Expanding Soap Experiment (4th Grade Science Fair)

Well we wrap up the science fair with a fun experiment! Even though it drives my kids nuts I have them do something that is not the normal for science fair time. Caden actually was pretty excited with this one and his face was priceless when he pulled the winning soap out of the microwave. This experiment took the least amount of time of all the ones we've done over the years but was so much fun!!

 

What you Need:

Different types of Soap

Plate

Knife

Microwave

Tri Board

Card Stock (Whatever colors you like)

Pen and/or Cricut to cut out the letters

Glue Stick

 

For the board we took my cricut to cut out circles and added a little black outline on each one. Caden cut out the letters and then glued them on to the board. Sorry I didn't get a picture with the words, graph and photos on it. He took it to school before I could snap a pic! 

 

For the soap we cut each bar into pieces (4 slices) and placed on a dinner plate. My microwave took 2 minutes to see the change, check your microwave to see what works best. Most puffed up only one became a big pile of gooey mess that we had to wait until it hardened to get off the plate. We put each soap after into a clear bag so he could display at the science fair. 

 

Click HERE to see who I link with.

 

Other Science Fair Projects we've done:

 

Lemon Clock 

Bat & Ball Experiment 

Unpopped Kernels 

Lava Lamp 

Science Fair Time Again ... Prep time!

And we are on kid #2 entering into the science fair time! As most of you know I'm a little nutty and LOVE to do something that not ever kid has done for birthday's, parties, holidays and science fairs also.

Caden I went on a Google hunt to find the coolest science experiment we could find. For Cole we did the very cool Popcorn popping experiment. The lemon clock for Caden also has been done. We came across the soap expanding experiment! We're you take different soaps and see what expands the most. After he found an experiment he liked we then went on to find how to do the board. Caden loves to use my cricut for parties and is so excited to use it to make his board. We plan on cutting a bunch of circles in sizes and colors to look like bubbles. 

 I found these on Pinterest to start us out:

This is a different soap experiment but a cool idea with bubbles and how to show off the soap afterwards.

 Idea of how to lay out the board

 We saw this cool idea that we thought we would have out at the science fair so his friends can try the experiment also!

Happy Science Fair Adventures!

Science Fair Time ... Lemon Clock

Next on our Science Fair projects for us was for Caden. Since Caden is in 2nd grade his project was not required but since big brother was doing one he had to do one also. So the Lemon Battery we were planning for Cole we ended up doing for Caden (Cole switched his project). So we tried the lemon with the penny and a nail along with a paper clip. WELL that didn't work so well it may have been the light bulb I had bought from the dollar tree. So plan B was to pick up the kit off Amazon and bam we were in business!

What you Need:

Tri Fold Board (Dollar Tree)

Yellow Poster Board (Dollar Tree)

Yellow Card Stock
White Card Stock
Circut Machine
Circut Simply Charmed Cartridge
Circut George and Basic Shapes Cartridge
Lemon Battery Kit

This was a easy one (WHEN using the kit, NOT when trying to do the penny and nail trick). 

Fail on this try:

The Tutor and Caden cut out the yellow strips to make it look like a lemonade stand. We then cut out lemons and a few drinks from the Simply Charmed cartridge. We did the words and the ice cubes using George and Basic Shapes.  Have fun and decorate the way you want. Take pictures and add to the board along with any images from the web you want to add. 

Caden and the Tutor working on board! He even typed up the info for the board.

Have Fun with it!

Any Science Projects in your future?

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.   

Science Fair Time ... Bat and Ball Experiment

It is science fair week here and last week was Mid Winter Break so of course it was time to use our free time to build some cool boards and do experiments. I had Cole set up to do the lemon battery, but his tutor and him change our (ok my plan) to do a bat and ball experiment. Cole used a wood bat and a metal bat and tried a softball and a baseball to see what would go the furthest. 

