Educational

Materials:
Jelly Marbles(polymers)
Water
Test Tube or Cup
Food Coloring or Color Tablets, optional

Directions:
Place the jelly marbles into the water and watch them grow. It takes a whole day for them to fully expand.

We put the marbles into the test tube in the morning and the children carried the closed tubes around all day checking out the progress. (If using test tubes, the marbles will get stuck in the tube meaning you have to break them to get them out. This was very disappointing for the children. Next time I will remove the marbles before they are full size.) We tried this experiment on a second day in a cup and throughout the day their fingers were in the water trying to feel how big the marbles had become. They have been checking on their shrinking marbles for the past week. This experiment was a HUGE hit for the children.

Variations:
Place a few marbles in a cup and a few marbles in a test tube. Will one set grow larger when water is added?
Will the marbles grow in a sphere form or will they expand in different ways?
Will the marbles absorb the coloring from the water or just the water?
What will happen if you dump the water off the marbles?
When the marbles shrink, will they keep their new coloring?

I have been searching for practical science equipment for children and found the Steve Spangler Science Website. I decided to order the jelly marbles kit, tornado tube, buzz magnets, and test tubes.

The reason for the jelly marbles kit is that it comes with pipettes, mini-mixing tray, petri dish, color tablets, cups, measuring scoop, polymer spheres, and 9 experiments. We had been at our friends house, who is a science teacher, and she listed most of these items as great to have for a home science kit. The polymer spheres are especially fun to grow and shrink again.

Steve Spangler did a quick job of processing my order and delivering the products. They even included a cool experiment called the “mentos geyser” which is a test tube of mentos to dump into a 2 liter of soda creating a 20 ft geyser of soda. Our children can’t wait for the weather to warm so we can go outside and create our own geyser.

The test tubes are very durable and have screw on lids so the children can carry their experiments around with them. We put a few jelly marbles, food coloring, and water into a tube and took it on errands with us. It was a blast for the children to see how the marbles grew throughout the afternoon. The only negative was once the jelly marbles grew, they got stuck in the test tube as the top is narrower than the bottom. For most experiments I don’t think this will be a problem and the marbles were easy to break and dump out.

Stay tuned for the fun and simple experiments we created with our Steve Spangler materials.

Our rule is the children get to open all gifts and play with everything on the special day. That night everything goes into a bag in the closet until thank you notes are written. I promise you that they will get done, someday. Our oldest turned 6 in May and just finished his notes in December*.

Keep a folder of all the thank you notes your children receive so they have inspiration to write their own. They love getting mail and when they re-read the notes they received it helps them to sit down and send notes to thank others.

Simple wording for early writers:

Thank you Aunt Sue. I like the books. Love, Austin

Dear Aunt Sue,
Thank you for the books. I enjoy reading them at bedtime.
Love,
Austin

For our 5 year old, she dictates what she wants to write (the first example is hers) and we write a template without names or gifts and she copies and fills in the blanks.

Our 6 year old has free reigns and you can tell by reading his notes that he spells everything himself. He does a great job and is very sincere.

*I have to tell all that he didn't fully realize what the rule was until he saw his sister writing her thank you notes in December and playing with all her toys. It took him 5 minutes to finish all his notes. He wrote one round of notes directly after his party but didn't write them for gifts that came in the mail. Poor thing actually forgot about all his other gifts. He wrote all of his Christmas notes on the 26th of December.

I made this super cute set of alphabet letters as Christmas gifts for my niece and nephew. I got the idea and tutorial here. Chez Beeper Bebe always has very wonderful and crafty sewing ideas.

I followed her tutorial but did change a few things.

1. I used 100% organic bamboo batting so if it was sucked on it wouldn’t have any toxins.

2. Instead of new material scraps I used outgrown clothing from the children. I cut around the stains and it makes me smile to see their old pj’s put to good use.

3. I didn’t put magnets in the letters. She warns about the magnets and small children and I am giving the letters to small children so I omitted them.

4. I enlarged the letters so my finished letters are between 4 and 5 inches tall.

5. I didn't cut out the insides of the letters. I thought it would be too difficult so I just sewed the inside lines.

6. I matched the material that spelled out the names to make it personalized.