Popcorn Science Fair Project
February 11, 2010
These were the resources my kids used for their science fair project on popcorn. We recommend this project. It was very fun!
How Stuff Works TLC Channel – Great video on the processing of popcorn kernels.
Science Experiments You Can Eat
Planning Ahead: Valentines Day
February 4, 2010
Here are some ideas to plan a fun day for celebrating the holiday of the heart.
Do something totally different this year; a unit study of the human heart:
Purchase a beef heart at your local butcher. You can discuss the chambers of the heart, and the blood vessels. Compare this heart to a human heart diagram or model. Talk about the differences and likenesses.
Linkage:
History of Valentines Day Videos
Printable Valentine Stationary
Printable Puzzles and Activities
The following is one of my favorite posts from February 2009
The fruit of the Spirit is love. This is the first quality of the Spirit divinely inspired by God. You will find two kinds of love in scripture. Philos love which is a friendly love or the love one has toward a friend or companion. Agape love which is a caring love, the first quality of the Spirit. Agape is a divine capacity to love. Only God is capable of perfect Agape but we should strive to love as He loves us. Agape is patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, and it is not proud. 1Corinthians 13:4-8
Agape seeks the highest and best for another. It is not self seeking, thus the ability to be slow to anger. Psalm 145:8. Agape keeps no record of wrongs and does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Praise God for His Agape upon us!
If you want to learn more about Agape love and other qualities of the Spirit, I recommend taking Beth Moore’s study Living Beyond Yourself, Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit.
Happy almost Valentines Day!
Here are some bible verses in the romantic King James version to help you celebrate this holiday of love:
Fill your heart with Gods word
Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee. Psalm 119:11
Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3:5-6
For man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness. Romans 10:10
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. Mark 12:30
Search me, oh God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts. Psalm 139:23
Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Psalm 37:4
Verses that speak of God’s Love
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16
Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. Jeremiah 31:3
God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
Behold, what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. 1 John 3:1
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:10
We love Him, because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19
Study of a Snowflake
January 4, 2010
This is a photograph of a real snowflake; a stellar dendrite.
It seems the appropriate season to study snowflakes. They are one of the most thought provoking creations on the planet in my opinion. They are absolutely a beautiful, wondrous gift from God. Like humans, snowflakes are all one of a kind. Here are some links to get you started on learning more about these magnificent icy morsels.
Snow Crystals, a study from Cal Tech, is a great resource to learn all about the different types of falling snow. They have an extensive snow crystal guide, a page on snowflake watching and how to go about it, and the physical properties of ice among many other pages.
You can start your study by learning about the man Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley. He was the first known person to photograph the snowflake in all it’s glory. Wilson Bentley photographed snowflakes between January 1885 through March of 1931.
Books on the” Snowflake Man”:
- Snowflake Bentley (Caldecott Medal Book)
I really enjoyed reading this story a couple of years ago to my son. I must get it again soon!
Snowflake activity books:
A short video on the life of Wilson Bentley:
Math and the Bible: An Oxymoron?
August 25, 2009
I recently told you that I teach a Bible class at a nursing home. An encouraging comment was left asking for more ideas. You asked for it, but know that my brain doesn’t seem to function like the rest of the world. It seems to come up with some of the most unusual relationships and analogies.For example, this week my lesson fit perfectly into a geometry lesson found in W. Michael Kelley’s book, “The Humongous Book of Geometry Problems.”
Michael has a great chapter on conditional statements, which he calls “if-then statements.” This idea can be expanded to include every curriculum that I can think of, including the Bible. Just think of all the times that the Lord told the Israelites that:
If they would do something, then God would do something. One of my favorite Bible verses is Psalms 37:4 and for me, it is an if-then statement that defines my relationship with God.
“Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
If you delight yourself in the Lord,
THEN God will give you the desires of your heart.
New Terms
for you to
Discover
geometry
immerse
oxymoron
penetrate
saturated
Since I don’t get everything I pray for, I must not be meeting the required condition of delighting myself in the Lord. UMM! Now what does that really mean? How do I delight myself in the Lord?
I know it is not a crash program to get ready for a big–”Give me Prayer”–
I think it is slow process. If you quickly touch a sponge to the surface of water the sponge soaks up some of the liquid. But if you immerse the sponge in the water and allow it to remain there for a time, the water will penetrate every tiny pocket of the sponge. The sponge is said to be saturated with water.