What you Need:

Tri-Fold Board (We picked up at Dollar Tree)

Wood Bat

Metal Bat

Softball

Baseball

glue

Blue Poster Board (or whatever color you like)

White Card Stock

Light & Dark Brown Card Stock

Red Card Stock

Grey Card Stock (again you can change color)

Green Card Stock (again you can change color)

Cricut Machine

Cricut Cartridge - Sports Mania

Cricut Cartridge - George and Basic Shapes

Baseball Stickers

You don't have to use a Cricut but I must say this was the best investment I have ever made. It has helped with birthday party invites and party items and now the 3rd year in a row has helped with science project boards. 

Take a trip to the ball field test out your theory.  

Come home and decorate your board how you like it! We did in the colors of Mariner's (Blue, Green and Grey). We used the Cricut Machine to cut out Baseballs, Bats and Mits (using the sports mania cartridge). We used the Cricut to cut out the letters for the headers (using the George and Shapes). Cole and his tutor got to down gluing. Cole designed the whole board himself and even went on my laptop to type up the paragraphs he needed. 

Have Fun with it!

Any Science Projects in your future?

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.  

Mid Winter Break and Sciene Project

Week two of this cold and I'm blessed with Mid Winter Break (When did we become so PC that the kids holidays for school all got renamed?).  Being a work from home mom I dread these days! Love the kids just not the noises while I'm doing my calls. 

During our break we are being productive, the tutor has been coming over everyday to get the boys science projects and boards ready!  We will show them off next week!! Since projects are so fun for the parents my friend sent me this, thought you could all use a good laugh!

All I can say is this mom ROCKS!!!!

Science Fair in the Bag

We'll this year went so much better then last year.  There were no tears just smiles and Cole's Popcorn Project was a hit!  We will find out tomorrow what his grade was and if he got a honorable mention ribbon (stay tuned for that).  Cole's teacher did say that it went very well, that he stood up and did a great presentation.  We got many ooh's and ahhh's as people walked by the fair tonight.  PLUS Cole is getting an academic award tomorrow.  As most of you know it's been rough for Cole but with help for his ADHD and an amazing tutor he was able to really focus and work hard in class.  His teacher said the award is for most improved in behavior, reading and studies!!  So proud of him!

Hope you all have a wonderful night and weekend!

Science Project ... Un-popped Popcorn Kernels

We are onto this year's Science Project!  Last year we did the Lava Lamp which was a lot of fun, but sadly all our efforts did not go with a good experience from Cole.  NOW at a new school and a different way of grading science projects we are in hopes that Cole will have a good experience with this project.  It took all my effort to assure him that this time will be different and we won't end up in tears like last year, lord I pray so we'll find out Thursday at the Science Fair.

This Year he wanted to do something fun and flashy.  He had me google science project with electricity since that is something they have been doing in school.  We found some cool LED gloves you could make, but to be honest all the projects cost a lot to make. Then I came across a Popcorn Experiment by Sean Boyd.  It had GREAT instructions what to do and how to do.  

Our amazing tutor Jessica and Cole got to work on it, they put in almost a week of testing and making the board.  I was so impressed with how it turned out!  We modeled our board off a picture I found on pinterest, the Popcorn Science Board didn't have a site it was just a picture, please let me know if it yours so I can give you credit.

What you Need:

5 Brands of Microwave Popcorn ($8, 2 boxes at Dollar tree, $2 each for the rest)

2 Bowls

Microwave

Tri-Board ($2.99 Fred Meyer)

Red Paper ($1 Large sheet found at Dollar Tree)

Black Paper ($1 Large sheet found at Dollar Tree)

Yellow Paper ($1 Large sheet found at Dollar Tree)

3M Spray Glue ($4.99 we had a can already or Glue Sticks)

Popcorn Cut outs (Print if you can't find)

Circuit (For Circles and Letters or you can cut them yourself)

What you Need to do:

We placed a bag in the microwave and pressed the popcorn button. Once the microwave stopped we poured the popcorn into a bowl then counted each un-popped kernel and wrote it down.  We then did the same steps with the next 2 bags of the same brand. Same steps repeated with each brand.  We did a trial of 3 on each popcorn brand so an average could be taken to give a true test of how many un-popped kernels were left.

