Wednesday, January 12, 2011

snow & ice

We're covered in it now. We peeked our noses out as the first flakes fell, dusting the delicate crust of ice covering the water. And there's something just plain wrong about snowflakes on solar panels mounted to a sailing catamaran. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Being a little too wimpy to hang out in the cold and wet, we brought the ice inside.
We're REALLY lucky to have a freezer aboard, a rare luxury on sailboats and one we didn't have on our last boat. So I froze some tupperware-type containers of water and gave the solid ice blocks to Z in a baking dish with a side dish of salt, hot water with a teaspoon, and food coloring.
Then I let him go to town.
Every now and again I would dump the muddy water from the dish. And if you decide to try this at home know that it's messy, like REALLY messy... but oh so fun and worth it (our fingers are still purple!)
I thought I was being cool and tried to get all homeschooly on Zach asking about why the ice was changing and so on. He said to me, "Yeah, yeah I know. Solid, liquid, gas, it's the changing states of matter. I get it. But MOM-ah. Look how pretty it is! I made a BEE-you-TEE-ful ice cave!" Ok, score one for the boy. I geti it too.
There is no denying, ice is beautiful... when we're inside the warm boat playing with it that is.

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9 comments:

Bethany said...

Oooh - it IS beautiful. You always have the best projects going on :)

Lynda Halliger Otvos (Lynda M O) said...

May I kiss those tiny toes ?~? One of my littles put her entire hand in my mouth one day last week; it was too cold to p lay outside and she worked thru her cabin fever in startlingly diverse ways.

Joy said...

It IS very pretty, Zach! We had fun with our ice cave too. :) Stay warm and dry!

Anna said...

Moooommmmm, it is absolutely beautiful, and you have to love the off-hand way he just throws out the changing states of matter at you. I think that boy knows his stuff.

Chani said...

LOVE your projects! Keep posting about them b/c they give me great ideas for my nieces/nephews! :)

Emily Cole said...

Such a fun thing! (and such a smart boy!)

Lacey (schoolhousefarm) said...

We are planning a similar activity for this week--these look amazing. I'm going to put the water outside right now!

gardenmama said...

fabulous! this looks like so much fun!

Amber @HomeschoolingVoyage said...

Love it how he taught you to savor the beauty and shush about the learning bits. Just perfect!

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