Did you even know it was possible to make a thermometer at home? And out of a bottle?  Annie from Bird and Little Bird is here today with this intriguing science project: how to make a homemade thermometer. Fortunately, no mercury is required.

How to Make a Bottle Thermometer

These makeshift thermometers are one of those stand-by science projects that I ran across again and again during my years as a teacher. I never quite understood why they were supposed to be so cool — until we made one.

Indeed, this little experiment turns out to be weirdly, ridiculously fun. Maybe it is because it works so well while still being so easy to make. Or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the effects of the experiment can be relatively dramatic, making it almost like a toy rather than an instructional tool. My daughter and I had great fun making a bottle thermometer, you will too!

Materials

All of the materials are common household items you may already have at home!

• empty glass bottle
• water
• rubbing alcohol
• food coloring, any color
• a clear straw
• modeling clay
• a marker

Step by Step

Begin by gathering up all of your materials. We used a glass bottle from the bulk section at the grocery store (it used to hold maple syrup) and a clear plastic straw that we snagged the last time that we stopped for a smoothie.

Fill the bottle ¼ full of plain water. Next, add an equal amount of rubbing alcohol so that the bottle is half full. Add a few drops of food coloring.

Place the straw in the bottle, and holding it so that it does not touch the bottom but is suspended slightly in the liquid, wrap the modeling clay around the top of the bottle and the straw.  This will hold the straw in place and prevent it from falling farther into the bottle.

MORE: Weather experiment: How to make fog in a bottle

Pay attention to how far up the straw the liquid now comes.  Use the marker to mark the outside of the bottle at the spot where the straw goes from being filled with liquid to being empty (i.e. the line where the liquid stops filling the straw).  This line indicates the current temperature where the bottle is at the moment.

Now, move the bottle to different locations where the temperature is likely to differ. Notice how the liquid either rises or sinks down in the straw. Have your child notice when the liquid rises and falls relative to how warm they think it the location is.

In warmer temperatures, the liquid will rise. In cooler temperatures, it will sink. 

Although different locations in a single room may not yield dramatic results, kids will love to experiment with more extreme temperatures. Try placing the bottle in direct sunlight, on a porch outside on a warm day, or in the refrigerator to see the liquid in the straw rise and fall with the temperature variation.

As an extension, kids can record their observations to practice learning the scientific method.

MORE: Weather tracking experiment for kids

The Science at Work

Your kids will be eager to know the science behind how a bottle thermometer works!

Liquid expands when it is warmed, and contracts when it cools. There is only so much space at the bottom of the bottle, so when the colored liquid gets warmer, it rises in the bottle and is forced up into the straw. 

When the liquid is in a cooler environment again, it will begin to contract, forcing the straw down. While experiment won’t give you an exact temperature, it will show relative temperatures, allow kids to generally see which environments are warmer or cooler than others.

MORE: Easy home science experiments

Annie Riechmann is an educator, blogger, and mama to two small people who lives in the Boston area. Annie is also the creator and publisher of Alphabet Glue, a literacy themed e-magazine for families.  She is a big believer in tree climbing at any age and of wearing knee-high striped socks.  You can visit her at her online abode, Bird and Little Bird, where she writes about everything from books and babies to laundering snowpants and the joys of putting a husband through residency.

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This is a collection of our our favorite math art projects and the best thing about them is that they will get math kids thinking about art and art kids thinking about math!

Turn number sequences into art

• We did this when we turned pi into a cityscape
• Spirolaterals will help your kids practice their multiplication tables.
• Create Fibonacci art with circles.
• This Fibonacci valentine from Math Four could be adapted for any time of the year.

What do your kids prefer, math or art? Do you ever do math art projects with the kids? 

The post 21 Math Art Projects for Kids appeared first on What Do We Do All Day.

What's Included

The first Poetry Bingo card features poetry styles and forms. In order to achieve BINGO, kids (and adventurous grown-ups!) will read, speak and write different types of poems.

