Bottles, Buoyancy & Brains

Good morning, sunshine!

HAPPY DANCE: CJ & Annabelle got their hearts pumping this morning by dancing to music by big brother Rick's band, Bottleshock, which has a bunch of photos and videos posted on their Facebook page.

When Annabelle heard "China Girl" she asked, "Is Rick singing that? Wow. He's a good singer!"

"Flagpole Sitta" always gets people up and moving and CJ and Annabelle were no exception. It was a fun way to start the day!

T-E-A-M-W-O-R-K: We debuted a new spelling list yesterday. It includes a few tricky words, such as the ridiculously-spelled "because" and "could." After they wrote them a couple of times, I had them stand up and spell the words in tandem. In other words, one would say b, then the other e, then c then a ... you get the picture.

It worked great - when they knew how to spell the word. ;) I think this particular list is going to take us longer than what has been a 3 day average to master.

PASS THE KETCHUP: It just felt like it was time for a hands on experiment today, so we hopped back to handy dandy ScienceBob and perused the experiment offerings. The Cartesian Diver - ketchup experiment grabbed my attention because a) CJ LOVES ketchup and b) I knew I had water, a couple of ketchup packets, and I just happened to have two clear 1-liter bottles sitting on my counter. A literally "just add water" experiment - yes!

As Science Bob explains, "This experiment is all about buoyancy and density. Buoyancy describes whether objects float or sink. This usually describes how things float in liquids, but it can also describe how things float or sink in and various gasses. Density deals with the amount of mass an object has."

I had the kids take the labels off their bottles and fill them with water. I gave CJ a ketchup packet from Burger King and Annabelle had one from McDonalds.

They squeezed the packets through the bottle opening, put the lids on their bottle and started squeezing. CJ's started sinking immediately. Annabelle's just floated on the surface. "Burger King wins!" CJ declared gleefully.

We swapped Annabelle's packet out with another Burger King one and voila! Hers started sinking and rising, as well. Success!

The reason the ketchup floats, explains ScienceBob, is because "there is a little bubble inside of the ketchup packet. As we know bubbles float, and the bubble in the ketchup sometimes keeps the heavy packet from sinking. When you squeeze the bottle hard enough, you put pressure on the packet. That causes the bubble to get smaller and the entire packet to become MORE DENSE than the water around it and the packet sinks. When you release the pressure, the bubble expands, making the packet less dense (and more buoyant) and, alas, it floats back up. This demonstration is sometimes known as a CARTESIAN DIVER."

Easy for Science Bob to say.

SPLASHDOWN: Another Wednesday, another pair of swimming lessons. Next week is their last lesson of this session and I didn't re-up. To me, it doesn't make sense to drive to and from Ballard twice a day to the same place, same pool. It should be one trip. Also, it is not a good use of our time to have CJ standing/bobbing by the side of the pool while the other 7 or 8 kids in his class do what the teacher tells them to do - one at a time. I can understand the need for the individualized instruction, because they have kids on every level in this one class. But really, that doesn't work well for anyone. (For instance, the advanced swimmers have to bide their time while CJ and another beginner level swimmer are blowing bubbles into the water. Bo-ring.)

So I'm thinkin' that after next week, hopefully either Christian or I can take the kids to a public swim once or twice a week and work with them. We'll see ...

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: MPA's account is on the short side today, as I was away from the computer for most of the evening. However, MPA was definitely still on my mind!

Tonight, Christian and I went to Seattle Town Hall hear a lecture by Dr. John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist, affiliate professor of bioengineering at the UW School of Medicine, and director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University. He's also author of "Brain Rules," a New York Times best seller.

The promo materials said Dr. Medina would "explain the 12 essential brain rules every parent needs to know. Learn what your child’s brain needs—as well as your own—to function well. Discover the critical parenting practices that set children on the path of lifelong happiness. Find out how wonder, curiosity, exercise, and stress shape the biology of the developing brain."

And that's pretty much what he did. It was insightful and inspiring and I took some notes, which I'll share tomorrow. Stay tuned. ;) In the meantime, you can learn lots more about Dr. Medina and his 'Brain Rules' science on his Web site and his blog and a Seattle Times interview with him, that is a micro version of the talk he gave tonight.