Snow Experiments

Vinny is studying snow in his class. So when he and Owen came over this afternoon, we Googled "snow experiments" and found two--(1) melt some snow in a saucepan, then pour it through several layers of paper towel to see how clean the snow is--we saw four or five specs of dirt; and (2) make snowballs, dip them in colored water, make a little igloo and put a candle inside-it was cute, but daylight--we may do it another time when it's dark. (Don't you love Owen and his magnifying glass?!) And then Hernan made a snowman cannibalizing the colored snowballs, making a scarf, buttons, ears, and red hair (not shown--by pouring on the left-over red colored water). Lots of fun!

Mailbox and vegetables

Remember the blue toy "mail box" at Doug and Linette's? Linette said the boys could take it home, but Dallas and Shannon said they wouldn't let them put it in the car. So the boys said they'd walk home with it--and they did--picking up BBs along the way. Then when they got home, they set it on the lawn and ran and jumped on the mailbox with one foot--they reminded me of long jumpers or pole vaulters. Occasionally Vinny would get a real running start--he'd go in the house and run down the porch stairs, make the turn, and approach the mailbox. At first they said they were going to doing running jumps two hours a day, but I think they decided one hour a day was very good.

We "picked" and cut open the three watermelons we had grown in the Spencer W. Kimball Garden at Dallas and Shannon's. There were two small long ones and one small very green perfectly round one--but they didn't start growing until August--so they just didn't have enough time to mature. The long ones were still white inside--but smelled like watermelon. The round one was pink--and tasted like watermelon. Dallas offered Vinny a little quarter-slice, and Vinny bit the rind and didn't think it was very good. Then, after Dallas told him, he spit out the rind and had a taste of the watermelon. Next year we'll just plant sunflowers and pumpkins--no watermelons, zucchini or spaghetti squash.

Friday Owen took the pumpkin we grew to school for show-and-tell.