Summer Learning: Worksheets and Ice Structures

I've been striving to actually use some of the Pinterest ideas I keep pinning. I've even tried some of the recipes.. but we won't talk about those... no, really. Until I find something super impressive, we shall not speak of it. WE SHALL NOT SPEAK OF IT!

Anyway. I've had some real success with the kid pins. About a week and a half ago, I found a pin that linked to a website that has five weeks of summer worksheets. Five weeks! So, I printed them all out and we've been working on them. They're really cute and each day only has four pages, so my kids don't get overwhelmed or bored. I especially like how I feel like a successful and responsible parent because I'm not letting my daughter forget everything she learned in Kindergarten during summer break.

If you'd like to check the worksheets out, click here. I used the Pre-K for my 4-year-old and the Kinder for my 6-year-old. I suppose I could have used the 1st grade pack for her, but I wanted her to be fairly independent while I was working with her brother.

So far we've completed one week and one day and the kids are still enthusiastic about it, so I'd call that a success.

I was feeling so positive about it this morning, that I actually had the wherewithal to remember a fun little science experiment that I found on Pinterest weeks ago. I think I may have pinned it from 3 or 4 different places and I know this idea isn't new, so I don't suppose I have to give anyone credit.. right? Plus, I'm too lazy to figure out where it was.

All it takes is ice cubes and salt. (And paper towels if you want to keep the mess to a minimum. We were doing this indoors at the table.) When you pour salt onto an ice cube, it raises the freezing temperature (which comes in handy if you want to make ice cream) and another ice cube placed on top will stick!

So, I let the kids experiment with how much salt it takes to make the cubes stick and they made their own little structures.

Yes, they're still wearing pajamas...

Audrey got the hang of it quickly and made her own little version of Stonehenge..

This is what learning looks like:

:)

Finally, at the end, I decided to try and see how many ice cubes we could stack before the tower would fall. It took my steady hand to get the tower higher than three cubes.

We made it to seven ice cubes. When I tried to put on the eighth, the whole thing toppled. By then the ice cubes were really melty and much colder than normal due to the salt. Burning cold! We all washed our hands right after we took this last picture.

I liked this science experiment because it was simple and we had everything we needed right there at the spur of the moment. Maybe when they get a little older, we can talk about what is happening to the ice on a molecular level, but for now, it was just fun to build something with a new material.

Science is fun!