Frost Paint

Want to add a little science to your art? Try making Frost Paint! The recipe is simple –water and Epsom salt- but the result is amazing. Crystals will form right before your eyes!

Add ½ cup Epsom Salt (found in the pharmacy section) to ½ cup boiling water. That’s it! Boiling the water is the key to make sure the salt dissolves completely in the water.

• Draw a picture on a piece of colored construction paper.
• Paint over it with your Frost Paint.
• When it dries, the water will evaporate and leave the long, thin Epsom salt crystals. It will look like frost on your drawing.
• Do some experimenting. Try it with a larger amount of salt in the water. How is the result different?
• Try adding food coloring to the water. Do you think it will make colored crystals?
• What do you think would happen with table salt or rock salt? Try it!

Prescription for Play

Onion Peel Eggs

Instead of dyeing eggs this April with a kit, try turning the craft into a science experiment by using onion peels. This is a traditional German way to dye eggs that I learned from my grandmother. She was even featured in a local paper back in the 1970s.

The process is easy, and there are many ways to play around with the concept. You will need yellow or brown onion peels, but you can try other colors for different results, although purple peels do not result in purple eggs. You can also lay other items on the eggs, such as a clover leaf, before adding the peels to create images on the eggs. The results are beautiful, interesting and unpredictable.

What you need:

• yellow or brown onion peels
• light colored eggs
• string

 What you do:

1. Soak the onion peels in water just long enough for them to soften.

2. Wet the eggs and wrap them in a layer of peels. Wrap and tie with string.

3. Boil the eggs for 12-15 minutes.

4. Unwrap them; dry them; and shine them with shortening or oil.

Clean Mud

Clean Mud

• 1 Roll of Toilet Paper
• 1 Bar of Ivory Soap 
• Vegetable Peeler 
• Water 
• Large Bowl

1. Take the roll of toilet paper and tear the sheets in to small pieces.
2. Place the pieces of paper in a large bowl.
3. Use the vegetable peeler and shave about a quarter (1/4) of the bar of soap into the bowl filled with the paper.
4. Add warm water to the mixture. Start out with just enough water to dampen the paper.
5. Have the child mix the ingredients, working the “clean mud” in between her fingers.
6. Slowly add more and more water to the mixture to create a slimier feeling.

 Less Mess: Place the mixture into a Ziploc bag and allow the child to feel the “clean mud” from the outside of the bag.

 More Mess: Mix small items (such as coins or small plastic beads) into the mixture and have the child find the hidden objects.

Going on a Nature Walk

Through PNC Grow Up Great with Science, I recently visited the preschool classes of Friends School. I came to share a backyard ecosystem I set up with dirt, rocks, decaying leaves, worms, slugs and pill bugs.  (Pill Bugs are great animals to bring into a classroom, and I’ll write more about them at a later date.) The children had a wonderful time lifting up the rocks and leaves, watching the pill bugs move and examining everything through their magnifiers, but what I want to share with you today was what I encountered after the activity, when I stayed to go on a nature walk with Blaine Hicks’ classroom.

A simple walk around the school provided a myriad of learning moments. As soon as we were out the door, Blaine stopped the children and had them use their different senses to observe the environment (listening for birds, tasting and smelling the air, feeling the roughness of the brick), and as we walked along the sidewalk, the children were encouraged to look for insects under rocks, to notice the dew on the grass and to wonder about what creatures we might find in the mulch. A 15 minute walk, that totaled less than a city block, yielded an orange and black beetle, flowers in different stages of life and decay, a tiny millipede, miniature pine cones, an army of ants, wild strawberries, clover, a feather, mushrooms and a pill bug. Children gingerly carried their findings, and every step was full of wonder about what we would find next. Blaine didn’t fill the walk with facts, information and instructions.  She explored with them; asking questions, modeling curiosity, letting the children discover their world at their own pace and teaching them how to look closely.

Grass Sock Pets

Spring is in full swing, and there are so many wonderful opportunities to explore it with the children in your life.  One great activity I learned last week, when visiting Rose Schum’s classroom at Dawson Orman Education Center, was how to make Grass Sock Pets. They are very simple and easy to make, but an activity like this doesn’t have to be just a craft. Use this as a teaching moment and blend art with science. Put them in your Discovery Center and bring out the magnifiers. Ask questions. Get curious. Examine the roots. Chart the growth. Find other plants sprouting in your playground or yard. Try different types of seeds or amounts of light. Talk about how to care for living things. And most importantly, focus on the wonder of the every day events that we as adults sometimes take for granted.

What you need:

• Sock or nylon stocking
• Grass seed or bird seed
• Dirt
• Bowl
• Water
• Sunlight

What you do:

1. Pour some grass seed into the toe of a sock. You will need enough to cover the bottom.
2. Fill the rest of the foot with dirt. Press it down, and tie a tight knot so that it creates a ball.
3. Place the sock ball in a bowl so that the seeds are facing up, and pour some water over it.
4. Find a sunny place to place your sock pet, and watch it grow!
5. Dampen the sock pet once a day to keep it growing.
6. For added fun, glue on wiggly eyes or buttons, or use rubber bands to tie off ears on either side.