Exploring Music and Science with a Wind Organ

I love recycled crafts especially those that cover multiple areas of study. These recycled wind organs cover music, art, and science. It took us a while to collect up enough plastic bottles because we are not big plastic users, but we finally gathered enough plastic to make this cool wind organ.

A wind organ will make music when the wind blows. Our wind organ did not make a loud sound, but you could hear it if you were standing about 1-2 feet away from the organ which was a nice treat when we were working in the garden.

We used alcohol based markers (Sharpie®) to decorate the bottles. The marker seems to be holding up well even after getting wet.

You can use these wind organs for some science exploration for your children. Some questions to ask them as they blow into individual bottles:

1.       Which bottles make a high pitch sound?

2.       Which bottles make a low pitch sound?

3.       What do you notice about the holes of the bottles with a low pitch sound?

4.       What do you notice about the holes of the bottles with a high pitch sound?

We ended up with a nice discussion on how our simple wind organ works vs  a pipe organ.

For more information on a how a pipe organ works, please visit Pipedreams® website. 

For more information on wind organs including sound files from different wind organs please visit Pastorgan. 

Materials inspired by Plastorgan

Assorted plastic bottles

Knife

Scissors

Sharpie® markers

Twine or string

Directions

1.       Have an adult cut a skinny rectangle up the side of a bottle. I did this by inserting the knife in the bottle, then using scissors to cut the rest of the rectangle. You can cut different sized rectangles with varying heights but keep the width at the top and bottom the same to make the science questions are easier to understand for little children.

2.       Color designs on the bottles with the markers.

3.       Tie the bottles to a pole using twine. I found the easiest way to tie the bottles is to tie a loop around the neck of the bottle then tie another loop around the pole that you are attaching the wind organ to.

Posted on Simple Lives Thursday

Mushroom Hunting

We went on a super cool field trip this morning. We went mushroom hunting! We did not find a lot of mushrooms, but we had a blast. We had an excellent guide that knew every plant that we came across on our hike. Here is the fungus that we saw on our hike:

Unidentifiable little brown mushroom:

Rhizomorphs which kills trees, so this is bad news for our forest:

Phellinus robiniae growing on a black locus tree:

Book: My Friends the Flowers

I love the flowers of spring. Spring this year is even more exciting because we are living in a new location, and that means new flowers. Last year Miss Bubbles was still little and could not tolerate being outside much, so we did only small chunks of time outside. This year Miss Bubbles is bigger, and we have a backyard, so we are spending lots of time outside. One of my favorite things that I did as a child was to press flowers and make collages out of them.

I decided that it was time to let Little BBQ enjoy this favorite past time of mine. Last week we picked flowers from the backyard, then we placed them between newspapers and put them under some heavy boxes. One week later we had some nicely pressed flowers. To give Little BBQ some inspiration we read the book, My Friends the Flowers. The book used a lot of personification to give personalities to the flowers. Then, in the back of the book there was a small identification guide for flowers. Most of the flowers in the back of the book we did not find in our backyard, but it was still fun to look at the pictures of the flowers.

After reading the book, I let Little BBQ make his collage. I was thinking that this was going to be a 2 dimensional project, but Little BBQ decided to stack the flowers individually on top of each other and glue them that way. It is funny sometimes how I envision an art project and how Little BBQ interprets the project in a completely different way.

Book: The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle

This week we continued on our gardening path. We read the book, The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. It was a cute book about a tiny seed that survives and thrives much longer than all of its other larger seed counterparts. One seed falls in the ocean, one seed grows to flower that gets picked, another seed gets stepped on as a small plant, and other seeds had other adventures. The book is a great spring board to discuss seasons and planting seeds. As our follow up activity for the book we looked at some seeds under a microscope.  We looked at flax, coriander, and chive seeds under a microscope. The coriander seed was the most visually stunning seed with its round shape and pretty markings on the outside.

Coriander seed:

Chive seed:

Flax seed:

Flax seed up close:

After we looked at the seeds under a microscope we planted herb seeds in recycled pots and plastic containers. We took plastic containers like milk jugs and cut the tops off and poked holes in the bottom. Little BBQ painted the pots. Then we planted flax, coriander, chive, anise, and lavender seeds in the various recycled pots. Little BBQ got a little impatient and wanted the flowers to grow NOW so he took a fake flower and planted it in one of the pots so he could have his flowers now.

