Science Day.

We had a couple of days of really lousy weather days this weekend, since we couldn't go outside we turned them into science days. This time we studied, dye, rainbows and colours. We started out dyeing some flower shaped pasta using food dyes and rubbing alcohol. We used only red, blue and yellow to mix our colours. Some little people thought is was pretty fun to squirt the dye. Things got messy. We left them to sit overnight and drained and dried them the next day. Along the way the boys learned a lot about colour mixing in light and pigment. ( had to get out the colour wheels and lighting gel samples.)



They also both memorized the colour sequence of a true rainbow ( R.O.Y. G. B.I.V., anyone?) We learned what a mnemonic is, and got sidetracked by Sir Isaac Newton. All in all not a bad way to spend a Saturday. Did you know that Newton added Indigo so that the colours in rainbow would be seven? He wanted them to match the days of the week, the notes in a major scale and the number of known planets. How cool is that?



Since we had all this gorgeous pasta we made rainbows to hang in the windows. I saw this on the fabulous blog, 5orangepotatoes. This blog along with The Crafty Crow are two of my favourite kids craft blogs.



Since we also had all this beautiful dye we continued the experiment with short grain white sushi rice and short grain brown rice.



The results were tallied in journals and on charts. Many hypothesis and conclusions were made observing the different types of rice and how they dyed.



Not quite ready to let the dye go......the boys grabbed the box of cornstarch packing noodles, they dissolve in water, but what would they do in the alcohol and dye solution? Interesting! Turn out that they shrink, A lot! But they don't fall apart. While wet they are very stretchy, and when dry they are harder to dissolve after dyeing. This descended into anarchy and stained clothes. But it was all worth it, both boys had a great time and not once did I hear anyone ask for the T.V. to go on. And...we have two beautiful rainbows to brighten up our dreary cloudy days. The coolest thing about these rainbows is that as they move on their hanging strings, they fade and come back depending on whether you are seeing the solid side of the pasta or the pierced interior. They fade in and out, just like the real thing.