How Strong is a Piece of Paper?

We made a simple experiment using papers and books. This is a great way to explain to my children whenever they asked me "Why the tree trunk is circle in shape?"or "Why aren't they square?". I also prepared them with science report sheet. (Should you interested, you may e-mail me for free Word version.)

In this experiment, we tested the strength of the paper based on it's shape, by piling books on top. They were agitated while piling the books, hoping that the paper can hold more. Once the paper collapsed, they were so thrilled they laughed their brains out. 

Try this easy STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) activity today!Have fun collapsing the paper columns!

What you'll need:

 Regular copy paper (not card stock)

Books 

Tape 

 1. Fold the paper into four shapes: triangle, square, pentagon and circle. Secure with tape.

 2. Slowly pile the books on each shape. 

 3. Count the books while piling.

 4. Report the experiment. 

 Don't forget to treat each child with different method. I taught Iyra to draw the shapes. She's 4 years and 2 months.

 "The peper fol." I like it. What a genuine scientist!

Obviously circle paper column is the strongest!

The report sheet

And they asked why circle paper column is the strongest? These are the best and age appropriate explanation to the girls (thank you creeksidelearning):

• The circle (the right word is cylinder) can support most books because it's walls don't have any edges.
• The force of the books cannot become concentrated in a particular area. I explained it in more animated version like "You know these books have weight and force. The weight and the force then transferred into the paper when we pile it on top. Since they were put on the circle, they happily holding hands and running down together to the base (which was the table). Both the weight and the force happily saying to each other 'There are no edges for us to play and gather! This circle is so smooth we can slide easily! Yay!'." Pardon me if this is not right, well, my audiences were so young they aren't ready for velocity and acceleration vectors.
• The square, triangle and pentagon deform more easily. They shift the weight of the books to their edges and corners, which deforms their walls and leads to a quick collapse. My animated explanation for other shapes was "The weight and the force of this book now going down the pentagon. They were happily holding hands and running together to the base and said to each other, 'Look! They are edges! Five of them! Let's play and gather here!' They were only interested with the edges they forget the faces! Now they were so many of them gathered and concentrated on one place, making them collapsed. (But please be ever ready with the question of "Oh my! What are those weight and force? Do they have eyes like us?")

Applications in real life:

• Electric poles. What happens if they are square? The strong wind will easily make them collapse.
• Building structures, like Nek Ma's neighbor. He used cylindrical pillars to hold his super big garage! 
• Water dispenser. 
• Earth. (Iris came with this application. She then said "The world is gonna end real real real real soon if Allah created a square (cubic) Earth. We are the books!")

Till then.

Face Painting

There is over a million fish in the sea, but all I want is you! 

Until you spread your wings, you'll never know how far you can fly.

Our Feathered Friend

Birds fly. Birds have feathers. Birds live in nests. That's all we know about birds. 

With that in minds, we wanted to know more about birds. We want them to come to our house as our guests. So we made this bird feeder to attract them. Fewer than 10 minutes, came the first chirping bird to have his delicious food. After awhile, he chirped louder inviting his other friends, and within minutes we counted 15 birds circling the seeds. 

So moms, start making your own bird feeders! While making it, you can share info on birds. Thanks to duckters, sandiegozoo, sciencekids and randomhistory.

What makes an animal a bird?

The feathers! No other animal has feathers. Other important features for birds are wings and hollow bones. Birds also lay eggs, like reptiles, however are warm-blooded, like mammals. What is bird? Click here. Laugh out your feather here.

What are feathers?

feathers are made of keratin. This is the same stuff that fingernails are made of. A bird's wings have the same bones as a human arm, but they are arranged differently. Some of the bones in a bird's skeleton are hollow. This makes the bird light enough to fly. Video on bird feathers here.

How do birds fly?

Birds fly by flapping their wings and using air pressure to create lift under their wings. Just like airplanes do. The peregrine falcon is one of the fastest birds. It can reach speeds of well over 100 miles per hour when diving. Videos on how do birds fly: here and here.

Fun facts about birds

• An ostrich can run as fast as 43 miles per hour and grow as tall as 9 feet.
• Blue birds can't see the color blue.
• The hummingbird can fly backwards, but it can't walk. 
• Condor shells are so thick, it can take a chick a week to break out from its shell.
• The egg of a kiwi can weigh as much as 20% of the mother's body weight.
• Sometimes vultures eat so much they can't fly.
• Scientists believe that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs. 
• Some birds are intelligent enough to create and use tools.
• The chicken is the most common species of bird found in the world. 
• Owls cannot swivel their eyes. Instead they move their heads completely around to see straight behind them. 
• The most talkative bird in the world is the African gray parrot. One parrot could say over 800 words. Most species of parrots can learn only 50.
• Many birds, such as starlings, sing notes too high for humans to hear.
• Flamingos pair for a lifetime. Some stay with their mates for 50 years or more. 

