Science@home — Science activities for babies, toddlers & kids

Can You …

December 15, 2011 Activities

For us, our bodies are familiar and generally predictable. We know what we can do, we are confident in our movements. But this is something that babies and children need to learn. For my little drama princesses, getting a camera out is a sure-fire way to get them to try new things Can you kiss your [...]

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.

Star Answers

December 13, 2011 Earth and Beyond

I‘m back! Did you miss me? Turns out that when you have ‘minor surgery’ you should listen to the ‘surgery’ bit and not so much of the ‘minor.’ I’m recovering nicely, but I’m also starting the round of Christmas relative visits with children but without husband, so posts may be irregular. I do remember that [...]

Wordless Wednesday – Budgie’s First Egg

December 7, 2011 Life and Living

When birds first start laying their reproductive system doesn’t always get it together straight away and you can end up with some strange eggs. One of our budgie chicks is starting and she laid an egg without a shell – we’ve had this with a couple of chickens, but you can see how tiny this [...]

Quiz – The Star Edition

December 6, 2011 Earth and Beyond

Twinkle, twinkle, little star. What is the main sequence? Will our sun die as a supernova? Why do stars twinkle? Are the stars in constellations ‘related’? And what do you know about the picture? Answers hopefully on Friday!

Kid Questions: Why do we see the lights after they are switched off?

December 5, 2011 Kid Questions

If you stare at a light for about 30 seconds then turn it off or look away you will still see a light in front of your eyes. This is called an afterimage, or technically a positive afterimage. In the back of your eyes are lots of little cells called cones. When certain types of [...]

Colour Answers

December 2, 2011 Energy and Change

1. We see because our eyes pick up light that has bounced off the things around us. It feels a little backwards, but the colour something appears is the colour it reflects rather than absorbs. A green book would absorb every colour except green and bounce the green back to us. Colour is determined by [...]

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 – A Day

November 30, 2011 Earth and Beyond

This is something I’ve been trying to do for ages, either life gets in the way or the day is deadly boring. Most photos are half an hour apart, the evening gets closer and the last sunset shots are only a couple of minutes. For a camera set up on a tripod there’s a worrying [...]

Quiz – The Colour Edition

November 29, 2011 Energy and Change

Does anyone else find the rainbow song frustrating? Red and yellow and pink and green are not the colours of the rainbow! But there are lots of other interesting things about it. If something appears green, what is it doing to light? Is mixing coloured light the same as mixing paint? For StuffWithThing, are colours [...]