Ice, Ice, Baby

With learning about dry ice, the Ice Age, and "c" stands for Cold ice, it was an icy week at the McKay household.

Science was AWESOME!  And that's even what the kids said :)  Seriously, it was the funnest science day ever.  We learned about the changing states of matter.  We changed ice to water to steam and back to water again. Then we talked about what would happen if something was both a solid and liquid and brought out the cornstarch and water.  EVERYONE loves cornstarch and water.  While they were playing with that, I was showing them how every liquid has a different boiling point.

Then I had them pretend to be a solid and crunch down into a ball, a liquid where they stood up straight, and a gas where they went crazy, and talked about how molecules expand as they change states.  This led to mixing a liquid (vinegar) and a solid (baking soda) to make a gas that expands enough to blow up a balloon.

And of course, we got out the DRY ICE!! A solid changing to a gas....cool.  It is way hard to find dry ice in Canada.  After making about twenty phone calls I found it at a welding supply shop.  I now understand Dustin's delight at being able to buy dry ice in the grocery store in the States.  I've always taken it for granted.

Maybe I should not share our finale, but it was every one's favourite....dry ice bombs....being married to Dustin of course I knew how to do this, and how better to prove that matter expands as it changes into a gas?....expanding soooo much that it explodes!  I did not know how effective these bombs would be.  I now have little craters in my back yard, and I'm sure my neighbours think a gun was going off...all in the name of science!  This was all that was left of one of the pop bottles....

This week we learned about the ice/stone age.  I've always been fascinated by how artistic the oldest of man's preserved paintings are.  Books I found that were awesome were "Discovery in the Cave" by Dubowski and Barnard (I've always loved the true story of the discovery of the Lascaux caves.)  and "Stone age Boy" by Kitamura....very cute and informative.

I love learning about the Chauvet caves and the Lascaux caves!!!  Were these dumb men just evolving from nothing?  NO! These were children of God being inspired to create!

And we were inspired to create our own cave paintings....In a fridge box...jammed with six delighted kids.

We also spray-painted over our hands using straws.  At first we did it too watery, but it worked in the end.  I think I swallowed some paint though!....we also painted rocks.

In preschool we learned that "c" is for cold...

And for field trip we went to a lake and enjoyed fall colours..how wonderful that it's still warm!