Welcome Bettaroll

We got a fish over  the week end.  It was my idea, because I missed my school fish, Smartie. She is a betta, like Smartie. Her name is Bettaroll.  She makes bubbles when she comes to the surface.  I love my fish.

My Winter Break

I taught my cousin Emily how to use a wand.

Logan and I played with Grammie's dog Elsie in the snow.

We drove with Grandma to a cemetery in Pittsburgh that looked like a castle. 

Snowed in.

After our winter break, we were supposed to fly home but our flight was cancelled.  So, we were stuck in Buffalo for four extra days!  There was a lot of snow, wind, and cold.  We measured the snow. It was 26 inches deep!  Mommy says that the cold and the wind came from the polar vortex that came down from the arctic circle, where the North Pole is.  The temperature was 4 degrees, but the wind made it feel like it was 20 below zero.  It was really really cold!

Video here. 

Potions

 Today we made two potions with acids and bases.  For the first one, I added cabbage juice powder to both test tubes.

 Then I added baking soda to the first test tube. The baking soda is a base.  Bases make cabbage juice turn blue.  

Then I added citric acid to the second test tube.  Citric acid is an acid. Acids make the cabbage juice turn red.

I used my wand.

I added the blue base solution to a new test tube.

Then, I added the red acid solution to the base solution.

It fizzed and turned purple again!

The second potion was the magic lava potion. I made a base solution with baking soda and water.  Then I added red cabbage juice powder and vegetable oil.

I added citric acid on top.

When it sunk through the oil, it exploded and made a mess and changed from blue to red!

It was fun!

We're raising butterflies part 2

August 6, 2013: We checked the chrysalises and saw they were thin.  Mom walked away to make lunch and when she came back, there was a butterfly out.  We were in the room, but missed watching it.

We moved the habitat to the table to see it better.  One of the chrysalises started rocking.  Mom looked it up and told us that they do this when they get stressed to make predators go away.

The rest of the chrysalises looked thin.

We gave the first butterfly some sugar water on flowers and fruit.  That is what butterflies eat.

August 7, 2013: The last four chrysalises were still there.  They formed a day after the first.  We had to go to swim lessons, so mom set up the video camera.  All four were out when we came home!  We got one on camera though!

August 9, 2013: We set the butterflies free.

There is a butterfly in this picture.  It was flying away.

We're raising butterflies!

Week 1:

July 25 - The caterpillars arrived in the mail.  They didn't do much, but they did eat the brown stuff in their cup.

July 26 - We thought that one of the caterpillars was dead because it wasn't moving.  We also saw caterpillar poop in their cup.

July 27 and 28 - The caterpillars got bigger, but we missed them molting. They were not moving very much though.

July 29 - Two of the caterpillars were shoving each other on the wall of the cup. They were all moving!

July 30 - One of the caterpillars started to form a chrysalis.  The other caterpillars exercised around it. It looked like they were trying to knock it down.

July 31 - All five caterpillars were forming chrysalises.

RJ's New Card

I got my dolphin ribbon in swimming today!  Now I have a jellyfish card to work on.