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The Tipi

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Julie @ Creekside Learning

Welcome to our tipi, source of many hours of great, imaginative play. It is a house, a store, a farm a campsite and so much more. And the tipi didn’t cost anything. It sits between our fence and our neighbor’s and soon, when Spring has fully sprung, it will be hidden by the leaves of the trees and bushes that surround it, making it even more of a wonderful, secret play space.

The kids and I hauled the thick branches out of the woods behind our house last fall, and a taller and more nature/survival skills savvy friend put it together. The branches are propped securely up against each other and some garden twine ties them together at the top. It’s quite solid. It has survived months of play with three kids and their friends constantly in and out of it. It has survived windy storms that knocked over the base of our weighted basketball net. But the tipi still stands.

The kids rolled and hauled thick logs out of the woods to sit on. They hauled various other logs for their pretend fire pit. They’ve cleared brush that was blocking their access to the woods and swept a path, along which they skip and run and gather more treasures out of the woods: stones and nuts and sticks and such.

They make land art out of their findings:

They play endless games. One area is a row of horse stalls. It looks like branches on the ground to me so when I accidentally step in it, they correct me, “No, Mommy, that’s for the horses.”

Another area is the parking lot:

Their latest idea? Landscaping. They’ve asked if they can plant some flowers around the tipi. So we’ll be in search of some shade-loving plants to add to the beauty of this wonderful play space.

For more great outdoor play ideas, click here.
Linky Parties where I frequently hang out.

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Posted in creative play, Early Elementary Years, Learning Spaces, nature | 18 Comments

It’s a Pinning Party

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Julie @ Creekside Learning

We’ve begun to build up our fabulous collaborative Pinterest boards, to share even more wonderful hands-on history, science and literature activities with you all.

My Pinning Friends have been quite busy. Please check out our boards and see what we’ve put up there, follow us via Pinterest, and take a moment to “like” each board at the top of each Pinterest page to share with your friends on facebook so we can spread the word.

Please do stop by and visit these terrific momma bloggers who have been pinning away with learning ideas:

Alex at Canadian Home Learning
Samantha at Color Wheel Meals
Sarah at Delivering Grace
Julie at The Adventures of Bear
Sierra at H is for Homeschooling
Tasha at Leaving a Trail in the Mud
Megan at Let Children Play
Alicia at Magic and Mayhem
Rachel at Momma Owl’s Lab
Dana at Noggins and Nonsense
Theresa at Red Oak Lane
Liz at Smithical
Eddie at The Usual Mayhem

We need more bloggers with great ideas to pin hands-on science, history and literature activities. If you blog about these topics and you’d like to put them on our collaborative Pinterest boards, let me know by leaving a comment or emailing me at creeksidelearn at gmail dot com.

New to Pinterest? Need an invitation? We can do that, too. Just say the word.

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Posted in American History, Ancient History, blogging, Early Elementary Years, hands-on history, homeschooling, kindergarten, learning to read, literature-based learning, preschool, science | 7 Comments

Wonderful Outdoor Fun

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Julie @ Creekside Learning

I love this picture of Love Bug,
my little 3 year old,
trying to keep up with his brother and sister
on a hike through the woods.
Spring starting to open little leaves and buds.
An unseasonably warm day.

We’ve had lots of these days lately
and it has been so wonderful.
It puts us all in some pretty darn good moods.

Posted in homeschooling, Learning Spaces, nature, why we homeschool | 2 Comments

Countdown Paper Chain

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Julie @ Creekside Learning

My daughter is about to turn 6 and she has asked me no less than 400 times, “How many more days ’til my birthday, Mommy?” She is over the moon about her upcoming birthday party. So today we made a countdown paper chain.

We used a calendar to count the days from today until her birthday. Then she counted out the same number of strips of paper. She decided to link them in a pattern, alternating the two colors.

We hung up the chain and then removed one link for today. Tomorrow we will remove another link, and one the next day, and so on. If we counted correctly, there should be only one link left on the day of her birthday. This also means her little brother will not have gotten to it by then either. No guarantees. I think I will write numbers on them in descending order. That way, she can know each day exactly how many days are left until her party.

We may use this as well, in the future, to countdown to holidays and other important events.

Linking up here.

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Posted in kindergarten, math, preschool | 6 Comments

The Leprechauns Were Here!

