Snow Day Science Experiment

We are on our third snow day in a row. And once again, it was because of the extreme cold not the snow that school was canceled! Since it was too cold to venture outside, we ended up doing some indoor activities. First up was a science experiment: inflating a balloon with vinegar and baking soda, which I had heard about here. Our first balloon worked great. The second one was a flop, and we were done after that.

{We successfully inflated a balloon using science!}

Materials:

• empty plastic bottle (with a small mouth, preferably)
• vinegar
• baking soda
• balloon
• 2 funnels

Directions:

1. Using a funnel, fill the bottle about 1/3 of the way with vinegar. (Note: I first drew a line with a black Sharpie so that the kids would have a visual for when to stop pouring.) One child held the funnel and bottle while the other one poured the vinegar. (Note: Our bottle was an old teriyaki bottle that I pulled from the recycling bin. The neck is warped from the dishwasher, but it had the narrowest mouth of any bottle I could find in the bin, so it was the clear choice.)

   

   {Pouring the vinegar into the bottle}

2. With a second funnel (or the first funnel, assuming you have first dried it completely), add baking soda to a balloon, filling it about half way. They switched roles so that the first pourer was now the holder of the funnel and the balloon, and the first holder was now the pourer of the baking soda.

   

   {Pouring the baking soda into the balloon}

3. Carefully stretch the balloon's opening so that it fits over the mouth of the bottle. (Note: They can tear, so watch out for this.) Be sure not to spill the baking soda into the bottle while you are doing this. I did this step myself.
4. Kids can now lift up the balloon, allowing the baking soda to spill into the bottle. The chemical reaction makes the balloon inflate, which is fun for everyone! (Note: If your balloon happens to break apart while doing this, try to stop them from pouring in any more baking soda. Otherwise, you wind up with a volcano instead of an inflated balloon. While fun, too, this was not the science experiment I was going for, so I wasn't prepared for it!)

   

   {Adding the baking soda to the vinegar}

{I love his excitement!}

Puppy Paw-ty Balloons

I saw the idea for puppy balloons here and decided it shouldn't be too difficult to make them myself. There were a couple challenges, but I think my version turned out pretty well. The first issue I had is that brown balloons are difficult to find. Granted, I only checked Dollar Tree and two different Walmart stores, but I decided that was enough running around looking for brown balloons. At the second Walmart I found a single package of gold balloons, and I decided that they were good enough! The next issue was that I didn't have a way to inflate the balloons to look like the photo. I solved that problem, however, by just blowing them up with my own steam and making the faces "upside down" -- as opposed to the way they would look if the balloons were filled with helium. Then, I taped them to the dining room chandelier.

The grand total spent on this decoration = 97 cents for a package of 10 balloons. So far, I only have used three of the balloons for the family party. I am secretly (or I guess not so secretly since I am announcing it here) hoping that they will last through this weekend's party with friends, but if not, I know it will be easy to make some more puppy balloons (especially if I just re-use the ears and muzzles).

Materials:

• gold balloons (or brown if you can find them)
• pencil or pen
• black Sharpie marker
• kraft paper cardstock (I used 8 1/2" x 11" size.)
• scissors
• double-sided adhesive
• clear tape (for hanging)

Directions:

1. Inflate your balloons. I used three for this puppy paw-ty decor.
2. Fold a piece of kraft paper cardstock in half, lengthwise. Draw a floppy ear, which is sort of a long skinny bean shape, and cut it out. Use this as a template to trace as many ears as you will need. Cut out all ears. Save the scraps for the next step. (Note: If you don't have kraft paper, you can use brown cardstock or brown construction paper.)
3. On a scrap of the kraft paper, draw a dog's muzzle. This looks a bit like an upside down heart. After the first one, I added a sort of notch at the top for the nose, but you can skip that if you prefer. Cut out your muzzle, and again use it as a template, tracing as many as needed on the other scraps of kraft paper. On each muzzle, use a black Sharpie to fill in the nose, draw a mouth, and make "freckles" on either side (or whatever the correct term is for those spots where the whiskers originate from).
4. Using double-sided adhesive, attach ears and muzzles to each balloon. I used approximately one inch squares, one per ear and two per muzzle.
5. Draw two ovals for eyes with a black Sharpie.
6. Use tape to display the puppy face balloons.