Each time a player has completed one of the challenges on the card, they mark it off with a big "X." Once kids have completed all the prompts in five squares diagonally, horizontally or vertically they can shout BINGO!

While completing the Poetry Bingo cards, our poetry reading challenge and poetry writing challenge will come in handy. When completing the middle square, "memorize a poem," they can chose one of these classic poems to memorize and use these tips for memorizing poems.

The second game, Famous Poets Bingo introduces kids to a wide variety of poets. The names include Poet Laureates, contemporary poets and classic authors from different backgrounds.

Because I am who I am, William Shakespeare is in the middle square. There's no avoiding him, folks. Tip: Kids new to Shakespeare? Week 5 of the poetry reading challenge includes the perfect selection for newbies.

The resource page of the Bingo printable lists useful books and websites to help your kids find the necessary poems to complete their Bingo cards.

Sometimes kids need a little motivation! What kids really love is some quality time with their parents and caregivers, so feel free to make Poetry Bingo a family project. If grown-ups need some motivation to participate, look no further than these 8 ways poems calm kids. Of course, prizes can sometimes encourage kids to work towards a goal.

Prize suggestions:

• A book of poems (obviously!) from our list of unique and non-boring poetry books!
• A gift certificate to the local independent bookstore
• An extra chapter of reading at bedtime

Be sure to offer kids a HUGE prize if they complete every single square on each of their Bingo cards!

MORE POETRY RESOURCES:

• Why you should read poetry at bedtime
• Spine poems are easy and fun!
• Funny poetry books for kids

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Read more about how we repurpose games for toddlers and preschoolers!

For example, if he rolled a 5 and a 3, we counted the dots and said "5 plus 3 equals 8". Then he could shut tiles 5 and 3 or tile 8. (If this were the actual game, he could shut any combination of numbers that equaled 8). If he rolled a combination of numbers that were no longer visible on the available tiles, instead of ending the game as in the original rules, he rolled again until he got numbers that worked.

Math Skills Practiced

Even without the competitive aspect of game play, repurposing Double Shutter for a young audience helps them practice valuable skills needed for future math success. Add it to your list of playful after school math activities.

My 5-year-old really enjoyed playing the math game and we took plenty of time to count, find the numbers and talk about which tiles to shut. Working side by side with a parent or other caring adult creates a bonding experience that means the practiced math skills are more likely to skick!

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MORE: Fun Handwriting Activities and Games

MORE: Math Activities for After School

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You may not immediately of science and art as natural partners. After all, science is traditionally taught as being defined by data and testing, while art is the result of spontaneous creativity. However, these science art projects for kids demonstrate there is beauty in science and give kids a way to explore the artistic process through scientific exploration!

Don't forget to explore how math and art projects will wow your kids, too!

Spin Art

Harness the power of centripedal force to create unique art with a common kitchen tool: a salad spinner! Drop washable paint (for easy clean-up) onto plain paper and place in the bottom of the spinner. The rotation makes the paint fly in a circular motion, creating interesting designs. Get the details for how to make spinner art at home here. Afterward, use the paper for cards, bunting, and wrapping paper.

More Science Art Projects

Over at Babble Dabble Do, Ana shares how to make amazing salt pendulum paintings.

The creative genius behind TinkerLab shows kids how to grow their your own geodes to learn about the scientific method and chemical reactions.

Pink Stripey Socks has some creative suggestions to explore art materials like a scientist! What a fun way to encourage artists to apply scientific principals to their work.

Over at Left Brain Craft Brain, you'll find instructions for a great last minute boredom buster that combines creativity with science as a way to learn about the science behind flight.

Want more activities that combine science and art? Our STEAM Kids book contains over 50 projects! Learn more about STEAM Kids here.

The post 12 Science Art Projects: Explore and Create appeared first on What Do We Do All Day.

This simple paper trick featuring a tricky dot that doesn't want to move from its corner engages the mind and distracts kids from getting antsy when they have to wait! It's another idea to add to our list of 20 waiting games for kids that keep kids off screens.

Dot-in-the-Corner Puzzler

The set up to this brain teaser couldn't be simpler, and the puzzling trick also has some benefits for little minds!

