Thursday, September 20, 2012

balloons are scary because of the popping and the spit.

i'm terrified of balloons.  i blame the lutherans.  sort of.  when i was a mere six or seven, my dear mother enrolled me in vacation bible school at a local lutheran church.  for our activity, they thought it'd be good clean fun to have relay races that went like this:  run to the chair with the balloon on it.  sit on it.  pop it.  and repeat to the other side.

longest - week - of - my - life.  also.  i'm probably a southern baptist for this reason.  that and the potlucks.

yesterday's first zoo school lesson focused on thunder and lightning.  in order to demonstrate thunder, the kids blew up balloons.  and then they popped them.  i cried and shuddered in the corner.  


for the lightning experiment, we attempted to produce static electricity.  however.  because we live in florida, the humidity didn't allow us any success.  praise jesus.  because i have  a story from my childhood about that, too.  yada yada yada.  i blame clint and steven.  but just in case you want to give it a shot, you'll need to gather:

- foil pie pan
- styrofoam plate
- piece of fleece
- pencil with new eraser
- thumbtack 

1.  poke the thumbtack through the bottom middle of the foil pan so that it points up.  
2.  stick the eraser on the tack.
3.  place the styrofoam plate upside down next to the foil pan.
4.  rub the fleece on the plate several times then quickly drop the fleece into the foil pan.
5.  pick the pencil up (without touching the foil pan).
6.  touch the foil pan with your other hand.  you should feel the shock.

if this is done in a really dark room, you should actually be able to see the static electricity.  

ps.  some happy things we learned were:  you know how sometimes there's a double rainbow?  well in the primary rainbow, the colors start with red at the top.  and in the other arc, the colors are reversed.  and.  to even see a rainbow at all depends on your position.  you have to be in between the rain and the sun. once you're there, look towards the rain.  and.  the lower the sun, the bigger the arc.  



6 comments:

  1. I remember that relay race. We did it during vacation Bible school when I was about seven at the Southern Baptist church my family attended.

    There is no place completely safe from the balloons. Which is bad, because I don't like popping them either.

    I really want to try to see the static electricity. That sounds cool. Much better than popping a balloon. Unless I won't really be able to see it, and you just added that so I would stand in a dark room and shock myself over and over again. Hmmmm.

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  2. LOL, you made me laugh with your comment on why you're now Southern Baptist. Those wild Lutherans scared you senseless as a kid, did they? One thing you can count on with the Baptist (and, I'm Southern Baptist, too) there usually isn't too much excitment going on. Okay, I'm exaggerating....AGAIN. I use to get really nervous around balloons, too. I always expect the full ones to explode making me jump out of my skin. I suspect something more tramatic happened to me as a child, but I don't know what. More than likely it involved boys pranking the girls or something like this. Oh well...cool project for the kiddoes to see static electricity in motion. Another way to see it is at night. When my children were very small, they would climb into bed with us bringing their teddy bears with them. DD#2 has a polar bear and when we rub our hand across it, you can see sparkles. That was so cool! This happened more easily in the winter months than the warmer ones. I suspect the humidity played into the factor. Thanks for sharing and visiting on Wordless Wednesday! =D

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  3. I agree. Balloons are scary. You just know they're going to pop when you least expect it.

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  4. Hi from waddlee-ah-chaa!
    Well you taught me something new today . . . didn't know about the colors in the second rainbow!
    Love to see all of the fun hands-on learning experiments.
    jeannine: waddleeahchaa.com

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  5. Those Lutherans are dangerous, man.

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  6. I get it now! Where are you! I am searching everywhere. Even double rainbows!

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