A bit of science and French.

I didn't manage to finish my last post, it got too late and I needed to sleep! 

K stayed a bit longer at the library and I went home to take the shopping and check that M was okay.  She had only just got off the sofa from reading her book, so I told her about the new exhibition at the library and she decided to go and have a look too.

After lunch and some computering for the girls, while I read myself, we did the last two of the experiments in the Magic Science Kit.  The first one was more of the same, combining acids and bases, the only difference being that this time we were comparing the reactions when done with hot and cold water.

M mixing in the citric acid.

K checking it's all dissolved.

The final experiment involved some glow in the dark stuff (to be honest I can't remember what it was exactly).  It worked okay, but wasn't spectacular and it was rather uncomfortable squashing ourselves into the cupboard under the stairs to see it!

After this, we had a look at The Happy Scientist website, and watched his video of an experiment that is also in our big Science Experiments book.  This is an experiment that I have been meaning to have a go at for ages, but since it involved burning a candle, and ours wasn't short enough, so we couldn't do it straight away as we had to let it burn down quite a bit, so we didn't actually do this until just before bedtime.  You need a flat bottomed shallow dish, a candle, a glass vase (we used a pint glass, but a vase would be better) and some water.  Use some melted wax (or playdough) to fix the candle in the middle of the dish, light the candle, put water in the dish and place the vase/large glass over the lighted candle.  After a while the candle flame gets smaller and then goes out, as it has used up all the oxygen, then the water level inside the glass rises above the level in the dish.  According to the Happy Scientist, lots of books get the reason for the water rising incorrect, so we checked in our book, which happily agrees with him and indeed is the reason that I said while we were watching the video.  Apparently some books state that the water rises because the oxgyen being used  up by the flame causes the pressure inside the glass to drop, however the Happy Scientist, our book and I all said that it was the drop in temperature that caused the drop in pressure.

You can just about see the water level in the glass.

After we'd watched the video, I asked the girls to have a think about whether we need to have a bit more structure, although with me being ill it's not going to happen immediately anyway.  They both said that they thought we did, and interestingly after M had said she would like to learn French, K said that she thought she would like to as well, but that she thinks that sometimes I might need to insist when she doesn't feel like doing it and she does want me to do that.  K & I had a look at this website, and had a go at games on the topic of pets.