Hiking and tarantulas

We are very fortunate to live close to a wonderful lake for hiking and swimming.  Earlier this summer during a naturalist guided boat tour of the lake, we discovered that one of the coves was named Tarantula Cove.  Then last week I heard from somewhere that the tarantulas were out and about at the lake now.

So when we entered the park, we asked the attendent about the tarantulas.  He told us several things about the spiders so when we were hiking we were on the lookout for them.  

photo from wikipedia

The park attendant told us that if we encountered a spider with a bald spot, it meant that the spider had been disturbed.  Apparently one line of defense for this spider is to kick off hairs on its abdomen, this apparently irritates their enemies. We did encounter a squashed spider on our hike but no live ones.  Other hikers we talked to did see the spiders. Today my boys were more interested in watching a large group of great danes play in the lake.  We still have a couple more weeks for tarantula spotting so I am sure we will try again.

I did find interesting tarantula facts at wikipedia, enchanted learning,  and national geographic.

Pumpkin Pie Tarts

The other day I was walking around Target without children which was a treat and I saw pumpkin pie pop tarts.  I was seriously tempted to buy these because I love all thing pumpkins, but I thought maybe I can make something like this at home.  Lucky for me the next day this recipe was posted by picky palate and saved me the trouble of having to create a recipe.  

Pumpkin Pie Tarts

Adapted from www.picky-palate.com

• 1 Cup canned pumpkin
• 1/4 Cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 Cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

• 2 8 in pie crusts
• Soft (spreadable) butter
• granulated sugar
• Tablespoons ground cinnamon
• Fall or Halloween themed cookie cutter
• Melted chocolate for drizzling (optional)

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  In a large bowl mix the pumpkin, sugar, heavy cream, egg, cinnamon and nutmeg until creamy and well combined.

2.  Place rolled out pie crust on a parchment sheet.  Cut out pumpkin or other fall/Halloween shapes.  Place parchment sheet and cut outs on baking sheets.  Spread butter on each cut out then sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.  Spoon about 2 Tablespoons of pumpkin pie filling around center of cut out leaving 1/4 inch border around edges.

3.  Bake for 25-30 minutes or until pie crust is golden brown on the edges and pumpkin pie is cooked through.  Let cool for 10 minutes on baking sheet then transfer to cooling rack.  Serve room temperature or chilled.  Drizzle with melted chocolate if desired before serving.

Notes:

The original recipe calls for 2 boxes of puff pastry.  I had one box in the freezer so I made some tarts with puff pastry and some with pie crust.  Both were good but I think I would make this recipe more often with pie crust because it is cheaper and I usually have the items on hand to make pie crusts. 

Tie-dyed milk

Supplies:

1. Pie pan or other shallow dish
2. Milk (2% or whole)
3. Food Coloring-several colors
4. Dish soap
5. Toothpicks

Experiment:

1. Fill pie pan with approximately 0.5 inches of milk
2. Add several drops of each color around the edge--
3. Dip toothpick into dish soap
4. Touch soapy end of toothpick to milk
5. Observe what happens
6. Repeat steps 3-5

Explanation

            When the soap tipped toothpick touches the surface of the milk the colors create beautiful patterns.   The scientific explanation is too complex for young children, but this doesn’t stop them for watching and enjoying the chemical reaction. 

Both of my children enjoyed this experiment.  My two year old was totally mesmerized by it.  I have repeated this experiment several different times now because it keeps my children occupied so I can get sometime done!  

Observations

Happy 4th of July!   Despite trying to think of a red, white, and blue science project, I could not.  June was an incredibly busy month for us and we are exhausted.  Unfortunately July is turning into another busy month.  Hopefully we can enjoy the lazy days of summer in August with many afternoons spent swimming in the lake!  

I saw these dinosaurs in the grocery store and decided that these would be our science project.   

To make this activity scientific, I thought we would graph their growth.

To make them grow, we placed in them into warm water.

After a couple of hours, we measured them and compared the new size to the starting size.

We started this project too late in the day so the boys had to wait until morning for the next measurement.  The dinosaurs grew a lot over night.  I have more of them so I will repeat this activity but start in the morning.

Soda Geyser

I had heard of this experiment before but I didn't realize it was so easy to do.  Over at Steve Spangler's website he sells a tube for dropping the mentos into the 2-L bottle, but it isn't necessary.  We were able  to create a small geyser that entertained both children and daddy with out it.

Any soda will work--I choose Coca Cola (recently in science camp we observed that dark soda produced a higher geyser) and orange soda (Bam's favorite color).  I was told by the teacher that only mint mentos work.   We didn't use a whole package of mentos per bottle.  I used about 8 for the Coca Cola experiment and Bam used 3 mentos.  You really have to drop the candy in quickly otherwise you get covered in sticky soda.

My husband was so impressed and surprised by the Coca Cola experiment that he forgot to take pictures.  We didn't tell him what was going to happen.  Here is the start of the orange soda geyser.  

Bam and Bob running through the sprinklers afterwards.  More fun than tanking a bath after this sticky experiment.

building electrical circuits

Last summer, Grandpa gave us this electrical circuit kit during one of his visits.  Over that weekend, Grandpa played with it a lot but Bam showed no interest in it until just recently.  Bam dug this kit out and is loving it.  The booklet has lots of different projects to build.  Our kit is similar to this one (not quite as many components, but I am sure that I will be buying more components soon): 

Our first project was Morse Code

Then we made a voice recorder--huge hit with both boys!!

Bam and Bob also liked the water and salt water tester

The recommended age for this toy is 8-13 years old.  I have been having Bam find the components in the box (each component type has a number or letter and number identifier) and then I help him place them on the labeled grid.  The boys and I have been swamped with morning and afternoon swim lessons and family obligations lately. One more crazy week and then the boys and I can do more exploring and other fun activities.  

Books about firefighting

Bam is VERY into all things related to fire engines; therefore, Bob knows a lot about fire engines although he doesn't show quite the same level of interest. In the last few months we have even discovered an author, Chris Demarest, who has written several books about fire fighting.  We first discovered this book: 

Then about a month ago at our library we found another one of his books:

In this book the fire engines are green which Bam had to question because city fire engines are either red, white or yellow.  So we started talking about how the US Forest Service has green fire engines.  Bob surprised me the other day when he saw this book and said "Hotshots."  On the inside cover of this book, it lists two other books--one about smokejumpers, and one about about coast guard rescues, Bob's other obsession.  So off we went to the library in search of these two books.  

After reading the smokejumpers book, Bam was determined to create a smoking jumping costume so we did while Bob was napping.  We had almost everything for it but I need to come up with a better parachute.  Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures.