Monthly Archives: July 2012

The Smell Eraser

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Kaleb was given a Super Stinky Experiment Kit a while ago.  I was a little leery of the “super stinky” label, but since The Smell Eraser experiment involves spices from the kitchen I decided it was probably the safest of the bunch to try first.

Materials to build your own Smell Eraser:

  • 2 paper cups
  • Sharpie
  • Ground Cinnamon
  • Cocoa
  • Teaspoon
  • Water
  • Spoon for stirring

Using the sharpie pen, mark one cup “A” and the other cup “B”

Cup A

  • 4 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
  • 4 teaspoons of cocoa
  • Add 1 teaspoon of water
  • Stir all ingredients until well mixed and the spices are damp.
Cup B
  • Measure 4 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
  • Add 1 teaspoon of water
  • Stir until well mixed

Now that you have everything all set up, you are ready to begin your magic show and erase your audiences sense of smell.

First have your subject tell you what cup “A” and cup “B” smell like.

Next, have your subject take 10 whiffs of cup “A” and then take 10 whiffs of cup “B”.  Quickly have them go back and sniff cup “A”.

What does cup “A” smell like now?

The kids were amazed by this simple smell eraser trick.  When you smell one order for a really long time, your olfactory receptors get a little tired out.  They become temporarily unable to smell that particular order anymore.  This is called an odor adaptation or odor fatigue.  Since you are smelling lots of cinnamon in this experiment, your olfactory receptors go “on strike” and you can only smell the cocoa.

Pretty cool.  This also happens when you first walk into a house, car, room etc that has a strong odor.  As a result, that initial waft of turkey dinner that everyone comments on as they walk your house is soon a case of odor fatigue.  Initially it is a wonderful strong smell that soon fads into the background.  Our body is pretty amazing!

Have fun playing with this simple smell eraser experiment and enjoy learning about your sense of smell.

Here is a link to a fun list of great experiments that my kids love.

Carrot Cake Pancakes

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Simple Fall Recipe ~ Carrot Cake Pancakes

My kiddos love pancakes and have a bit of a sweet tooth.  When I told them that we were having carrot cake pancakes for breakfast they were super excited. What could be better than mixing a normal breakfast food combined with cake!  Yummy!

carrot cake pancakes ~ yummy fall recipe

 

These pancakes are light, fluffy and delicious!  If you love carrot cake, then you have to try this recipe.  I stumbled upon this recipe on Multiply Delicious, when searching for something to spice up our Saturday morning routine.  It has since become part of our recipe rotation.

Carrot Cake Pancake Recipe

Carrot Cake Pancakes

  •  1 1/4 cup white whole wheat flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/8 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/8 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup low fat butter milk (I use the milk we have on had, often 1percent and it works great)
  • 1 TB canola oil
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanila
  • 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 2 cups of freshly grated carrots (it takes about 1 lb of carrots to make 2 cups grated
  • Butter or cooking spray for your pan
Combine flour and the next 6 ingredients (through nutmeg) in a bowl.  Stir with a whisk.  Next combine brown sugar and the next 4 ingredients (through eggs); add sugar mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.  Finally, gently fold in 2 cups of grated carrots.  Stirring just until combined.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Coat pan with butter or cooking spray.  Spoon batter (about a 1/4 cup for each pancake) onto pan, spreading gently with the cake of your spoon. Cook for 2 minutes or until tops are covered with little bubbles and edges start to look cooked.  Carefully turn pancakes over; cook 1 minute or until bottoms are lightly browned. Repeat procedure for the remaining batter.

Carrot Cake Pancake Recipe

These are perfect when served warm with honey butter or cream cheese sauce.  Both are delightful, although the kids are partial to the honey butter!  Follow the link to the recipes.

This is a little tip for keeping your pancakes warm and yummy while waiting for the rest of the batch to cook.  Heat your oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit and place a metal cooling rack on a cookie sheet in the oven.  This will help keep your pancakes hot, but also keep them from getting soggy.

Carrot Cake Pancake Recipe

If your are lucky enough to have any left overs, these make great honey sandwiches.  Use the pancakes as the sandwich bread, and spread with honey.  This is one of my kids favorite sandwiches in their lunch, but they also make an easy to go breakfast when you are rushing out the door.  Quick and nutritious, got to love that.

Check out this fun list of fall ideas!

Turn your smartphone into a Microscope

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My friend brought over one of the coolest little gadgets that I have seen!  This fun little pocket microscope is portable and inexpensive which makes it perfect for our family.  You can use it to turn your smartphone into a microscope.