My explanation of delighting in the Lord is to be immersed in God’s Word so that we become totally saturated.
For information about if -then geometry statements, see FUN WITH GEOMETRY.
More Later,
Janice
Measuring
August 13, 2009
Children are easily entertained, but generally their attention span is short, so you have to have lots of different fun things for them to do.
Some of the things that kids like to do are:
Having their picture taken.
Anything to do with water.
Combine these two fun ideas with a bunch of colored measuring cups and you have an exciting math measurement lesson.
Kids can play as they find out about measuring.
Notice how intense the child in the picture is while pouring the water into the measuring cup. Success is so sweet!!!
For more ideas about measuring, see
Measuring Volume
More Later,
Janice
Play and Find Out about Math: Easy Activities for Young Children
Janice’s Plant Cell Funology
June 30, 2009
Plant cells are surrounded by rigid walls made of cellulose (plant fiber), but water can still move through these walls to go in and out of plant cells. This movement of water is called osmosis. When water moves into a plant cell, the cell expands, much like a balloon does when inflated. Unlike a balloon, which will burst when inflated with too much gas, plant cells do not burst with too much water. This is because their cell walls limit the amount of water that can move into plant cells. This is due to the pressure of the cell walls which is called turgor pressure.
When you water the soil of a plant, this water moves from the soil through the plant’s roots, and then into the cell
s throughout the plant. The turgor pressure of each cell, due to being filled with water, causes the stems and leaves to be ridged. The plant looks healthy.
If you forget to water the plant, water starts to move out of the plant’s cells. The cells dehydrate (lose water–dry out) and the turgor pressure of each cell decreases. This decrease in pressure causes the plant to wilt (droop). If the cells have not completely dehydrated, watering will revive the droopy plants.
DISCOVER FOR YOURSELF
Observe the effects of water loss from plant cells using two stalks of celery. With scissors, cut across the bottom of both stalks. This insures that the xylem (plant tubes that carry water up stems to plant cells)are not closed off.
Stand one of the stalks of celery in an empty glass.
The second stalk of celery will stand in colored water. Prepare this glass by filling it about half-full with tap water. Add enough food coloring to the water to turn it a dark blue. Stand the celery in the colored water.
Allow the two glasses to stand undisturbed overnight. You want to decide how water as well as the lack of water affects the celery stalk. NOTE: Make a drawing or take a picture of the two celery stalks at the beginning and at the end of the experiment. You can compare the pictures to make more accu
rate observations about how the two stalks change. 
WHAT HAPPENS?
The celery in the empty glass wilts.
The celery in the blue water not only has not wilted but its leaves look blue-green. This happens because the blue water moved through the xylem tubes to the leaves.
RESOURCE BOOKS
Janice VanCleave’s Biology For Every Kid: 101 Easy Experiments That Really Work
Janice VanCleave’s Plants: Mind-Boggling Experiments
Janice’s Summer Solstice Funology
June 23, 2009
Summer solstice is the first day of summer each year and it occurs around June 21st in the Northern 
Hemisphere (December 21st in the Southern Hemisphere). Summer solstice is called the longest day of the year, but don’t expect to notice any change. The difference in daylight will be about 1 minutes.
Starting at winter solstice to summer solstice, days increase in daylight. In other words, the Sun rises earlier and sets later making the daylight period of each day longer. From summer solstice to winter solstice, days decrease in daylight.
In 2009, in the Northern Hemisphere, summer solstice is June 21, which is also Father’s Day.
For information about why days change in length of daylight, see SUMMER SOLSTICE.
For more information about the movements of the Earth, including rotation and revolution, and how they affect seasons, see Janice VanCleave’s Geography for Every Kid: Easy Activities that Make Learning Geography Fun
Geography is a branch of science that encompasses all aspects of the earth’s physical features and inhabitants. It is the study of almost anything about the earth–the distribution of its people, animals, and plants; land, sea, and air features; weather conditions–the list goes on. The difference between the study of geography and other sciences is that geography examines its subjects from a perspective of where they are located and what relatinship they have with the things around them. Other sciences tend to focus on subjects individually.
Science Fun with Janice
June 16, 2009
Animals communicate by sound, such as a tiger’s roar. But the roar can mean different things. It could mean “Get Away” or “Let’s Play” It all depends on the tone and volume of the roar.
