I am Madame Blueberry

I am Blue... blue... bluuuuuue..... * Veggie tales Madame Blueberry song singing in my head*


My fingers are blue, my nails are blue .... We pulled out our chemistry set last night to do a couple of experiments out of the guide that came with it, First one had to do with Surface tension - we had to mix small amounts of Methylene Blue with water - My FIRST mistake was letting one of my girls open the chemical - my next mistake was not putting this stuff up IMMEDIATELY.. lol.

The blue stuff spilled a small amount on the table - less than 1/4 tsp. but a little of this goes a LONG LONG LONG way. My table now has blue color in the grain of the wood - we didn't get the newspaper down before she opened it - the bottle then had the blue stuff on the outside, so every time I touched it trying to clean stuff, it got all over me. I am lucky I guess, washing my hands with soft-scrub with bleach got most of the blue off.. but I am still blue on my fingernails and around the nail beds, My sink was blue also - I ended up running out of soft scrub with bleach!!!

The girls did learn about surface tension, using drops of the blue water in the micro plate small openings, we discovered when we turned it upside down the water stayed put, Then the girls added the solution to the larger openings, the guide instructed then to then turn it upside down OVER THE SINK - so we all knew what was coming up :) The larger openings spilled right out, so we discussed what happened, and why. Was fun even with blue fingers. So we finished that, and cleaned up the blue messes :)

Then we went on and mixed some zinc and salt and then added water and watched what happened - salt absorbed in the water, zinc settled in the bottom) then we filtered the water, getting the zinc out, and left the remaining water in the cup to evaporate. When it's all evaporated we are going to look at the residue under the microscope. Today I am going to have the girls write up a hypothesis on that. I am also having each start a lab notebook, they will write what we did, draw a picture, and add the hypothesis to that, then when we finish the experiment they can write what actually did happen.


We have Raylen today, so schoolwork will probably take a back seat during the day, but after my daughter in law gets her this afternoon, we will get busy. I can do readings with the girls while she is here, but math, and hands on stuff we have to wait until she is gone. She is 22 months and usually her Aunties are playing with her, and too distracted to concentrate on Math lessons, and grammar, and copywork.