More vocabularies about birds here!!!

What you'll need:
Bowl
Birdseed
1 small envelope of gelatin
String
Cookie cutters
Pencils/ pens/ sturdy plastic straw

 1. Pour the birdseed into the bowl.

 2. Mix the gelatin and water and bring to simmer while stirring. Continue stirring until the gelatin is dissolved.

 3. Remove from heat and let cool. If there were any undissolved gelatin, let it go through the sieve. (You may notice that the girls did this activity with their Bapak, so impatient rules.)

 4. Mix the gelatin with the birdseed. Stir. 

 5. Fill the cookie cutter with the mixture. 

 6. Fill in various cookie cutters.

 7. Put through the pencils/ pens/ straw into the mixture to make hole. Let them dry for awhile. Drying overnight gives better result. 

 8. Take out the pencils/ pens/ straw and put string through the hole. Knot the end.

 To birds from us, with lotsa loves!

Hang them in the trees.

 Wait and listen for that chirping sounds! Let the children take a video of their feathered guests. Can you spot one bird on the tree?

We're so honored to have our special guest to fully participate in this activity. So Mummy can face masking! 

Chromatography Color Experiment

This time we made an experiment to separate color mixtures. They always hopped in joy whenever they mixed blue and yellow and yelled "Green!". So we did this experiment in order to try to separate blue and yellow from "Green!". They then used the dried filters to make beautiful butterflies.

The separating method is called chromatography. Bapak also joined this experiment. He excitedly explained that the medical field also used this method to separate the blood mixtures. And this explanation caused Iris and Iesha jaw-dropped. "Like blood is the combination of yellow and purple?", "You're kidding us out!", "No way my red blood is a little bit of pink?". 

Try this out with your children! They surely itching to re-do the experiment. 

What you need:
Coffee filter, clear glasses, non-permanent markers and water.

Make a semicircle on the filter. (I bought this filter at Daiso which is already folded into two. If you use round filter, draw a circle then fold it into two.)

Don't color too close to the tip of the filter as the water travel so fast, so that it won't bleed your marker so soon. 

Try with different colors. 

Write down the color's name on the filters, so you can trace back after it bleed.

Fill the glass with 1-2 inches of water.

Look! The water is moving!

Iesha observed that "Water moves from wet to dry paper."

Iesha wondered why water moved so slow on yellow-colored filter. She then discovered that the tip of the filter didn't touch the water. 

So, what is your favorite color?

Perbadanan Perpustakaan Awam Johor

We have spent a great deal of time at Perbadanan Perpustakaan Awam Johor. The girls have been frequent visitors to the Children Section. They have a good selection of children books.  What excite us the most was that one card holder can borrow up to 15 books for two weeks! 

We love surrounded by books.They help us to keep our sanity. If you want to keep yours too, you can visit this wonderful library at: Jalan Yahya Awal, Johor Bahru. Here is the website.

These bring us to another world!

Look what we found! A compilation stories of Madeline.

These Etiquette Series are good read for the children.

Phonics for Iesha

Classics in Bahasa Malaysia!

Now we know what a.m and p.m. stand for. 

These series are rather costly. I've been eyeing these series for quite sometimes. And I was so excited to have found these gems in this library!

Do you know who built the Kaabah?

Do you know who is that brave boy?

Super love these series!

We definitely can't resist this Atok Eric!

Iyra still amused with board books.

Who has hands but cannot clap?

We're always on road trips. Sometimes we visited NekMa and TokBa in Kelantan, and sometimes to Johor Bharu visited Bapak. In order to have a good time while driving, I need to think of some activities for the girls to make sure they are all occupied and not diverted my attention to things like "Mummy, see that teddy bear in the car at the back!", "Mummy, can you help me with this game?", "Mummy, could you please color my nails?". Girls, I'm driving. 

So I created this riddles. Kids love riddles. At least I can make them occupied for 10 heavenly minutes. I let them asked me with the riddles and tried to answer it, even though I already knew the answers. In order to have the extra 10 minutes, you may give wrong answer multiple times and trust me the kids will love it. 

So here are the riddles for you to print and laminate. If you guys want a Word version, you may leave your email and I'll try to get back to you! Till then, bye.

Riddle 1

Riddle 2

Riddle 3

Riddle 4

Riddle 5