Lima Bean Aliens

Am I the only one who finds these slightly creepy?

Just for fun, we decided to do a couple of easy experiments with dried Lima beans. All you need is a bag of Lima beans, some paper towels and a few empty jars.

First we soaked some beans in water overnight. Look at the difference in size once they have absorbed the water!

We opened a few of the pre-soaked seeds. You can see the seed coat pulled away and the plant embryo inside. It was interesting to think that this life was dormant inside the seed until it got a little bit of water.

(If school was "in session" at the moment, we might have done a notebooking page or a diagram or something but we're on break so we just talked about the parts of a seed. We may follow up with a more formal study later.)

Then we sprouted some in damp paper towels. This one has really cool roots!

The difference between pre-soaked seeds and dry seeds is remarkable. The seed below was sprouted dry, and I took the photo the same day as the creepy alien seeds above! So soaking them first really gives them a head start.

And here they are side-by-side today (day 5.) Looks like it's time to give the pre-soaked beans some soil!

Sometimes the simplest things turn out really cool!

Just linked up with Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom! Take a look at the great entries over there!

Flower Magic

We did a fun experiment with white carnations and food dye!

We trimmed the stems at an angle, which I've always been told helps
the flowers drink more water.

We quickly put them in water...

...and then added colors to the water.

Then we tried something a little different.

We carefully split the stem...

...and then put the two sides in different colors!

Here they are after just a few minutes.
The flower on the far left is already taking in some red color.

Here they are after half an hour.

A few hours later...

And overnight!

We learned that tiny tubes called xylem pull water and nutrients into the plant.



If the water happens to have dye in it, they pull the color in, too!

The split stem flowers turned out especially pretty.

Now we have a lovely centerpiece for our kitchen table,
and we learned a little science, too!



Just linked up with Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom! Take a look at the great entries over there!

Mount Evans

Going to Mount Evans is one of our favorite ways to escape the summer heat!

The kids enjoyed the cool air at Summit Lake.

Super and her friend, looking like soon-to-be teenagers. (Noooooooo!)

Another friend, gazing into one of the tundra pools.
(Don't fall in! That water is COLD!)

The view looking the other direction. (I've never seen the Alaskan tundra, but I can imagine Miyax watching the wolves in a place much like this.)

Tundra wildflowers seem too delicate to thrive here.

I love the mosses and lichens here, too.

One of the kids asked to borrow my camera and she took some interesting photos...

Not sure if she meant to do this, but I thought it was kinda funny...

Everywhere you look there is something alive. Can you see the water bug in the center of this photo? How can it survive in such cold water?

The highest paved road in North America.

The locals were pretty blasé about us tourists!

You messy glaciers, always leaving piles of rocks everywhere!

Hope you're having a great summer, too!



Linked up with Let's Hit the Road Field Trip Blog Hop!
Have you done a fun field trip lately? You link, too!

Fireworks and Fiction

How's this for real-life learning? Completely on his own, Dude decided to research fireworks. First he watched safety videos on YouTube. He learned that you should always have a bucket of water on hand when setting off any type of fireworks.



And you should stay at least 25 feet away from them when they go off. He put an X in the road, measured 25 feet, and taped off our "safety line" in the driveway.



Once he had the safety precautions taken care of, he watched videos of various types of fireworks, to see which ones give you the most bang for your buck!



Thanks to his research, we had a fun, safe 4th of July fireworks show. And no, the above photo was not taken at a fireworks stand! Those are the ones Dude, Super and their friends picked out!

Meanwhile, Super has been getting up early every morning to claim "dibs" on the computer. She is writing a story called Wildfire. None of us has been allowed to read it yet, so all I know is that it's about a group of animals trying to escape from a fire, and it's looooooong. She's done some wonderful illustrations for the book as well. (To see another great project that Super has been working on lately, check out her blog!)

Hooray for summer!

Dude's Magic Trick

Ladies and Gentlemen! Can water flow uphill? No, of course it can't! Or can it?

What you see here is an ordinary strawberry...

...placed in the center of an ordinary dish of water.

Now, using one of these ordinary matches...

...I shall make this water defy gravity!

I put the match in the strawberry and light it...

...then cover the flame with this ordinary glass.

Presto! Watch as the water rises upwards into the glass!

Dude is having lots of fun with magic tricks today. He also did a cool card trick and made my salt shaker disappear. (Hope he knows how to bring it back!)