Wednesday, March 2, 2011

A Meteor Shower

Ever have one of those days, where at the end you struggle to remember the good things that happened?  You know that there must have been at least one or two, but they get squashed by the numerous other things that maybe weren't so great.  Today was one of those days at our house.  Now, I know that I complain occasionally, but I really try to stick to the positive and remember the highlights of the day -- and Fridays are dedicated to positive things.  Anyway, all I'm saying is that if I get a little side tracked today, please forgive me.

With the recent exposure to Star Wars at our house, everybody now carries a lightsaber (or "light saver" as Owen calls it), flies around the house in an x-wing fighter, is on the look out for Darth Vader (or wants to be Darth Vader), and wants to befriend a Wookie -- and Dada thought that my hair in the shower drain was bad!  So, of course, space talk is constant.  Today, the talk was about meteors, so we decided to get out our space book and see what we could find out.


Turns out there was a whole chapter about meteors, meteorites and meteoroids -- a short chapter with lots of fun facts -- which included an easy experiment.  Most of the chapters include some sort of experiment or hands on activity using common materials, which is part of the reason that we chose this book.  So we played with meteorites in our living room!  Some flour, a little cocoa, a bucket and some marbles and presto, you can see how meteorites impact the earth!  It turned out to be great entertainment too.



The marbles actually made very impressive craters.  The hard part was getting the marble out without damaging the crater too much.  Then we had to try again and again and again and again ... you get the picture.


Then we had to see what would happen if we dropped them from different heights again and again and again ... well, you know how it goes.


Everybody was interested in the results!  Who says science can't be fun?  The boys are now eagerly awaiting the next meteor shower, while looking for meteorites and avoiding meteoroids (and blasts from the Death Star) as they fly around the house!

1 comment:

  1. Love it! What a great idea. We may have to try that one out. Where did you get that book? It looks amazing. Around here Star Wars never ends, and I am normally put into being Padme or worse Princess Leia, who never seems to be able to use a weapon to defend herself and needs to be saved everytime! Hope you have a peaceful and calm day. Ours insn't looking like it will be, but you never know. :)

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