We homeschool our children and it is a lot of work....and a lot of fun. One thing I wanted my children to learn......was to enjoy learning....to LOVE to learn. No, they do not LOVE to learn multiplication facts or grammar and for some of the things that aren't so "fun", I tell them that we just have to do it anyway. Even those can be interesting, but when we can....we have lots of fun learning.
One of our projects this year was quite spontaneous - one of those rather "blah" days where we were all caught up with schoolwork and staying on schedule, but losing that love of learning and feeling the drudgery of the schooldays. On days like that, I like to introduce some extra project or reading or something to stimulate interest again.
Our project this time was one I had seen online, but we hadn't done yet, so this was the day....Frozen Water Balloons. It was cold and we were cooped up, so it seemed like a good time. The kids eagerly found the balloons - the bigger latex ones. We wanted to color our frozen balls, so we tried different ways of getting the coloring in the balloons and we did it, but not without messy color stained hands.
We put them out on the deck and separated them quite a bit so they would freeze faster. You can see we left air in some of the balloons - We're new at this. Hmmm... need to work on that....
They stayed on the deck overnight and we were careful not to touch them. When they were first checked in the morning, a couple of them were not frozen through completely and needed more time. When they were all pretty well done.....we gathered them up, a few at a time, in a dishpan and took them into the house.
We sliced a part of the balloon and the kids had fun peeling the balloon off, exposing the frozen balls inside and the colors that they were.
We put the "unwrapped" frozen balloons back into the dishpan and took them back to the deck so they would stay frozen.
Some of these balloons appeared totally frozen, but when they were turned over, water still moved inside and one balloon had water (and the food coloring) leak out, so we put it back the other way and left it to freeze longer.
The balloons looked interesting - even with our air bubbles!
We wished we had put stronger amounts of food coloring into the balloons, but even so, these were very interesting to look at with the frozen tiny air bubble trails inside and also the uneven freezing of the coloring.
This one was interesting in that the clear portion formed a magnifying glass - you can see the upside down trees in the bottom of the ball.
These were our favorites - with their variations of colored and clear ice.
We kept these out in the shaded areas of the deck and took them out to show the neighbor kids who also enjoyed them. They lasted for over a week until we had a warm up.
Well, our water balloon project was fun....and added some excitement to our week ....and added fun memories.
Even this clear one was fun to look at - and the crack in the center reflected the sunlight nicely.
We do plan to do the project again sometime....and make the balloons even bigger. We were a bit timid with these, being concerned about if they broke in the house where we were filling them....and sent colored water all over, so we didn't fill them as full as we could have.
By the way, if you do this, the food coloring can stain your deck, stones, etc as the balls melt, so putting them in the grass is a good idea.
Another time, I would like to make these and hollow out a spot in the top to insert a little candle - it would be so pretty to see the candle light through the frozen colored ball and if these are place in the snow, there should be no chance of fire being a problem with them - just fun and pretty light.
With the cold weather keeping us inside more, these are great things to do.....and little projects like this can add a lot of interest - especially in these long days until spring. Thank you for stopping by and reading my post. Have a great day. :)
See a newer post on the subject:
How to Make Ice Marbles!
One of our projects this year was quite spontaneous - one of those rather "blah" days where we were all caught up with schoolwork and staying on schedule, but losing that love of learning and feeling the drudgery of the schooldays. On days like that, I like to introduce some extra project or reading or something to stimulate interest again.
Our project this time was one I had seen online, but we hadn't done yet, so this was the day....Frozen Water Balloons. It was cold and we were cooped up, so it seemed like a good time. The kids eagerly found the balloons - the bigger latex ones. We wanted to color our frozen balls, so we tried different ways of getting the coloring in the balloons and we did it, but not without messy color stained hands.
We put them out on the deck and separated them quite a bit so they would freeze faster. You can see we left air in some of the balloons - We're new at this. Hmmm... need to work on that....
They stayed on the deck overnight and we were careful not to touch them. When they were first checked in the morning, a couple of them were not frozen through completely and needed more time. When they were all pretty well done.....we gathered them up, a few at a time, in a dishpan and took them into the house.
We sliced a part of the balloon and the kids had fun peeling the balloon off, exposing the frozen balls inside and the colors that they were.
We put the "unwrapped" frozen balloons back into the dishpan and took them back to the deck so they would stay frozen.
Some of these balloons appeared totally frozen, but when they were turned over, water still moved inside and one balloon had water (and the food coloring) leak out, so we put it back the other way and left it to freeze longer.
The balloons looked interesting - even with our air bubbles!
We wished we had put stronger amounts of food coloring into the balloons, but even so, these were very interesting to look at with the frozen tiny air bubble trails inside and also the uneven freezing of the coloring.
These were our favorites - with their variations of colored and clear ice.
We kept these out in the shaded areas of the deck and took them out to show the neighbor kids who also enjoyed them. They lasted for over a week until we had a warm up.
Well, our water balloon project was fun....and added some excitement to our week ....and added fun memories.
Even this clear one was fun to look at - and the crack in the center reflected the sunlight nicely.
We do plan to do the project again sometime....and make the balloons even bigger. We were a bit timid with these, being concerned about if they broke in the house where we were filling them....and sent colored water all over, so we didn't fill them as full as we could have.
By the way, if you do this, the food coloring can stain your deck, stones, etc as the balls melt, so putting them in the grass is a good idea.
Another time, I would like to make these and hollow out a spot in the top to insert a little candle - it would be so pretty to see the candle light through the frozen colored ball and if these are place in the snow, there should be no chance of fire being a problem with them - just fun and pretty light.
With the cold weather keeping us inside more, these are great things to do.....and little projects like this can add a lot of interest - especially in these long days until spring. Thank you for stopping by and reading my post. Have a great day. :)
See a newer post on the subject:
How to Make Ice Marbles!
