More Bubble Dough

We tried our hand again at some bubble dough today.  After our Rubber Milk experiment, Monkey J said he wanted to do his own experiment and grabbed some liquid dish soap, poured it into a container, and then asked to microwave it.  After microwaving the soap, he asked to add in some cornstarch.  We ended up with some really awesome bubble dough this time! 

Before I even had a chance to call it bubble dough, Monkey J touched it and remarked, "It feels just like bubbles!" 

As you can tell from the first picture, we didn't use any specific measurements; we simply kept adding soap and cornstarch until we got the right texture.  I think we used closer to 1 cup cornstarch to 1/2 cup dish soap:

Monkey J loved rolling the dough into snakes:

And Monkey A loved sticking her fingers in it:

A very fun afternoon with some neat sensory material!

S.E.T. Rubber Milk

Welcome to another SET (Science Experiment Thursday).  Today we made some rubber milk:

It only requires two ingredients: 

- 1 and 1/2 cups skim milk (skim works the best)

- 4 tsp. white vinegar

Stir the two together for about 10 seconds then place the bowl in the microwave for 2 minutes:

You will notice that the milk has separated into two parts: a liquid and a solid.  Strain the liquid in a strainer.  Allow it to cool.  After it has cooler, touch the solid:

You can even squish it into a ball.  It feels almost like rubber:

Allow it to sit out and harden a bit.  You could even make snowmen or sculptures out of it!  This solid part of the milk is called the curds and the liquid part that was strained out the whey.

Apparently, after a day or two it will feel like plastic.  So we will be leaving ours out to note the changes.

So how does it work?  From Science Fun for Everyone's website:  "Vinegar has a type of acid in it called acetic acid. The acid in the vinegar causes a protein (casein) in the milk to clump together when it is heated. Casein is very similar to plastic because of the tiny molecules it is made out of."

 How fun is science?!  ;) 

Count the Bubbles!

This activity took some time to set up (between 10 - 15 minutes) but Monkey J really enjoyed it.  I recently ordered some materials from The Mailbox Education Center.  I was particularly interested in this book, as we enjoy hands-on activities:

This "Count the Bubbles" activity came from this book (note: this is NOT a sponsored post).  The colored fish were cut out from the book and then I made the poster:

I put velcro on the fish so that we can re-use the game:

Monkey J was a huge fan!

And repeated the game a couple of times:

I plan on laminating the fish to be able to truly re-use this game!

Coffee Filter Art

In the afternoon we enjoyed another quick, easy to set up activity: Coffee filter art!

A very simple activity involving only coffee filters and colored water (you could substitute the water with slightly watered down paint).  We used pipettes, but you could also use medicine droppers:

Then allow the monkeys to color the filters - it always turns out so beautiful!

Tape Painting

A fun and easy activity with no set-up is what we needed this afternoon, so we did a little tape painting:

I found some neat washi-like tape at The Dollar Tree and helped Monkey J make the letter J with it:

We then painted over the tape:

Monkey A also did one:

We played a bit while allowing the paint to dry and then we peeled off the tape:

To reveal our letter! 

Ready, S.E.T., GO! Ivory Soap Cloud

Welcome to our first installment of S.E.T (Science Experiment Thursday).  Monkey J has been very interested in any and all experiments, so it just seemed to make sense to do a weekly one.  Today we did an experiment I had been very excited to try with Monkey J.  It's the Ivory Soap Cloud experiment. First, we collected two brands of soap:  Dial and Ivory

We put each bar into a bowl of water to see if it would sink or float:

Ivory is one of the few bars of soaps that floats:

I cut the soap to show Monkey J the inside of the bar.  There are no large air pockets, but yet the bar floats, so it somehow is less dense than air.  Apparently, Ivory soap floats because it has air whipped into it during the manufacturing process:

I wanted Monkey J to see the comparison of the soaps, so we started with the Dial.  Microwave half a bar of soap for roughly 2 minutes (microwave times will vary):

The Dial soap poofed up a bit:

I let it cool and then let Monkey J touch it:

Next, we put in the Ivory bar (only half or else your microwave will get super messy!):

Be sure to watch the entire 2 minutes, because it is amazing to watch the Ivory bar expand...

Into a cloud-like substance!

Have you ever picked up a cloud before?  You should!  This feels extraordinary!

We then compared the Ivory cloud to the Dial.  Monkey J concluded that the Ivory soap was bigger because it had more air in it.

Quoting from Steve Spangler Science:  "This effect is actually a demonstration of Charles' Law. Charles' Law states that as the temperature of a gas increases, so does its volume. When the soap is heated, the molecules of air in the soap move quickly, causing them to move far away from each other. This causes the soap to puff up and expand to an enormous size. Other brands of soap without whipped air tend to heat up and melt in the microwave"

Monkey J then wanted to see if both "clouds" would float now...and they did!

A super easy science experiment that is loaded with fun!  A great kickoff to our S.E.Ts!

School Letter Search

We did a fun school search today using some cut-outs I had picked up from The Dollar Tree.  We actually did them twice today.  I simply wrote some letters on the notebook cut-outs and then had Monkey J find the correct letters to spell school:

Monkey J really enjoyed this activity!

Our fun with Bubble Dough

When I came across Creative Playhouse's post about bubble dough, I knew we had to try it out with the little monkeys!

You only need two ingredients: 1 cup of cornstarch and 1/4 cup of dish washing liquid

Mix them together (though we later found out it's best to add the liquid soap slowly):

As you can see, ours came out a bit too liquidy:

Which made it seem more like the obleck goop:

Which the monkeys enjoyed playing with anyway:

So we added more cornstarch to it:

We finally ended up with what felt a lot like silly putty:

And although it looked wet, it wasn't wet to the touch.  Granted, we will redo this experiment by slowly adding soap to it next time, but it really goes to show you can't mess up experiments with the little monkeys; it's all about having fun!

What's your favorite dough to play with and touch?