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Julie @ Creekside Learning

We had a bit ‘o fun this morning when we woke up to discover that leprechauns had visited our house. A tad early for St. Patrick’s Day, but the tricksters must’ve known the O’Creekside Family is going to be a wee bit busy on the 17th.

The Creek Kids awoke to find their dressers ransacked and underwear strewn about their bedrooms, their shoes up high in odd places, chairs overturned at the dining room table and more.

The leprechauns weren’t fooled by the traps the kids had set but they left a note and some chocolate gold coins for each child.

The note said:

To me lad/lass [child's name]-
I’m sorry for all the mischief and trouble
But I had to leave in a hurry–on the double,
For me fellow leprechauns and I
Have many more tricks to play by and by.
I’m wise to your trap, though it is quite spiffy.
Here’s some gold for you, gotta run in a jiffy.
Me lad/lass, you are clever, but try again next year,
To catch a leprechaun, from far or from near.
Signed,
Colin McDoogle

Or Patrick Finnegan, or Lucky O’Reilly. The name was different on each child’s letter and was personalized with their name and lad or lass.

The funny part is, our house is kind of messy, so the kids keep noticing things and thinking the leprechauns did it: ”Look, the leprechauns left a giant pile of laundry over here!” and “Look, the leprechauns scattered our toys all over the living room!”

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Fantastic Linky Parties I Link Up With.

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Posted in Early Elementary Years, holidays, kindergarten | 5 Comments

Catching Leprechauns

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Julie @ Creekside Learning

We had so much fun today, making leprechaun traps and pots of gold.

This is The Queen Bee’s Leprechaun Trap. I helped her cover a shoe box in green construction paper. She went out and collected sticks and we hot-glued them into a ladder.

This is Firefly’s Leprechaun Trap. He broke out the pirate’s gold leftover from a birthday party.

I spray painted some pennies and some little Halloween cauldrons with gold paint. Please ignore the spider decorations on the cauldrons. The kids decided that Leprechauns are brave and won’t be scared of the spiders.

Now each child has a pot of Leprechaun gold. The Queen Bee asked me to hot-glue some of her gold pennies to the top of her Leprechaun trap.

The Queen Bee decorates her Leprechaun trap.

Firefly hot-glues his popsicle-stick ladder.

Math games with the gold. Here Firefly is dividing the coins evenly between cauldrons. We then used them for simple addition for my 5-year-old.

See what happened when the Leprechauns payed us a visit, leaving a special note for each child.

For more great ideas, click over to these Linky Parties, where I share my learning ideas.

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Posted in art projects, creative play, Early Elementary Years, holidays, kindergarten, preschool | 6 Comments

Our Version of Me-On-The-Map

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Julie @ Creekside Learning

I loved the idea of a Me-on-the-Map Project for my 5 year old, to help her understand the order and place of things, from herself to her house, street, town and so on, right up to the solar system. Most of the projects I’d seen were made with concentric circles or ovals but I decided it would be easier to cut concentric rectangles. I cut an inch or so off of some colorful 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock, and then two inches off of the next sheet, then three and so on.

I pre-printed pictures of our state, country, continent, planet and solar system, but had her draw our house, street, and city.

When we finished glueing and drawing, we reviewed the order, then put the cards on the table and mixed them up. I had her put them in the right order before we inserted a brad through all of them to hold them together. I also had her review the project with Daddy after dinner to see if she really understood why things were in that particular order.

There are lots of ways to do this project and I’ve pinned a number of inspiring ones on my Kindergarten Pinterest Board.

Here’s where I link up, hang out, and get more great ideas.

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Posted in geography, homeschooling, kindergarten | 13 Comments

Solving the Stinky Laundry Problem

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Julie @ Creekside Learning

Guess what? I just solved my stinky washing machine problem.

“Um, isn’t this a homeschooling blog?”, you ask.

“Yes, but we are on Spring Break. And my washer has been stinking, so today I decided to get to the bottom of this problem while the kids played ‘fort’ and video games in their pajamas all morning.”

So, I have a top-loading high-efficiency washer. You are supposed to clean it with a specific brand of tablet cleaning thingies whenever a light comes on and tells you “Clean With XYZ Brand Tablets”. Well, the problem with the tablets is…

(a) They are freaking expensive. And,
(b) They don’t sell them at the grocery stores or Target, which is insane, so I have to go to Home Depot. For high-efficiency washing machine cleaning tablets. There is nothing efficient about that. And,
(c) They’re freaking expensive. No one seems to make a less expensive version of them, either. What’s up with that?

