A Little Late Night Science Again

The thing about interest led learning is that you never know when and where an interest is going to strike. Last night at about 10:00 several interesting things were happening at our home. Dominick saw something on tv about quicksand which sparked a desire to know more. So he got on youtube, his go-to source for learning almost everything, and spent the evening learning all he could about quicksand. While he was researching, he learned ways to replicate it. One way was with cornstarch and water and since we happened to have cornstarch and water, we quickly had a little cup of quicksand to play with.

 If you touched it on top it felt dry and solid

 But, if you slowly put your fingers in, it became wet and soupy.

       

Xury wanted a turn.

That little bit was fun but they're pretty sure it would be more fun if they bought lots of cornstarch and made a big batch that they can walk in. So, on the grocery list for this week is lots of cornstarch.

While Dominick was learning about quicksand, Aravis was learning about the eye. We were talking about pupils dilating and watching our own pupils get bigger and smaller in different lighting. I remembered that I had a book with a really cool magnified picture of an iris and pupil, so we got that and another body part book out and studied eyes for awhile.

Big eye.

 And while she wasn't playing with quicksand or looking at diagrams of eyes, she was in her tent reading.

So what was Tanner doing all this time?  We've been watching Extreme Homes on HGTV  which inspired her to design her own Lego extreme home.

Extreme Lego treehouse. 

I, for one, would totally live there.

I love sharing in my kids' learning but I love that it's theirs and theirs alone and that I'm just along for the ride.