Jesse's Experiment

It's March break (also called spring break) and Jesse has been off school for two weeks.

I must admit that we haven't done much. Jesse was sick last week, a left over from the previous weeks where he managed to have a week off school with a bad cold and then a tummy bug.  On Monday last week he had a bad asthma attack, something he hasn't had for ages, so all in all a quiet time was really what was called for.

The weather over the break has been great (except for a few days over the weekend) so we have been trying to get out and about a bit, exploring our neighbourhood and enjoying the afternoon sun on the back deck.

Jesse resurrected his bike from the shed, with freshly pumped tyres, we were off.  We walked to the mall but there just happens to be a park on the way so we had to stop there for a play.  Unfortunately, whilst proving to me how far he could jump from the high swing, he landed hard and banged his chin on his knee, biting through his tongue.  It bled all the way home but did not prove to be fatal.

Yesterday, after a walk down to the local high school and a few laps of the track, we decided that some science was in order.  Jesse dragged out his copy of 501 Science Experiments and we chose the chemistry section.  First up on the agenda was some invisible ink - you know the lemon juice kind you've all tried as a kid.

Next up was an interesting one which I had never done before.  We poured 2cm of milk into a bowl, then added a drop of several different food colourings, one colour on each side of the bowl.  We added a small squirt of dishwashing liquid into the middle and waited.  What happened next was quite amazing.  The dishwashing liquid moved in circles and as it did it picked up the food colouring.  Here's a photo of the result.

We left it for quite a while to do it's thing but then couldn't resist so moved it around a bit.

It was fun and it took up at least 30 minutes.  If anyone has any other exciting experiments we can try, let me know.

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