Currently these microscopes are selling for under $5 on amazon!  They are intended for Jewelers, but works great for learning and exploring with kids!  You will be surprised at what these little 45x microscopes can do, plus the price is right:)

 The great thing about this little microscope is that it is totally portable.  No expensive science lab is needed, and you don’t have to use prepared slides.  This little guys can go anywhere you want it to, and you can conduct your observations right where you are.  The things to view are endless, but here are a few thoughts…plants, trees, the sand, dirt, the water in a pond, flowers, seeds, the carpet, the food that you are eating, insects, your arm…the list of new discoveries is endless.

My kids love pretending they are scientists.  The kids loved discovering things in our back yard up close and finding things that you never knew were there.  We were viewing our regular surroundings in a whole new way.  The kids were totally amazed when they put it to their arms to see skin cells up close.  So cool!

As you can see, there is no need for a smart phone to make these little microscopes work. They are great on their own, however check out what else they can do!

The next thing our friends showed us was INCREDIBLE!  You can use it with the camera on your smart phone.  Instead of only one kid looking through it, you can view things as a group!  How cool is that.  All you need to do is line up the viewer with your camera on your phone and zoom it way in.  It can get a bit tricky to hold everything still, but totally worth it.

Check out how cool that is.  Since it is connected to the camera on your phone, you can take creative images of all the cool things that you are discovering and share them with everyone.

I love discovering new learning tools, and I know our family is going to have a ton of fun playing with this little microscope.   Plus microscopes are cool, but one that you can carry around your back yard or take with you on a hike is seriously great.

Here is a link to a fun list of great experiments that my kids love.

Water Bottle Fireworks

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Since discovering how to shoot the top off a water bottle, Kaleb can’t seem to get enough.  We don’t use very many recyclable water bottles, so he is always scrounging for them any where he can.  We were at a garage sale the other day and instead of purchasing something fun he asked the lady if he could have their empty water bottles out of their recycling bin.   Love it!  Go here for a simple tutorial to see how to make a water bottle popper.

We fashioned a simple water bottle firework.  You will need…a hot glue gun, curling ribbon used to make gifts cute, and an empty water bottle.  Simply place a dot of hot glue on the inside of the cap to hold the ribbon in place.  The ribbon will create the “tail” of the firework.  Insert the ribbon into the bottle, and screw the cap on.  You will need to turn the bottle upside down and tap all the ribbon to the top of the bottle.  When you twist the bottle, make sure all the ribbon is in the top “chamber”.  When ready to shoot it off, simple aim the bottle and twist the cap.  The addition of the ribbon makes these poppers very festive.

Make sure you are cautious when aiming the bottles since they shoot off fast!  Next we need to try it with loose confetti.  they would make cute DIY party poppers.

This “firework” flew high into a tree.  Happy July 4th!

Elastic-band Launchers

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Paper Airplane Launcher

My kids spend LOTS of time creating things to launch; to be used as projectiles, or to fly.  This simple project was created while spending a fun weekend up at the cabin with friends.  It was fun to watch the progression of into a simple Paper Airplane Launcher.  All our little flying machines were launched from a simple elastic band stretched between the upturned legs of a dining chair.  Simple and easy is what we do best!

Paper Airplane Launcher

The first prototype was more about the creative look, than the distance it flew.  Although some of these creations turned out some pretty sweet acrobatic moves.

Paper Airplane Launcher

The kids started out by folding a piece of paper several times to create a thick “V”.  The “V” was then taped onto the back of  a creative glider.  Once everything was secure the “V” was placed over the elastic band, pulled taunt and then released.

Paper Airplane Launcher

It was fun to see what creation everyone came up with.  Some of these little fliers were great at doing crazy stunts, although most needed to be tweaked further to really merit any points!  The kids had so much fun drawing new designs and building off of each others successes.

Paper Airplane Launcher

This is the amazing line up of flying launchers.  My personal favorite was the rocket.  It made a few remarkable twists in the air.

Paper Airplane Launcher

Once the Dads got involved…well lets just say the designs moved past the simple folded “V” launcher and onto a fast flying paper clip.

The addition of the paper clip at the front of the plane really helped with the launching distance.  Simply fold the paper clip so that there is a hook at the end and tape to the front of your plane.

Paper Airplane Launcher

Make sure you have lots of space because these little plane really fly.

Paper Airplane Launcher

Now the kids were were shooting for distance!  We had a great afternoon of creating and playing.  I love that a simple rubber band and and upturned chair could evoke this much creativity!