Of course, body language is also part of the communication between animals. For example, tigers communicate by the way the position and motion of their tails. You can model the “talking tail” of a tiger using a ruler.
Discover for Yourself
1. In an upright position and slowly shaken back and forth, the ruler represents the motion of a tiger’s tail when the animal is sending out the message, “Hi, want to be friends?”
2. The ruler held to the side and shaken quickly from side to side represents the motion of a tiger’s tail when it is excited.
3. In the downward position and given a slight shake, the ruler represents the tiger saying, “Beware!” 
For more fun communication activities, see BUG FEELERS
You can find more science fun with Janice in Janice VanCleave’s Big Book of Play and Find Out Science Projects.
More Later,
Janice
Science Funology with Janice VanCleave
June 8, 2009
When you eat an apple or other solid food, you first bite off a small piece with your front teeth. These teeth are shaped so that they can cut into food. Once the food is in your mouth, you then chew it with your grinding teeth, which are located in the back part of your mouth. No matter how much you chew food, chewing cannot break chemicals apart, but a special chemicals in your saliva (spit) can. Chewing and breaking chemicals are part of the digestion that occurs in your mouth.
When a fly lands on your apple, it first uses it feet to smell the apple. If the fly wants to eat the apple, it doesn’t have any teeth to bite off a piece. Instead, it REGURGITATES (vomits liquid from its stomach) on the apple. Like the spit in your mouth and the liquid in your stomach, fly vomit has chemicals that will digest food. The partially digested food that dissolves in the liquid is first soaked up by the spongy tip of the proboscis (feeding tube). Then the liquefied food is sucked through the proboscis into the fly’s stomach.
Flies don’t eat very much of your food. In fact you don’t even notice the tiny bit that a fly might remove. If you quickly swish the fly away it might not eat anything. But, flies are attracted to manure and rotting food. This means they may have some of this stuff in their stomach when they vomit on your food. Flies are small so how much could they have in their stomach? Not much, but bacteria that is dangerous to humans live in manure and rotting food. The tiniest drop could have a gazillion bacteria in it. Flies also leave fecal spots (tiny spots of poop) where they walk, and this is another way that flies can transferred harmful bacteria to people. If a fly with its hair legs has been walking in dog poop, some of it has to stick to these hair and be transferred to its next landing spot– Please! Not my Food.
LET’S PLAY AND FIND OUT ABOUT SCIENCE
If you want to know more about a fly’s taste organs and a way that you can model how a fly eats, see
Janice
Butterflies with Janice VanCleave
June 1, 2009
I love butterflies. They are so beautiful. Have you noticed that the upper side of their wings is more brightly colored than the underside? You can make this observation by watching a butterfly fluttering around a flower. When it is flying, the butterfly’s wings are outstretched so that the upper side is visible.
The butterfly in the photo is a Western Pygmy Blue, which is the smallest butterfly. For more information about this tiny beauty, see THE WORLD’S SMALLEST BUTTERFLY.
Butterfly wings are mirror images of each other. That means that theycan fit together.
Try This:
1. Fold a sheet of paper in half three times. Place the shortest sides together with each fold.
2. Starting on the fold side, draw half of a butterfly wing as shown.
3. Cut out the drawing, cutting through all the layers of the paper. Four separate wings will be formed. Note: Use pinking shears to give the wings a saw-toothed edge.
4. Notice that when the wings are open, you can see all of the top side. Fold the wings on the folded crease (original fold) and notice that they fit together perfectly. Even the edges perfectly match because the wings on each side of the body (center) are mirror images.
For More Fun
Place drops of colored paint on the wings on the open wings as sh
own. Try not to get the paint too close to the edges because it will squeeze out the sides. Then fold the wings together and gently press the wings so that the paint colors the wings on both sides of the body.
A stationary butterfly raises and holds its wings together. In this position only the underside of the wings are visible. It is in this position that a butterfly sips the sugary liquid called nectar from inside flowers. While eating, the butterfly is more vulnerable to it predator, such as birds. But, the muted coloring of the underside of a butterfly’s wings makes it less visible. This is because the colors tend to blend in with things around them. This blended is called camouflage.
For a craft that helps to explain camouflage, see BUTTERFLY WINGS.
Send your questions and comments to me at: ASKVANCLEAVE@aol.com
Janice VanCleave’s Big Book of Play and Find Out Science Projects