So, I figured since vinegar and baking soda clean everything else so well, why not see if they would clean my washer which was getting stinkier by the day and making my family’s clean clothes smell to the point of which even my children noticed (you know that is serious, if the kids even notice).

I poured the vinegar into the soap dispenser of the machine and also into the bottom of the basin. I used about 2 cups total. Then I turned the washing machine on the “Clean Washer” setting.

After that cycle finished, I sprinkled baking soda around the bottom of the basin and ran a regular wash cycle with hot water. I used about a half a cup of baking soda.

And, guess what? No more stinky clothes! No more stinky machine! It worked.

I have no idea if smaller amounts of vinegar and baking soda would do the trick but I’ll be experimenting on that next.

And here’s a little trick I used to get the stinky smell out of the clean clothes without having to re-wash three loads of ”clean” laundry. I took a wash cloth and sprinkled a few drops of tea tree essential oil on it and threw it in the dryer with a load of clothes. Took the smell right out. I refreshened the wash cloth with a few more drops for each load. The laundry didn’t smell like tea tree oil when it came out of the dryer but it didn’t smell stinky anymore either. It just smelled clean. I experimented with lavender essential oil and that didn’t work. The clothes still smelled stinky. So tea tree oil is definitely the way to go.

And, now back to your regular homeschooling blog topics. I’m off to put away our clean, non-stinky laundry.

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Posted in Home Organization, life | 11 Comments

Teaching My Kindergartener to Read

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Julie @ Creekside Learning

Here’s what’s working for us. The Word Wall. It all started with Fancy Nancy. We started to make fancy word cards of the words my daughter could read. Then she took it and ran with it. She started making cards all the time and adding them to her Word wall.

Sometimes she would forget what the words were or how to pronounce them but we would go over them together, a few at a time. Big smiles and high fives and “Wow, you just read that word!” and, her favorite, “Let me kiss your brain!”, followed by a kiss on the head, which is totally cool when you see the lightbulb go on for your child.

So then, I pulled out my copy of The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading. This book is not flashy. It is not fancy. And The Queen Bee, she likes fancy, so I decided to copy one of the lessons into our own fancy reading notebook. We reviewed the lesson one day over “tea”. But she didn’t seem too excited about that. Until I told her she could make cards for her wall out of the words and check them off in the notebook. Off we go again! The word wall grew and grew.

Learning to read at tea time didn't capture my daughter's attention, but maybe it will work for other kids.

The "Reading Time With Mommy" notebook was a hit, however, when combined with the Word Wall. She can check off the words with her fancy pen as we add them to a card on our Word Wall.

Sometimes she wants me to write the words on the cards and she checks them off in the notebook. Sometimes it is the other way around.

Then I decided to introduce her to sentence strips, since she was reading not just words, but whole sentences. Now she has a Sentence Wall (or glass door as the case may be) in addition to the Word Wall. I cut strips of colored paper and she writes the sentences from the notebook, makes up her own, asks me to make some up and so on.

Then she gets out her trusty blue painter’s tape (I really should own stock in whichever company makes this kind of tape, the way my kids go through it) and puts the strips and cards up.

I have to remind myself to keep this fun for her, to not correct her writing. This isn’t handwriting after all. If she writes in all capitals or a combination of capitals and lowercase, fine, whatever. Sometimes she leaves a letter out. I gently remind her but if she insists this is how to spell the word, I let it go. This is about loving to read and she is so excited about it. And that’s what’s important.

"Pat the fat cat." One of the many sentence strips we've made.

Here’s the other thing I try to remember. She wasn’t ready for this a few months back. No matter what I did, she wasn’t interested in reading beyond the basic Bob books she had mastered.

I decided not to push, as I’d done with her older brother. I know now that I let my own anxiety about the fact that he was not reading on the same level as many of his peers influence my approach. And I pushed. And we struggled. Until I finally backed off.

Well, good for him, he learned to read anyway, but on his own time table. Now he’s reading as well as his peers and his reading comprehension is amazing. It is not because of me that he can do this. It is because, when he was ready, he learned to read. It was not because I pushed.

Supplies at the ready: cards for words, strips for sentences, a pencil and painter's tape to protect my walls.

And, so, with my daughter, we go wild with reading when she wants to and take a break when she moves on to something else.