Just like Mobius strips and the circle-to-square brain teaser, the dot-in-the-corner paper cutting trick helps develop the following skills:

• Visual perception
• Mathematical understanding
• Fine motor
• Problem solving and analysis

Below the instructions and solution video, you'll find some helpful tips when using this brain teaser in the classroom.

What you need:

The dot-in-the-corner printable.

Scissors

Stopwatch (optional; only if you are very mean)

Instructions

Step 1. Print out the paper cutting trick. Fill out the form and we'll send it right over to you.

Alternatively, you can easily draw your own version. The location of the dot need not be exact, as long as the paper is square and the dot is in the upper right hand corner.

Step 2. Trick your friends

Hand your friends the square of paper with the dot and a pair of scissors. Give them these instructions:

"Cut the square so that you have exactly two pieces of paper. Now, rearrange the two pieces so that the dot is the center, but the two pieces still form a square."

Step 3. Wait and watch

Take a step back, perhaps start a stopwatch. Observe to see if they can figure it out and how long it takes them to do it!

If you can't figure it out on your own, watch our video to see the solution! (*note, if you have trouble viewing the video below, you can watch it on our youtube channel)

Step 4. Fool your friends with more paper tricks!

Tips for Teachers & Parents

Instruct the child not to cut the paper until they are sure of the solution. Since they will inevitably make an incorrect cut, it can help to have more than one puzzle on hand. Our printable includes four puzzles for this reason.

If you make your own dot-in-the-corner puzzle, the dot doesn't have to be in a precise location, as long as it's in a corner. However, the location will affect exactly where the child must make the cuts.

There is mathematics at play here. Although the paper puzzle is square, the cut will not be exactly square, or the dot won't end up in the middle of the paper. You can encourage inquiry by asking:

• Where would the dot need to be if you cut out exactly ¼ square from the corner?
• How would your cut(s) have to be different if the dot moved up or down? Left or right?

It's unlikely a child could eyeball the cut to get a dot exactly in the center, as long as they get the concept.

For older kids, you could turn this into a geometry problem using graph paper and equations to figure out the exact measurements, but that is beyond my pay grade. I'll leave figuring that conundrum to the math teachers out there.

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Thaumatropes

Learn about the scientific concept persistence of vision and challenge children to put their engineering and design skills to work by making thaumatropes. Make and design your own, or use our Halloween thaumatrope template to watch bats fly, spiders spin and pumpkins grin.

Tessellations

Tessellations are a great math art project. Your kids can get into the Halloween spirit by making black cat tessellations for very simple Halloween STEAM project, but it would be easy for students in a math or art class use our open-ended, standard tessellation instructions to create their own creatures like ghosts and monsters.

Halloween STEAM Kids

We've got so much more Halloween STEAM activities and STEM projects in our Halloween STEAM Kids ebook. Some of the projects include:

• Fizzing Pumpkins
• Spider Web Science
• Magic Potions Density Tower
• Milk Jug Skeletons

The digital format makes it easy to have all the instructions at your fingertips without having to go back and search for them all over the internet! PLUS, you get 31 Days of Halloween STEAM Challenge Cards FREE!!

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Although parents may not want to play Go Fish on repeat the way kids do, it's a good idea to indulge their request for the card game as often as possible because there are actually a lot of hidden benefits to playing Go Fish!

But first, let's get a handle on what the game is, because Go Fish is one of the 10 card games kids should know!

How to Play Go Fish

For the 6 people left in the world who don't know how to play Go Fish, the instructions are very easy. Although many companies like to sell fancy Go Fish specific card decks, all you need is a standard deck of 52 cards.

Number of players

2-5 players

Objective

To collect as many sets of 4 of a kind as you can. In some variations, players only collect pairs.

Set-Up and Deal

Decide who goes first and who will deal. You can draw cards, play rock, paper, scissors, choose the youngest player, or shout "Not It!." The choice is yours.

The dealer deals 7 cards to each player. If playing with 4 or 5 players, deal out 5 cards to each player.

