For the past few nights, bedtime has been a stressful time. NHL is not to blame. He gets into his top bunk and quickly goes to sleep. JSL, on the other hand, has turned into the Kid Of A Million Excuses Why He Can’t Sleep. The air conditioning is on so he’s too cold. When I turn it off, he becomes too hot. Then, he needs to use the bathroom (something he did before getting in bed, mind you). Then, he needs a drink (again, something he did before going to sleep). Then, his legs are bothering him or his toes itch or he’s not comfortable for some reason. This will go on for over an hour until JSL is completely overtired and mom and dad are frazzled.
My Aloha Friday question for today is: Do your kids ever give bedtime excuses? If so, how do you handle them?
P.S. If you haven’t already, try out my Twitter applications: FollowerHQ and Rout.
Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.
Soon after we got our smart phones, Instagram came out for Androids. I downloaded it immediately and tried it out. I’ll admit that my first impression was poor. I didn’t see the draw in taking small photos of things and putting filters on them. After a few posted photos, I moved on.
Sometimes later, I decided to give Instagram another shot. This time, I found I loved using it. I still steer clear of the filters, preferring instead to show the photos as they are taken. Still, it is a quick and easy way to share out photos. I could have Instagram tweet out the photo and still keep a gallery of my photos for people to look at.
Granted, Instagram isn’t perfect. For one thing, there’s no spell check within the app. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost sent out an update with a mistyped a word because there was no red squiggly line alerting me to the incorrectly spelled word(s). Secondly, Instagram itself doesn’t have a gallery. I can’t just tell people to go to Instagram.com/TechyDad/ to view all of my photos. Even if you load up one of my Instagram photos, there’s no way, in a non-mobile browser, to click to see more photos by me. This is the exact opposite problem that many websites have. (Ignoring mobile browsers and crafting their site only for non-mobile visitors.)
Thankfully, there are a few sites that can load your Instagram photos in a gallery-like format. I’m partial to Instagrid. You can view my Instagram photos on Instagrid here: http://instagrid.me/techydad/
Now that I’ve added that link to my header, I can easily direct people to my Instagram feed whether they have a smartphone or not. So if you aren’t on Instagram, take a look at my photos from time to time. If you are on Instagram, why not follow me? Let me know your Instagram names in the comments and I might follow you as well.
Amongst the animals, costumes, bounce houses, food, and other festivities, there was a booth that promised to show kids some scientific tricks. Now, this could have been a boring booth, avoided by all, but it wasn’t. The demonstrations here not only educated, but were entertaining as well. Best of all, they encouraged the kids to get involved in the experiments and were things we could pretty easily replicate at home.
First up was the tornado tube. This is a classic experiment that involves two soda bottles and colored water. One bottle is filled with water and connected to the other, empty bottle. They are turned so that the full bottle is atop the empty one. The bottles are twirled slightly and the water runs from top to bottom. As it does so, though, it forms a vortex, a tornado captured right in your own house.
(NOTE: You can’t simply hold the bottles together. You might be successful, but you’re much more likely to have a spill on your hands. There are special connector pieces that are made just for this very activity.)
After this, we moved on to another soda bottle. This one had a small amount of rubbing alcohol in it, a stopper plugging it up, and was connected to a pump. The boys were told to pump the handle a few times. When they were done, the stopper was removed. All at once, a loud popping noise was heard and the formerly clear bottle was filled with a cloudy substance. There was a cloud in the bottle!
Of course, I knew I wouldn’t be able to convey just how quick this happened using mere photos, so I shot a video of it as well.
How did this happen? Pumping air into the bottle increased the air pressure in the bottle. When the stopper was pulled, that air went rushing out. The sudden drop in air pressure lowers the temperature and the evaporated rubbing alcohol in the bottle condenses. This condensation takes the form of a smoky cloud. (To see how to perform this experiment at home, see here.)
Next up was the water surface tension and cohesion test. In this test a jar with a mesh screen is filled with water. When it is turned over the water pours out. So far, so good. However, if it is filled with water again and an index card is held over the top as it is carefully turned over, the water will remain in place when the card is removed. Yes, the water will seemingly defy gravity and stay up in the air when it seems as though it should fall.
How does it do this? Water forms a membrane between the gaps in the mesh and the surface tension of this membrane keeps the water in. (Weird Science Kids has more on this experiment.)
Finally, was the color splash experiment. In this one, there were three small cups: One was filled with water, a second filled with oil and a third had water and oil. This experiment showed how density affects the behavior of liquids. A small drop of water-based food coloring was dropped in the water cup and the cup turned green. Then, a drop was placed in the oil. As expected, it sank to the bottom. It was explained that the water was denser than the oil, it weighed more and thus it sank.
But what about the third cup? In this one, a small amount of oil was floating atop some water. My boys were asked what would happen to the food coloring if it was dropped in there. NHL guessed that it would stay together. Secretly, I "knew" he was wrong and that it would sink to the water layer and then turn the water green. Guess what? I was wrong and NHL was right. NHL even guessed, when prompted, that it was due to the oil.
As the food coloring sank through the oil, it got itself a nice oil coating. This coating kept it from mingling with the water below. Once the food coloring blob was disturbed, though, the oil bubble popped and the color mixed into the water just as before.
All in all, my boys loved these science demonstrations and it is making me wonder what other science demos I can show the boys in my own house.
Have you ever run any cool science experiments at home for your kids? If so, what did they consist of?
My boys love animals. So when we went to GE Kids Day in Albany’s Empire State Plaza, they loved seeing the different animals that were there.
First up were some bears. Ok, perhaps these weren’t real animals, but they still loved seeing the Care Bears.
They also liked seeing some of the other costumed animals roaming around.
Onto the real animals, though. As we approached the two by two petting zoo, we saw this cute turtle and rabbit pair.
From here, we moved on to some goats who were quite happy that kids were offering them leaves to eat. It was like an all-you-can-eat-goat-salad-bar.
Moving on from the goats, there was a red kangaroo that was taking it easy in the hot, midday sun.
Then, there was a black and white lemur whose screech was quite impressive. (Sadly, he stopped screeching as soon as I got my camera set on video mode. Mischievous little lemur!)
A blue and gold macaw was sitting pretty on a perch.
Prowling around their cage were a pair of coatimundi – omnivorous animals that are related to raccoons.
There were also a few lizards and an alligator that NHL and JSL got to pet.
After the petting zoo, we moved onto an animal experience of a different kind. NHL and JSL got to ride a pony. NHL has ridden one before, but this was in kindergarten so he likely doesn’t remember it. This was JSL’s first pony ride. They both donned helmets and one after the other got atop Zoe the Pony for a ride.
Alongside the pony ride were some baby chicks, goats, and sheep to look at as well.
Given that the boys and I made lots of new memories and that this experience has deepened the boys’ love of animals, this was a wonderful way to spend a day.
