Scientists in the making

We've had a week of sick. Coughing, low grade fevers, and more and more coughing. All by poor Brandon. Thankfully, so far Dave, Noah, and I have been spared. But, this week of sick Brandon meant a week of staying home and doing nothing. Well, nothing outside the house, that is. Each day we managed to scrounge up some craft idea, building project or puppet show.

It is unfortunate that Brandon was sick, but in a way, it was fortunate as well. We are a family of doers. It's not often we just sit at home and enjoy the toys we have during the winter. Instead, we're off to parks, preschool, swimming class, soccer, and tennis. We love being out and about. But this week, our forced in the house time allowed us to just relax and have some fun making use of our fun toys and materials at home. Want to see what we were up to?


Dave and I purchased a set of Tinker Toys from a toy store going out of business near our home in Schaumburg...long before we even found out we were pregnant. Finally, we unearthed them from the guest room closet and with a little help from Mommy, the boys each built their own race car.


Noah was allowed rest time in the guest room this week so sick Brandon could stay in the comfort of his own bed. He really enjoyed being a big boy and even did a little art of his own on the doodle board. If you look carefully at his left hand, you'll see the bottom of a music box. Observe the doodle board. Yes, that boy, on his own, copied the inner workings of the music box. For a boy who has had little interest in art or coloring, I couldn't have been more surprised!

And now, onto our Science project.
Grandma Alice and Grandpa Bob gifted a Science for kids book to the boys long ago. We found it buried in a pile of books Mommy was saving for a "rainy day" (which of course, rarely happens in Phoenix!) The boys sat on the couch, looking at all of the pictures and asking me to read various excerpts in the book. Then, they both agreed that they wanted to create a hot air balloon. So, we went to work:

First, we used a template to cut out 8 tissue paper segments. We had to make a modification because we didn't have enough paper to make the balloon as big as suggested, so we cut the dimensions in half.

Next, we glued each segment together and the result was a nicely shaped tissue paper balloon:

Finally, we went into the bathroom, turned on Mommy's hair dryer and filled that balloon with hot air. And then, we had our first scientific discovery. Our balloon was not quite big enough to float even when filled with hot air. Oh well, thankfully preschool age scientists are not particular and they were thrilled we could make our balloon "fly" with a little help from the blowing hot air.

Next week: How to make a blimp. Hmmmm...wonder where we'll get the helium from?