Kindergarten at Home - Day 28 - Tin Can Telephone (or, Paper Cup Phone!)

Telephone Etiquette.  The assignment for today was to practice talking on the telephone using basic telephone etiquette, and to practice reciting your phone number.  I decided to take it a step further, and made cup-and-string phones after we practiced with real phones (they played with my vintage rotary-style telephone and my modern Bluetooth handset that is a replica of a vintage phone.  I rarely us it - I bought it because I was nostalgic for the way I used to talk on the phone.  It's not hands-free... kinda defeating the purpose of the Bluetooth technology, but hey, it's fun!)

To make the homemade cup phones, we used Kite String and two disposable cups.  First, poke a hole through the center of the bottoms of each cup; then, connect them by feeding each end of the string through each cup (tie a knot at the end after feeding it through the hole in the cup); stand apart, keeping the string taught; then, one person can talk into their cup while the other person listens in their cup!  The sound will follow along the string!
First, we tried a short string, then tried a longer string.  We also tried turning a corner with the string, which does work, but not well.  I'm sure we could play around with it and look it up to see what the best method for keeping the sound on the string while turning a corner would be, but the kids just wanted to play, so I'll save that science lesson for another day after some research.

 Language Arts: Zig-Zagging Zany Zz's, Zealously [while in the] Zone!

Art: What can fit in my pocket?  I had her try to think of different objects that could fit into the pocket she sewed the other day, then to draw them, cut them out, then put the paper version of the object into her pocket.  She decided she should trace each item so that they would be the accurate size.  Later, we played a game where you had to guess what object she was describing that is in her pocket.

Technology Studies: Typing letters on the keyboard - practicing finding and typing N-Z.  Daddy got to help with this one after he got home from work.  [We've been doing school outside this week, so, as you can see, we haven't updated our Days of the Week board behind the computer!]

Weekend Fun Lesson - Over the Top

For our Weekend Fun Lesson, we observed what happens to water when it freezes.  I let my daughter fill our Popsicle molds all the way to the brim with water.  Then, I carefully carried them to the freezer so that it wouldn't spill.  After a couple hours, we pulled it out to make our observation: the ice rose above the top!  It is kind of hard to see in the picture below, but the ice is bubbling above the brim of the molds, and some liquid even started to spill out and then freeze on the side.  So, the kids discovered that when water freezes, it expands!  Now we know that if we want to make frozen treats, we should make sure we leave a little room at the top to allow for expansion! (I think this experiment works even better if you have a container that is a perfect cylinder, rather than the shaped mold I used)

Weekend Fun Lesson: Eggcellent Eggsperiment

This excellent experiment (EGGcellent EGGsperiment, if you will!) is meant to show how to tell if an egg is hard boiled, or still raw!

What you need: One raw egg, and one hard boiled egg (these eggs are from our chickens - one shell is naturally light green!  It's kinda hard to tell in the photos though), and a barrier if you are letting the kiddos take the eggs for a spin! (we used math blocks, but another idea would be to use rolled up dish towels - that way, if the raw egg breaks, you have quick cleanup!)

Spin the first egg, then stop it quickly and release your fingers/hand right away (stop-and-release -- quick, like a ninja).  Then, do the same with the second egg.  One of the eggs will continue to spin just a wee bit after you stopped it; that is the raw egg!  The hard boiled egg will not continue to spin (if properly stopped). You might want to demonstrate first if you have small kids like mine.

Why? Because the raw egg has the yolk suspended in the clear liquid inside and there is also a very small pocket of air.  When you spin the egg, the yolk and liquid spins inside the shell and when you stop it suddenly, the liquid inside of the egg is still in motion after you've stop it's container (Physics!) 
You can demonstrate further by putting water in a glass and move the the glass in circles to make the water spin inside.  Stop the glass suddenly and ask the kiddos what they observe!