Science experiments.

Juliette's back-to-school... or, rather, to school for the first time ever- gift from her Auntie Lisa was a color crystal growing mad science kit. She was thrilled. It occupied the girls for a solid hour the other morning:





Cosette never could figure out how to use the pipette. She kept squeezing the bulb at the most inconvenient times, resulting in rainbows of colors splattered all over the white counters. Eventually, she moved on to using measuring spoons, but somehow we ended up with an equal amount of spillage with those, too. And, of course, by the time they were done mixing and measuring we didn't have a rainbow of colors- we just had shades of brown. And very large brown 'crystals'. The cool thing about it was that I can get most of the kit components right at work, except for the colors- nothing I work with is washable and that is definitely a must. However, regular old tub tints will work, as will some washable food colorings. Even though the kit is gone, I think I can remake it for them.

That wasn't their first science experiment, however. Last spring we had tried a different mad science kit, something Juliette got as a birthday present. In that one, we had to mix different liquids to see if they fizzed with the citric acid or with the baking soda. The concepts of acids and bases were a little too complex, but the fizzyness was fun. Here are our partial results. Can you guess which chemical we were reacting these liquids with?


For weeks after Juliette would want to do more 'speriments', mixing random food items in bowls. I was cleaning sludgy, smelly, gooey glop out of our mixing bowls daily. Occasionally it was a bit trying- the mess and all- but I like to encourage their inquisitive nature. They just think they are following in my footsteps. The girls always like to announce that "Mommy, you are a scientist". Which, you know, I knew already. But I was quite proud when I went to Juliette's open house last week to see that, on the board of drawings in which each child had to answer the question "What is a scientist?", my daughter was one of the only ones to draw a girl.