Here’s where I link up my posts and get more great learning ideas.

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Posted in homeschooling, kindergarten, learning to read | 19 Comments

Farewell Google Friend Connect

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Julie @ Creekside Learning

Google Friend Connect is going away. Google has decided to retire the service as of March 1, 2012 on all non-Blogger sites. Since mine is a WordPress blog, I’m highlighting the other ways in which my Google Friend Connect followers can continue to get Creekside Learning updates:

Fellow bloggers, if you use GFC on your site, Google is hoping you will now display the Google+ badge on your site and use the G+ features like Circles and Hangouts to connect with your followers. Much has been written about the drudgery of adding yet another social network to our already very full plates, however it’s worth considering and here’s why. Google is going to prioritize content on G+ in it’s searches. That means if you get a lot of traffic to your blog via search engines, your blog/website will appear higher up in the search results if your content was featured publicly on your G+ account.

I’ve just begun to use G+ so my page isn’t very fancy yet. But it seems worth the effort to add it to my on-line time. Feel free to add me to your circles and let me know if you are there as well, and I’ll add you. Bloggers helping bloggers. It’s a beautiful thing.

Posted in blogging | 3 Comments

Why You Should Use and Follow Collaborative Pinterest Boards

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Julie @ Creekside Learning

Hold onto your socks. I am going to attempt to write a post that is both directed at blogging and non-blogging readers. I am talking about readers who use Pinterest, readers who are hopelessly addicted to Pinterest (me), readers who want to use Pinterest, and readers who don’t at all get what is the big deal about Pinterest. Hang in there with me, ok? I promise I’ll be brief. Briefish, anyway.

Pinterest is big and getting bigger. It’s grown faster than Facebook and Twitter did in a very short amount of time. The latest use: Collaborative Pinterest Boards.

What are collaborative boards?
Pinterest boards where a group of people can add pins, rather than just one person.

Why pin on collaborative boards?
When you pin your blog posts on collaborative boards, you gain Pinterest followers and, when people click through, blog readers. In addition to the Pinterest followers you already have following all of your boards, you get the ones who are following the collaborative board. There’s a collaborative board I’ve recently started following. It has quickly grown to 90+ pinners and over 260,000 people following it. Wow, right? Even when other people pin my stuff there, I get significant traffic to my blog. Worth paying attention to, I think.

Another way collaborative boards increase growth, is that all the pinners can use their social networking venues of choice to promote the board: Twitter, Facebook, G+ it to your followers, or mention it on your blog, and the board will grow. As it grows, it brings more followers to your blog. Not to mention all the great ideas that are are on the pins from fellow bloggers.

Why follow collaborative boards on Pinterest?
You’re not a blogger but you’ve stuck with me and you’re still reading this post, although you may be starting to ask yourself why. Thanks for hanging in there. So, you’re on Pinterest, you’re looking for learning ideas for your kids or crafty things to make or whatever interests you. Here are a bunch of great ideas all in one place. They’re grouped by subject so if you’re really in need of say, photography tips or teaching your kids about science, you follow a board that is exactly about that. And there you have it. Tons of new ideas. And lots of fresh pins being added all the time.

So, guess what? I’ve created some collaborative Pinterest boards for the stuff I most passionately blog about.

The Hands-On Science board. Step out of text books and into experiments, nature studies, projects, great resources and much more with our pre-K to 4th grade kiddos.

The Hands-On History board. Terrific ideas for moving off the workbook pages and showing kids how to literally get their “hands on history”. Engaging our K-4 learners via projects, resources, activities, field trips, and more.

The Learning with Literature board. Ideas on how to learn from wonderful childrens’ books. Crafts, projects, activities and much more based on popular children’s literature with our pre-K to 4th grade kiddos. Think Fancy Nancy, Harry Potter, Pinkalicious, Goodnight Moon, Curious George and so many more.

Want to join me in pinning? Let me know how to find you on Pinterest and I’ll add you. You can pin older posts as well as newer ones, as long as they are relevant to the board.

Want to follow the boards? Just click through on the link and click “follow”. And then, if you would be so kind, share with your friends via Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or wherever you hang out.

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Posted in blogging, hands-on history, literature-based learning, science | 12 Comments

Just Daddy and Me

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Julie @ Creekside Learning

The Queen Bee doesn’t often get Daddy all to herself, but last weekend they got to make a bird feeder together. She was so happy to do a project, just her and Daddy. She proudly tells everyone from her dance teacher to her friends about her bird feeder project. And she watches it intently, waiting for the birds to come and eat.