Place the remaining cards in a pile, face down. This is the "Go Fish" pile.

Play

Players examine their hands and decide what cards they might want to "fish" for. The first player, "the fisher," asks any other player if they have a particular number or face card. For example, "Do you have any 5s?" The fisher must already have at least one 5 in their hand.

If the "fishee" has a 5 they must hand over the card or cards to the fisher. If not, they gleefully say, "Go fish!" and the fisher draws one card from the Go Fish pile.

If the fisher gets one or more cards they asked for, whether from the fishee or the draw pile, they get another go and can ask the same player or another player for a card. They get to keep fishing as long as they continue to be given or draw the correct card. If they do not get the correct card, their turn is over and play continues clockwise.

Once a player as a set of four cards, they lay them down face up.

Play continues in this manner until all thirteen face value cards have been collected by players in sets of four.

The winner is the player with the most sets.

Benefits of Go Fish!

Perhaps one of the reasons kids love Go Fish! so much is because deep down they know that it's teaching them valuable skills and prepping their brains for the long schooling years in front of them!

Okay, maybe not, but it's still great for for early math learning and social skills.

Go Fish! teaches:

• recognition of numerals and quantities
• matching pairs and sorting
• listening and memory skills (Last time Mommy had a 5, but I didn't. Now I do have a 5. "Mommy, do you have a 5?"),
• learning how to take turns

... and, of course, Go Fish is a good starter game for parents who are helping kids who hate to lose learn how to be a good sport (we have more helpful sportsmanship tips here).

So what are you waiting for? Go Fish!

For slightly older kids who are practicing early addition skills, don't forget about TENS GO FISH!

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It's the perfect opportunity for older kids who to learn about the scientific method and it's great for younger kids who are still simply exploring the wonders of science.

Strain out the cabbage. Set for cooking (if you think boiled cabbage is tasty) or add it to the compost pile.

Allow the cabbage juice, which is now a bright purple color, to cool completely.

Cabbage Juice Experiment Instructions

While the cabbage juice is cooling, prep your work area.

Preparation and Set-Up

Arrange your empty cups or bowls on a table or other protected surface. Write the name of each household item on a label and place next to each cup. Place a small amount of the corresponding powder or liquid into each cup.

Decant the cabbage juice into a liquid measuring cup or jar for easy pouring and fill a number of cups half full with the purple liquid.

MORE: Top 10 After-School Science Experiments

Mix the Materials

Now comes the fun part!

Mix your chosen ingredients into the separate containers of cabbage juice and watch what happens!

Kids will observe that the different combinations provide a range of results, depending on whether you are adding a base or an acid to the cabbage juice. Sometimes the liquid will turn pinker, other times it will stay purple or head towards blue or green.

After the initial mixing of each base or acid to the cabbage juice, my kids started to engage in a free for all. Suddenly, when they added baking soda to the vinegar-juice combo the color changed again, and it started fizzing! They thought it was great fun (as you will see if you watch the video, below) to start mixing and matching however they saw fit. That's the magic of science!

MORE: Learn about Liquid Density with a Salt Volcano

The Science Behind the Experiment

Cabbage juice is a ph indicator that changes color according to the acidity of the substance added to it. Red cabbage contains anthocyanin, a water-soluble pigment that changes color depending on the substance added to it.

The more acidic the substance, the pinker it gets. The less acidic, the closer to yellow the juice gets. A neutral ph will appear blue.

Tips

Tip #1. It's perfectly reasonable to want to approach this science experiment in a methodical manner, meticulously recording results and observations. That's great for a classroom or homeschool lesson.

For us, this experiment was an after-school science exploration and my kids didn't want to do the recording part, which was fine for our purposes. Sometimes learning about science is just having fun with no further obligations.

Tip #2 Some ingredients will fizz when combined. Let it happen, set it up somewhere where kids can experiment without worrying about mess.

Just like with our simple kids science lab, you should let the kids explore the scientific reactions however they want. Please supervise closely if using any harsh ingredients.

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