phases of the moon, for today or you can check the future or past.  Night mode, which switches to a dim red screen to protect your eyes in the dark, and an adjustable slider so it only shows the stars you can actually see.

This is a bookmarked view, to actually spot stars you can turn the constellations off, turn them red and get rid of everything you can’t actually see.  The dotted line is the ecliptic, the sun, moon and planets are all found near it.

We have been going outside every night and the big girl can now identify the Milky Way, Southern Cross and pointers on her own.  She knows they are suns a long way away.  Even better, we have spotted Venus, just above it is Mars which is noticeably red, and just above that is Saturn, and she gets that they are planets moving around the sun like Earth is. How did a 4 year old get that so easily?  Well that’s where Solar Walk comes in.

Solar Walk is an interactive, moveable, 3D book about the solar system on your phone.  Tap on a planet, it’s there.  Move it to any angle, investigate its moons, watch it over the days or years, get the information.  See the whole solar system laid out before you, moving, and zoom in on the bit you want.  Watch the earth move over the years and see the change in axis that causes the seasons.  Use 3D glasses for real 3D or beautifully detailed 2D pictures.  Move the solar system to whatever angle you want to see from above, below, or see the planets moving past you.  Zoom out to Neptune and look back towards the sun, seeing the other planets dancing back and forth.  I could (have!) spend hours on here, as much information as any child or amateur would need but the ability to reach in and move the planets.  Galileo would be in heaven.  The big girl is fascinated by the fact that she can see red Mars spinning on the phone then look up and see it looks red with her own eyes, we’ve even dug my small telescope out to have a look at the moon.

And I have opportunities for you to play too, with 3 prizes here and a big one over at Vito Technology.  To enter here, comment and tell me about something you do with your kids to introduce them to the night sky.  Best will be judged by my family, whichever makes them go ‘Yeah!  Can we do that?’ the most enthusiastically.  It will get one of the T-shirts shown here plus $20 credit at the iTunes store.  There are two more T-shirts, which will go to two comments chosen at random.  Giveaway closes on Saturday 31st July.

The big prize over at the Vito Technology blog is an iPod Touch plus lots of smaller prizes.  Details are here, but you need to write about your own stargazing experiences either on your blog, Facebook or other social media.  It looks like lots of fun, they have tips and ideas as well.

One of the things babies and little kids need to learn about is that things don’t always stay the same, they change over time (and can even change back again).  It’s something we’re so used to we don’t really notice any more, but it’s all new to them!  Some of these are things you can play with, some are just to be aware of and point out, but here are some things that kids can observe change over time.

Light -

1. Day and night.
2. Shadows.

Temperature -

3. Over a day, take note of what clothes they are wearing.
4. Over the year.
5. Melting ice (or icecream )
6. Cooking, especially if they help make it.

Living things -

7. Flowers or plants growing.
8. Silkworms.

Electricity -

9. On and off switches.

Sound -

10. Follow a tune going up and down.
11. Play with their own voice going loud and soft.
12. Play with nonsense syllables and feel their mouth change, E I E I O.
13. Change with movement, listen as cars get closer and go past.

This is a lovely natural materials playground at Kings Park in Perth.  The girls had a great time scrambling over the rocks, investigating the giant carved insects and running through the tunnels.

Don’t forget I’m playing Guess What? with a related photo over on Facebook, the prize this week is some catchable bubble mix for the first person to correctly identify the snippet there.  Full photo and answer posted there on Thursday.

Isn’t he gorgeous?

He’s actually rated for 6+ but it made a fantastic collaborative activity for the three girls when Daddy went back to work!  He started as two pieces of plywood with shapes cut out and a sheet of paper with maps and numbers.  The big girl found all sorts of numbers and noticed a pattern – did you know that 25, 26, 27 and 28 are the same order as counting 5, 6, 7, 8 but they all have a 2 in front?  She was very quick finding the pieces on the wood from the map too.  They were well punched and easy for both girls to be able to push out and we took turns putting them together.  Then they decided they wanted to paint the pieces and I took the opportunity to put a few spots of glue in and make it a bit more stable.

As well as all that maths and fine motor skills, it was good to have an opportunity to just sit together and talk.  The big girl has done a bit on dinosaurs before so she was chatting away about them.  She also knows a little bit about skeletons and was asking about bones so we all felt each other’s necks and compared them to the dinosaur.  They both had a ball.

A great little activity to do together, they were very proud of their dinosaur and excited about their special ‘Girl Time’. This post is for the We Play linkup at Childhood 101, check out the other great play ideas there.