Linking up with:

Posted in life, love, Parenting | 4 Comments

Two Ways to Make a Comet

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Julie @ Creekside Learning

We’re learning about comets this week in our Astronomy curriculum so I thought it would be fun to make some. These are really two separate projects. Do one or the other, or both.

Project #1: Make a model of a comet with a ball, garbage bag, streamers and glow sticks and have fun flying it around in space (i.e., the dark)!

Project #2: Make a model of a comet with ice and sand to get a feel for what comets are really made out of.

1. Lay a garbage bag out and trace a large circle in the center.

PROJECT #1
What you’ll need:

garbage bag
scissors
plate or circular object
marker
ribbon, yarn or both
glow sticks (try the dollar store)
ball or other round object about the size of a baseball

2. Cut strips from the edge of the garbage bag to the edge of the circle to make the streaming tail of your comet.

3. Cut various lengths or ribbon and/or yarn to add more to your comet's tail.

4. Place ball in center of circle.

5. Tie a piece of ribbon or yarn tightly to secure the ball inside the garbage bag. Now you have a comet. Or a ghost with a pretty ribbon tied around it's neck. Either one. The important thing is, the kids will believe it is a comet and will be very excited about it.

6. Tie on the rest of your ribbons and yarn. If you use curling ribbon you can curl it to make more swirls, just like a real comet tail.

While the kids worked on this project, I read to them about comets from The Usborne Book of Astronomy and Space.

We learned about the nucleus of the comet, which is like a dirty, icy snowball, and the tail of the comet, which features swirls and twists of color as the comet’s gases burn up as it gets closer to the sun.

We also searched on the internet for “video of comet” and found a few things. Some were a bit lengthy but the important thing is that the kids got to see some video of actual comets.

We used the internet links in the Usborne book to learn even more about comets.

And when darkness came, we were ready to take them for a space flight. It was an amazingly warm night for February so we went out in the driveway to test them out.

7. Attach glow sticks. We used clear packing tape and taped them to the streamers. Lastly, snap the glow sticks so that they start glowing. Then you're ready to make them fly in the dark.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get any good pictures of them flying at night, all lit up. They just looked like blurs of light. But the kids had fun.

They were zinging them up and down the driveway for a while. This was also a good time to take note of the night sky. We are usually so busy getting everybody ready for bed and wrapping up our day, that we don’t often get to stand around outside and gaze up at the amazing night sky. I was glad we got to do this tonight. We spotted a gorgeous crescent moon, some constellations and even a planet, which we are pretty sure was Jupiter.

Then the kids went to bed with their new creations to enjoy the glow-in-the-dark comets until they drifted off to sleep.

Project #2: Make a comet nucleus.

1. You'll need a bowl of crushed ice...

...some sand...

...gloves or mittens and a surface to work on.

2. Put some crushed ice and sand onto your work surface and mix it up. Add some water to fuse the ice together.

3. Scoop it into a bowl and pour some more water over top. Not much, just enough to fuse it all together. Then stick it in the freezer for a couple of hours.

4. Finally, remove from freezer, dip the bowl into a larger bowl of warm water to loosen it. Turn it upside down and your comet nucleus should pop right out.

Unless you have actual snow and dirty ice around that you can scoop up and play with, here is how you can make some to create a small version of a comet.

This was a great sensory activity for my kids, who range in age from 3 to nearly 8. They spent a lot of time mixing and molding the ice and sand mixture into the bowls, touching the cold ice and the gritty sand. We talked about how this was just a very tiny version compared to a real comet.

Next up in our astronomy studies: The Stars.

Linking up with these fabulous blogs.

Follow my new Collaborative Pinterest board for more Hands-On Science ideas. If you blog about science, you can pin with us, too. Contact me for more info.

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Posted in Early Elementary Years, homeschooling, kindergarten, science | 11 Comments

Resources for Learning About Ancient Greece

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Julie @ Creekside Learning

We are gearing up to learn about ancient Greece over the next several weeks. I’ll be posting about the activities that we do, but thought that first I’d share the books and resources that we will be using.

First, we plan to learn about the wonderful Greek myths. For this, we will use the classic D’Aulatires’ Book of Greek Myths as well as Usborne Greek Myths for Young Children. We will accompany that with the Dover coloring book on Greek Gods and Goddesses.

