LaPaz Home Learning

14 Responses to “Oooooh! Sparkly!”

1. ruthie, on September 27th, 2007 at 9:54 pm Said:

   Oh wow.. THAT was so cool! i am amazed! did you get this out of some book or think of it yourself???

   if you havent noticed.. I am a convert to Homeschooljournal dot net.. I am loving it!! today was my first time to post.. but wow.. so much better than where I was !!!!

   thanks for posting! always brings a smile! Talking about Lighting the fire of learning! .. cool!

2. Katherine in TX, on September 27th, 2007 at 10:14 pm Said:

   That was really cool. I’m going to have to show the kids that one in the morning.

3. lapazfarm, on September 27th, 2007 at 10:40 pm Said:

   Welcome to HSJ, Ruthie!

4. tribeofautodidacts, on September 28th, 2007 at 5:11 am Said:

   VERY cool! Could you post directions?

5. Angela, MotherCrone, on September 28th, 2007 at 5:14 am Said:

   OH! Please do…I have some Hogwarts distance learners that would love this!

6. lapazfarm, on September 28th, 2007 at 7:05 am Said:

   All of the Hogwarts stuff is on the page titled “A Term at Hogwarts” (see tab at top and link on sidebar). But, for all you muggles out there who may not have access to good dragon down, steel wool will do the trick. Just touch the terminal end of a 9 volt battery to it and watch it go! Simple and impressive!

7. Maryan, on September 28th, 2007 at 8:07 am Said:

   Simple and impressive indeed! How fun!

8. Beth, on September 28th, 2007 at 4:01 pm Said:

   This we must do. Too cool!

9. Sherri, on September 28th, 2007 at 6:44 pm Said:

   How fun! My kids would Love it!! Okay, I would too !

10. Rhonda, on September 29th, 2007 at 8:37 am Said:

    That was amazing! My girls would love that. We will definitely have to try it. I loved the way JBug was giggling in the background. So cute!

11. Dana, on September 29th, 2007 at 9:00 am Said:

    Very cool!!! (or hot!)

12. Should I or Shouldn’t I? « Muddy Boots, on September 30th, 2007 at 2:44 pm Said:

    [...] by muddyboots I bought a 9-volt battery on our way home from church today, thinking we could try this experiment from La Paz Home Learning.   (She’s designed a unit study based on the Harry Potter books, [...]

13. Carrie, on September 30th, 2007 at 7:08 pm Said:

    That was awesome. We had so much fun with it this morning. Thank you.

    In the spirit of sharing here is a cool project that fits right in- using dragon down to create bottled heat.
    Simple steps are:
    1. Place a fist sized wad of dragon down in a cauldron with a lid. Add a thermometer. Close lid tightly. Wait 5 minutes. Note the temperature.
    2. Soak the dragon down in phoenix tears ( vinegar) for 2 minutes.
    3. Wringe out any excess phoenix tears from the dragon down.
    4. Place the phoenix tears infused dragon down inside the cauldron with the thermometer. Close lid tightly. Wait another 5 minutes. Note the temperature.
    5. Note the temperature after 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes.

    What should happen is- the vinegar removes the protective coating of the steel wool. The iron rusts. Rusting is an exothermic reaction, which means it gives off heat energy.

    Before we read your post we had been experimentiong with making batteries out of a stack of quarters, and an electro-magnet out of a 9-volt battery, copper wire and a nail. Our first attempts were only minorly successful. So we sent dad to the store for better supplies and were going to try again. Now I am inspried to try to come up with some more magical terms to rewrite these experiments. Obviously we were missing some magic words!

    Thanks for a great blog.

14. lapazfarm, on September 30th, 2007 at 8:21 pm Said:

    Sweet! Thanks, Carrie! I love this idea!!!I bet Superboy will, too!