For the board we cut out strips of Red for the look of a popcorn bag.  We used my Circuit machine to cut out circles (used George Font Cartridge), also used this to make the letters.  Computer used for the graphs and the typing of the words, printed on white card stock.  To make the words pop we took the white cardstock and placed on black paper to outline.  We also printed a few clip art pieces to glue on the board.  We hit the garage and found a can of 3M spray adhesive and sprayed everything done.  We used yellow circles to put on the top of the board to look like popcorn coming out of the popcorn container.  We added circles to make it look like popped popcorn for each label.  We took the Pop Pop Popcorn letters and put on the board with a black background.

Question / Problem:

Which brand of popcorn will give the least amount of un-popped kernels.

Prediction / Hypothesis:

Predict which Brand would produce least and the most unpopped Kernels.

Procedure:

Use the above statement on what you need to do.

Results / Conclusion:

Take the #of un-popped kernels of each brand and divide by 3 to get an average.  The average from EACH brand will tell you who has the least and who has the most.  It will also tell you if you were right or wrong with your prediction.

Graphs:

Use Word or Excel to graph your results.  Our Graphs:

We took this data to make a graph / Data Table (We used Excel, I can't get the graph to copy):

Popcorn Brand	Trial 1	Trial 2	Trial 3	Avg.
Act II	45	69	5	40
Jollytime	72	23	2	32
Pop Secret	26	19	21	22
Kroger	46	48	15	36
Primetime	31	38	36	35

Have fun, this is a fun and pretty inexpensive experiment.

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE. 

Weekend To do ... My list

It's going to be a busy weekend yet again!  We have swim lesson's, basketball practice and basketball game too!  We still have a science project to finish and I have 2 birthday gifts I must finish too.  Oh lord wish me luck .. lol as usual so many plates spinning.  Thankfully I've enlisted the tutor to come in Saturday to help finish up the science project.

Science Project Board almost done

A Few more experiments going on

Which brand will have the less unpopped kernels

A Super Hero Project Birthday Gift to do

Found on Alpha Mom

A Car Mat Birthday Gift to do

Found on Crafty Soccer Mom

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

Lava Lamp Experiment

The boys school holds a science fair each year for the 3rd grade to 8th grade.  So Cole being in 3rd grade this would be his first year doing a science fair.  I asked him what he wanted to do, I thought a volcano would be cool.  He liked the Lava Lamp the best.  So we got to work on his visual board, adding all our required items.  We spent a whole weekend making this just perfect.  I took pictures of him doing the experiment and we thought it looked wonderful.  

After making the board and the doing the experiment, the kids then had to stand in front of a board of high school kids telling about their project and what they did.  They picked the top 4 kids from each grade.  We had our hopes up and really thought we did an amazing job, sadly Cole did not make the top 4 in 3rd grade.  I could just see his heart drop and tears well up in his eyes.  I gave him a huge hug and let him know he was a winner in my book.  Rick and I took him out for ice cream.  

What you Need:

• A clean 1 liter clear soda bottle
• 3/4 cup of water
• Vegetable Oil
• Fizzing tablets (such as Alka Seltzer)
• Food coloring

1. Pour the water into the bottle.

2. Use a measuring cup or funnel to slowly pour the vegetable oil into the bottle until it's almost full. You may have to wait a few minutes for the oil and water separate.3. Add 10 drops of food coloring to the bottle (we like red, but any color will look great.) The drops will pass through the oil and then mix with the water below. 
4. Break a seltzer tablet in half and drop the half tablet into the bottle. Watch it sink to the bottom and let the blobby greatness begin!

5. To keep the effect going, just add another tablet piece. For a true lava lamp effect, shine a flashlight through the bottom of the bottle.

So we didn't win but I still think this was a pretty cool experiment and our board was the best (even in my humble opinion).  For the 3rd grade his was the most detailed.  Looking at the other kids projects, it looks like ours may have been too simple.  Next year I think we have to work with worms or something :).