As we delve deeper into what life was like in ancient Greece, we will use two books that I really like a lot. A Visitor’s Guide to the Ancient World by Lesley Sims reads like a Fodors-type tour guide, detailing via text and illustrations, what exactly one could expect to experience if they were traveling in the ancient world: what to wear, what to eat, where to stay, what the local customs are, etc.

I Wonder Why…Greeks Built Temples and other Questions About Ancient Greece is another great resource, full of picture and descriptions about the whys of ancient Greece: What did Greeks have for breakfast? What did girls do all day? Who discovered that the Earth was round? Why were the Olympics held? and so on.

And we have been loving History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations for all of the wonderful hands-on projects in provides, so I am excited to get to the ancient Greek projects in this book.

And we will continue to use our main texts, Story of the World and it’s accompanying Activity Book, as well as the Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History. We’ve also been getting a lot out of DK’s Atlas of World History. This large book is full of historical maps, which we’ve been tracing with tracing paper, giving us a good understanding of the lay of the land back in ancient times. There is also a lot of very interesting accompanying information about cultures, wars, and historical facts.

So look for my posts with lots of hands-on activities coming soon on Ancient Greece. I’ll also be pinning along with my fellow bloggers on the new Collaborative Pinterest pin board, Hands-On History. If your kiddos like to learn via projects, activities, field trips and more, this pin board is a great way to get ideas for keeping historical learning fun and exciting for your early elementary students.

If you are a blogger who blogs about fun hands-on history projects and you’d like to join our collaborative pin board, let me know. The more the merrier!

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Posted in Ancient History, Early Elementary Years, hands-on history, History Odyssey, homeschooling, kindergarten, Story of the World | Tagged ancient Greece, Greek Myths, history pockets | 1 Comment

Easy Volcano Experiment

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Julie @ Creekside Learning

Lava!

We made the easiest, fastest, most fun volcano experiment in our kitchen today. It was so easy, we made many volcanoes, again and again.

Now by easy and fast, I am not referring to the volcano experiment we did earlier this week that resulted in broken glass, a brief roaring of flames on the stove burner, and melted wax as well as sand all over my stove. No, no, I am not referring to the experiment that my kids keep relaying to every non-homeschooling stranger we run into. About how Mommy almost caught the kitchen on fire with the volcano experiment, thus reinforcing any thoughts they may be having about those darn homeschoolers not being qualified to teach. More on that later.

Anyway, here is all you need:

Vinegar, 5 tablespoons
Water, 1/3 cup
Baking soda, 4 teaspoons
Dishwashing liquid, 2 teaspoons (more if you want extra foam)
Red food coloring (optional, if you want to make the lava look more authentic), 3 drops

Add the baking soda and dishwashing liquid to the water. Don’t even need to stir.
In a separate container, add the vinegar and red food coloring.
Pour the vinegar mixture into the baking soda mixture. Instant lava.

Cool, right? Now here’s the one that wasn’t cool. I kept seeing this “volcano in a teacup thing” made from a layer of wax, a layer of sand and then water, on Pinterest. Darn it, Pinterest.

Well, it started out all right.

Anyway, supposedly, you heat the glass tea cup or container and it melts the wax, builds pressure, then sends little surges of melted wax through the sand and up to the surface of the water, looking like lava erupting from a volcano. I searched for more specific instructions on line, such as how much wax? How much sand and water? I found a single YouTube video with some instructions typed in the comments. That was it. It should have been my first clue.

Well, despite my efforts to not let the jar get to hot and break—it broke. Melted wax, sand and water gushed everywhere. I think I felt the way villagers must’ve felt when a volcano suddenly erupted without warning. The gas stove burner made a big flame for an instant.

And then things went horribly awry.

The kids saw fire and panicked, even though the fire went away as soon as I turned the burner off. Too late. One kid was already running upstairs to get his most prized posessions, ready to evacuate. Another kid was running around screaming, “Call 911!” The little one started inquiring about, “When da firemans gonna get here?”

Followed by two days of, “We didn’t like that experiment, Momma!” And describing it in detail to strangers, as I mentioned above.

So, um, yeah, do the first experiment, ok? Not the second one. Definitely not the second one.

Here’s where I link up.

Here’s where I pin.

Here’s where I hang out with my friends.

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