Learning About Bernoulli's Principle With a Windbag Experiment
Today started off like many of our days with a nice hot breakfast that the boys all made themselves! They soon took off and began playing with their toys. They played for hours together. All three of them spent the whole morning together. They all got a along and we had toys spread from one end of the house to the other. As soon as the sun came out Ian was outside digging and playing. Everyone was getting along so nicely and staying busy that I hated to interrupt them.
I looked up and realized it was almost lunch time and we still hadn't done one single thing for school today. Wednesday is science day and while I really love and miss doing experiments I just didn't have it in me at 11:30 to tackle something that I hadn't even planned yet. I finally pulled a few books out of the library bin and started looking through them halfheartedly when Ian reminded me that we still hadn't made the Windbag shown in our Steve Spangler Fire Bubbles and Exploding Toothpaste. So we had our science experiment!
We cut a 5 ft. length off of a roll of diaper genie refills and tied a knot in one end. Ian, who read the experiment, handed our long tube to Alec to blow up.
Alec puts his mouth up to the opening, cinches it shut and starts to blow it up. We count how many breaths it takes and realize it will take a lot when Alec is still only halfway through blowing it up. They worked together to squeeze all the air out and Ian holds the bag open an arms length away from him and in one breath blows up the windbag. I read how it works aloud to the kids and explained that the air from Ian's mouth combines with air from the atmosphere and creates a current.
By the time I finished reading the boys realized if they held the end shut they could use it to bop each other over the head. We worked together to make another tube, tied all the ends shut and the boys chased one another around the house. They battled each other and we listened to the neat sounds the windbags make when they hit one another. I took that as my cue that school was done and hoped they learned something in doing this science experiment, but really I'm sure they're just going to remember hitting one another and chasing each other around and that's OK too.
I looked up and realized it was almost lunch time and we still hadn't done one single thing for school today. Wednesday is science day and while I really love and miss doing experiments I just didn't have it in me at 11:30 to tackle something that I hadn't even planned yet. I finally pulled a few books out of the library bin and started looking through them halfheartedly when Ian reminded me that we still hadn't made the Windbag shown in our Steve Spangler Fire Bubbles and Exploding Toothpaste. So we had our science experiment!
We cut a 5 ft. length off of a roll of diaper genie refills and tied a knot in one end. Ian, who read the experiment, handed our long tube to Alec to blow up.
Alec puts his mouth up to the opening, cinches it shut and starts to blow it up. We count how many breaths it takes and realize it will take a lot when Alec is still only halfway through blowing it up. They worked together to squeeze all the air out and Ian holds the bag open an arms length away from him and in one breath blows up the windbag. I read how it works aloud to the kids and explained that the air from Ian's mouth combines with air from the atmosphere and creates a current.
By the time I finished reading the boys realized if they held the end shut they could use it to bop each other over the head. We worked together to make another tube, tied all the ends shut and the boys chased one another around the house. They battled each other and we listened to the neat sounds the windbags make when they hit one another. I took that as my cue that school was done and hoped they learned something in doing this science experiment, but really I'm sure they're just going to remember hitting one another and chasing each other around and that's OK too.
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Thank you!
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