Field Trip: Animal Encounters, Rio Salado Audubon Center

We are always on the lookout for free, family-friendly activities to enjoy, so when I spotted something about this one we jumped right on it.

The Rio Salado Audubon Center in Phoenix, AZ is a really neat place. Inside you have a small visitor center with displays on the water cycle and water management. It's not huge, but what is there was interesting. Outside there is a beaver pond surrounded by pretty gardens, and even a unique little play area for the kids. There are walking paths around the gardens, as well as down to the nearby river.

 Every second Saturday, October-April, the center has their Animal Encounters event, where they bring birds from a rescue center and teach the public about the animals and about their program. It's all free and really fun for the whole family. We got there a bit early so we took a while to go outside to explore, birdwatch, and play.

The kids loved the butterfly garden. There weren't really any butterflies around that day, but we loved the play structures.

When it was time, we headed back inside to learn about some birds. It was really fascinating, and so fun to see these beautiful animals in person.

A falcon. 

Red-Tailed Hawk

Red-Tailed Hawk

Gray Hawk? I don't remember for sure. 

After seeing all the birds we went back outside for a picnic and some more playing and exploring.

We found a path that led down to the river and enjoyed wandering that direction. The kids are always excited to get to find some water.

This was such a fun place to visit with our family, and such a great way to learn more about the animals that live all around us.

Baking Soda Eruptions

 It's been a while since we last messed around with baking soda and vinegar at our house. Sharli loves all things bubbles, so I decided to introduce her to some new fun. As I often do, I prepped the materials and placed them in front of her without any instruction from me. All you need is a shallow dish filled with baking soda, a small cup of vinegar (add a few drops of food coloring for some extra kid points), and an eye dropper/pipette/syringe.

 Sharli had never used an eye dropper before, so at first she wasn't entirely sure what to do. With a little help getting that part figured out, she was ready to rock and roll.

 This activity was a huge hit! She played with this until there was not a single bit of baking soda left untouched by the vinegar.

 In fact, this was so successful that we did it several times over the next week. I was able to set it up for her and then leave her to do her thing while I packed for our big move to Arizona.

Science, fine motor development, and babysitter all in one? Count me in!!

Cleaning Coins

 This simple activity was another one that we got out of our Preschoolers Busy Book. It has so many fun ideas! You can also find instructions here.
 I needed to get some stuff done around the house and needed to keep the kids busy. I dumped a large handful of coins in a pan with some soapy water, handed each kid an old toothbrush, and there you go!

 When I had finished up the stuff I was working on we broke out the vinegar and salt to really put a shine on some of the coins. This was a fun way to work on fine motor skills, and the kids love anything that has to do with water and/or bubbles. If you're worried about messes, you can place a towel under the pan of water to make cleanup quick and easy.

*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. This post contains affiliate links.

An Eggy Experiment

For our letter E science activity I knew we had to do another experiment. And, why not throw some more E's in there and make it an egg experiment? I found some fun ideas on Science Sparks, and we decided to go for it. First we gathered our materials.

-Distilled Vinegar

- An Egg

- A glass container big enough to hold the egg

- A measuring cup (optional, I wanted Erik to be able to pour the vinegar without handing him the whole jug)

 Put the egg in the glass and cover it with vinegar. Leave it for several days (I think ours was 5-6 days) while you observe. 

The egg will get air bubbles on the shell when it starts reacting with the vinegar. For us this happened almost right away. We observed the bubbles both visually and by listening to the bubbles pop.

 While we haven't actually sat down and discussed all the steps in the Scientific Method, I still try to get Erik thinking by discussing what we're observing and making some hypotheses. We even get Daddy in on the guessing, just to make it more fun. We made up a chart showing what we thought would happen and taped it to the wall above our egg jar. Dad guessed the shell would go away and the egg would break. Mom guessed it would become see-through. Erik guessed that it would bounce and break.

 I didn't get any pictures of the end result, but it was really neat. The egg shell dissolves (we had to gently rub off the residue with our fingers) and the egg swells up inside the remaining membrane until it's noticeably bigger than it started out.
After making our observations about the end result, we decided to go a step further and go with another idea from Science Sparks. We carefully removed our egg from the vinegar and I let Erik drop it (gently) into the empty kitchen sink. His guess was right. We were able to bounce it a few times before it broke and ran down the drain.

Exploring Density (Sink or Float)

For our letter D science activity I followed the lead of this post and we did an exploration of Density. This was super easy to set up, and kept both kids entertained for a long time. 

Let's gather our supplies:

A selection of toys and other objects, some that will sink and some that will float

A large container to fill with water

A piece of paper that says "sink" and on that says "float"

 We took this activity outside because I wanted to be able to turn the kids loose to have fun without any worries about messes. We could have also done this in the bathtub and it would have worked great. 

The first thing we did was talk about what it means to sink or float. Then we took all the toys out of our bin while hypothesizing on how each one would behave in the water.

 Erik was thrilled to turn on the hose and fill up our tub. Sharli wasn't too sure what was going on yet, but we were outside so it must mean something good!

 Then we tested each item and placed it on the paper that described what it had done. Sharli just splashed around and had fun.

 After we'd tested all our objects, I just turned the kids loose with the water and sat back and watched. Water free-play is one of our favorite activities. Almost no prep, and SO much fun!

