Thursday, July 18, 2013

"Penny of Time" Adventure: Service Act Meets Science--Making Hush Bottles



We made a Hush Bottle to help out my 4 year old.  He loves his bottle, and we loved making it.  So, he decided to make one for a friend . . . well, we had so much fun making that one that we ended up making 6 of them to give away to friends!

After we made the bottles, we delivered them to some of my 4 year old's friends.  He was so excited to share something that he thought was totally awesome!  I made a tag that gave an idea of what the bottle was for . . . and frankly, I really like using the bottle when I need a moment to meditate as well:

Hush Bottle
Any time you are mad,
Any time you need to relax,
Any time you need a moment to be alone,
Shake the bottle
and watch the glitter glide down.

My four year old was so proud to tell them about the bottles that he made for them! 

How to Make the Bottle:
Relax Bottle--Time Out Timer from My Crazy Blessed Life

How to Use the Bottle:
Hush Bottle:  The Calm Down Solution from In Lieu of Preschool

(One difference from the directions linked above is that we added marbles.  My 4 year old prefers tons of tactile input and adding the marbles made it extra fun for him to shake.)

Why was it so fun?  It was a big SCIENCE experiment.

When we made the bottles, we experimented with lengthening and shortening the amount of time it took for the glitter to fall to the bottom of the bottle. 

We took the 6 bottles and worked to answer the following questions:
  • Which ingredient floats?  Why?
  • Which ingredient sinks?  Why?
  • What if we don't add glue?
  • How does the glue affect how the glitter falls?
  • How does the glitter paint affect how the glitter falls?
  • Does it take a bottle more or less time to clear based on how much glitter (or how much glue) is added?
  • How much of each ingredient is needed to take a bottle 4 minutes to clear . . . 6 minutes?
  • When we change the water by adding things, are we changing the density or the viscosity?
Here are some sites that we found were helpful in our exploration:
Viscosity Races by Science Sparks
Seven Layer Density Column by Steve Spanlger Science
Density and Buoyancy:  Testing Liquids from the Teacher's Domain


2 comments:

  1. Adorable! I'm going to have my boys make a hush bottle today, so when they start driving me crazy, I can go in the other room and shake my bottle and watch the pretty glitter fall. :-) They will love this. I will love this. Thanks for another great idea!

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    1. You crack me up . . . but, I have used it when I was on the phone in a frustrating conversation!

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