Unplugged Challenge: Weather

Blaze and I tried two weather related experiments to go with this week's Unplugged Challenge theme, which was "weather".

The first one was a "wind car", which did not work for us.
The theory is that by cutting off the bottom of the milk jug, you have created a space where wind will blow in and push the car along. I guess our wind wasn't strong enough.








Our other experiment was much more successful. It was to make Borax Snowflakes.
These will be used as ornament on our Christmas tree as soon as we get one.

Start off with three equal size pieces of pipe stem cleaner.



Then twist them together to form a 6 sided snowflake shape and tie a string to the end of one arm of the "snowflake".



Fill a wide mouthed jar with boiling water and stir in 3 tablespoons of Borax for each cup of water. Tie or wrap the string around a stick or pencil.



Carefully lower the snowflake into the hot water, making sure it does not touch the sides or bottom of the jar.



Let it sit over night.

In the morning you will have a sparkly crystal covered snowflake ( if the mouth of the jar is not wide enough, you may have to crack a little of the crystal to bend the snowflake enough to remove it from the jar).





Remember that no two snowflakes are ever alike.




Since we are now done reading On the Banks of Plum Creek, we started reading from our new book, The Festival of Stones as our bedtime story last night.