 There is so much to be learned from just exploring with water. Fine motor skills such as scooping and pouring, spatial awareness when deciding if water from one container will fit in another, hand-eye coordination, sensory awareness, social skills like cooperation (when you've got more than one child involved), language development as you discuss things like cold or wet.

 Since this day, Erik asks often if we can play with density again (he actually uses the word density, it really stuck with him). He also loves to test all his bath toys to see if they'll sink or float. This was a hit in a major way!

TBT: The Carrot Conclusion

So this week we're going back to our Carrot on a String experiment to show you our results.

So, in case you missed the set up, here's what we did (you can go back to the first post for full details):

We made sure to water the carrot several times a day, and to move it to a warmer location at night in case things got too cold that close to the window. Each day Erik checked the carrot to measure its progress. Finally, on about day four this is what we had:
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Wait for it.....
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 Yum, right? So, good job to my Grandma, who hypothesized that it would rot. She is the winner!
Now, as any good scientist would, we didn't let this stop us. We analyzed where our experiment may have gone wrong, designed a few improvements, and gave it another shot.

I was worried from the beginning that coring out the top of the carrot like we did would remove the part of the carrot that we were hoping to have grow. So, this time we did two carrots, one with only half of the top cored out, and the other with a very shallow hole cored out of the entire top (so basically the same as our first experiment, just with less water holding capacity). I was hoping that one (or both) of these methods would create enough of a space to hold water while still leaving something left to grow.

 These were strung up in the window and given the same treatment as our first carrot. We waited several days, with Erik checking our progress each day. By day four this was our result:
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Did you really think I'd just show it to you?
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So, I guess this whole project was a great way for Erik to get introduced to the scientific method, as well as to learn that not all experiments turn out as you had hoped they would.
Maybe my kid is weird, but somehow we didn't feel this experiment lived up to this statement from the original source: "In a few days your kids will love the results." Maybe most kids like rotting carrots, who knows.

TBT: Color in a Bag, Plus More Color Mixing Fun!

For today's Throw Back Thursday post, we redid an activity that we've enjoyed before so that Sharli could get in on the fun too. This Color in a Bag activity is so much fun!

 It's been so long since we did this one that it was like a new activity for Erik. He loved it!

 I did have to watch Sharli carefully so that she didn't chew holes in the bags, but other than that this was a pretty low-stress activity.

 To add on to this one, we also added in some color mixing bottles. We found this idea on the same list of activities as our Carrot on a String activity. I've wished for a while now I could find some way to make a color mixing toy that would settle back into two distinct colors for long term play, so I was excited to try this idea out.

I was planning on making three of these bottles (yellow+red, red+blue, blue+yellow) but when it came time to put these together I couldn't find the other empty bottle I'd saved for this. Maybe we'll end up making the last bottle eventually, and if we do I'll be sure to share it with you all.

So, what do you need to make these babies? Let's gather our supplies:

- empty bottles with lids

-baby oil

-crayons (the original site calls for candle wax coloring, but crayons worked fine for us)

-water

-food coloring

-hot glue gun and glue

A few days before you want to assemble these, cut up the crayons (I used yellow crayons, it took 3-4 for one bottle of baby oil) into tiny shavings and put them in the bottle of baby oil. Let this sit for a few days until the crayons have mostly dissolved. 

When you're ready to assemble your bottles, fill them half full with water, colored with food coloring. Add your colored oil until the bottle is full, then seal the lid with the hot glue. You may want to shake up the bottle once before sealing it to make sure you didn't get too much of one color or the other. 

 When you shake the bottle, the colors mix together and you can see the bubbles of oil swirling in the water, almost like a lava lamp. They're really pretty! We found that the blue+yellow combo worked better, the red in the red+yellow bottle bled into the yellow oil a bit and so after a few shakes, the bottle just stayed orange. It was still really pretty though!

The Carrot Conundrum

For one of our letter C science activities we used the idea for Carrot on a String, found here. The instructions are clear enough, but what they don't tell you is what exactly is the end result of this experiment. I did a brief google search and still didn't come up with any clear description of what to expect, but I decided to go for it anyways. I am typing this post the same day that we started this experiment, so as I write this I still have no idea what's going to happen with our carrot. Don't worry though, I'll post again in a few days with the results.

So, what exactly is involved in the Carrot on a String experiment? Well, let me show you. First, let's gather our supplies:

-a carrot
-a vegetable peeler or small paring knife
-a string
-a large needle
-some water

First, using your paring knife or peeler, core out the top of a carrot.

 Next, attach the carrot to a string. We used a large needle, but it seems like you could also poke a hole with a small nail or anything else you have handy then push the string through.

 Pour some water in the top of the carrot.

 Hang the carrot in a sunny window for a few days and watch the magic unfold. Or at least that's the idea, we've yet to see for ourselves exactly what will happen, but we're hoping for something magical.

This was a simple experiment to put together, and it was really fun to talk with Erik about what might happen. After discussing many possibilities (some silly, some serious), we decided to write down our hypotheses. We made a little chart with everyone's predictions and hung it on the wall next to the window. Dad came home for his lunch break right about then, so he got to put forth a theory as well. 

 Then, as long as we had the carrots and the peeler out anyways, Erik practiced his fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination and peeled some carrots to go with our lunch. What a good little slave helper!

So what is your hypothesis? Feel free to share in the comments and we'll see who gets it right!


***3/12/15: Okay, the results are in. If you want to know how this worked out, check out this post.