A Glimpse of Our Rather Unschooly Week

Last week we started hitting the books again. I have so much to post about what we're doing this year! But this is not that post ;) Last Friday, Nicholas had a minor procedure done on his foot. He's fine! But we took it very easy over the weekend and that sort of continued through the rest of the week. We did get around to a few things...reading mostly, but most of the week was spent doing a few "chemistry" experiments. That means we made a lot of stuff ;) Here's some of our fun:

We made home-made bubbles. I wish I'd used the glycerin recipe, but I wanted to use up the corn syrup that's been sitting in my pantry for-e-ver. I think the bubbles would be a little tougher with glycerin though. Maybe I'll try to add some to our mixture.

We made play-do. I used a recipe from a book but there are many on the internet. I don't care for the smell so I usually add spices so it smells like gingerbread (yum!) but they turn the play-do brownish and this time we wanted colors. Vanilla essential oil to the rescue! Now it smells yummy again ;)

We made sidewalk paint. It's so easy! Equal parts corn starch and water then add food coloring. When you first add the water a really neat reaction happens. It becomes as hard as a rock! Very, very hard to stir. Basically, the mixture hardens if you are rough but becomes like liquid if you are gentle, so stir very slowly and it will calm down a bit ;) The kids were surprised that when they painted it on the sidewalk it was clear. They were so disappointed! But after it starts to dry, it darkens considerably. It only takes a minute or so.

 

 

 And just to prove we did crack open the books a bit:

:)