Book: Imaginary Garden

Spring is here at is raining…a lot. With the warmer weather the kids and I are anxious to get outside and get our hands dirty in the garden, but Mother Nature has had other plans for us.  To quell our desire to be outside we indulged ourselves into fantasy land with the book, The Imaginary Garden, by Andrew Larsen. The book is about a little girl and her grandfather. The little girl loves her grandfather’s flower garden, but her grandfather moves to an apartment where he can no longer garden. To recreate the grandfather’s garden the pair decide to take a trip down fantasy lane and paint a picture of their ideal garden. As the season goes on the pair update the picture with more blooms.

Since we have already placed our seed order for the season, we did not need our seed catalogues anymore. Instead of throwing the seed catalogue away, Little BBQ was allowed to cut pictures from the catalogue and make his own imaginary garden.  I was nervous about letting him use big boy scissors for the first time instead of toddler scissors, but he did well with the transition.

Watch Our Bean Plant Grow Up Close

Spring is almost here, and we are getting excited! To get us ready for spring, Little BBQ picked out two books on gardening, How Groundhog’s Garden Grew by Lynne Cherry and Strega Nona’s Harvest by Tomie De Paola.  Both books were a lot of fun. Strega Nona’s Harvest focused more on sharing your harvest while How Groundhog’s Garden Grew focused on how seeds grew into plants.

 Being inspired by the groundhog book we decided to watch a bean plant grow using the method outlined in 101 Great Science Experiments by Neil Ardley. We checked on our bean plant daily and watered it as needed. One week after planting the bean, we had a little bean plant. We identified the parts of the plant. Then, to observe the plant closer we used a handheld microscope to view the different parts of the plant.

The leaf with a vein running through it:

The furry stem:

The slick root:

Once it gets warmer outside we plant to plant our bean plat outside, and if we get a harvest, we will share our harvest just like in Strega Nona’s Harvest. 

Materials to watch your bean plant grow modified from 101 Great Science Experiments p 60

1 paper towel

Water

1 dry bean

1 clear glass jar

Directions

1.       Wet the paper towel and squeeze out the excess water.

2.       Lay the glass jar on the side, and lay the bean about halfway down the glass jar. 

3.       Place the paper towel in the glass jar and along the backside of the bean. Mold the paper towel to the bean so that it provides support for the bean when you turn the jar back up right.

4.       Water the bean as needed when the paper towel gets dry. 

5.       Watch your bean plant grow!

6.       Identify the roots, stem, and leaves.

Rain Dancer

This spring has been super rainy, and super rainy days mean lots of time indoors which is pure torture for an active preschooler. I have been so desperate for ideas for things to do that I have scoured blogs and even bought some books to help me find some rainy day inspiration. I finally found an interesting book called Science Arts by Mary Ann F. Kohl and Jean Potter. The book combines two of my favorite things, art and science. As a kid I remember all the beautiful pictures found in science books such as volcanoes, cells, animals, metabolite pathways, and all the other things that intrigue a young student. I remember wanting to be a medical illustrator, but my art skills were less than stellar. I even had an art teacher tell me I was talentless. He was probably right, but I still love all the pretty pictures in science books. And even better, I have made my own pretty science pictures over the years using microscopes and stains. I love the marvels of modern science that let me see our world even when our eyes don’t allow us to.


Now I am mother of two children, and I want them to appreciate science and art as much as I do. I want them to get excited about the world around them. I want them to discover both art and science. Today I let my son explore diffusion through art. It was another dark rainy day, and I was excited when I saw this activity called, “Rain Dancer” in the book Science Arts because it actually used the rain in the activity. The age recommendation was age 4 and up, but I decided to let Little BBQ try it anyway even though he is only 3.5 years old. He was a little young to understand the concept of diffusion, but he did enjoy the process of doing the project which was great. We are definitely going to save this activity for another rainy day.

Modified from the book Science Arts page 24:

Materials

Rainy day
White paper (we used computer paper)
Kids paint
Paintbrushes

Art experiment:

1. Paint the white sheet of paper.

2. Put the painted paper outside and let the rain hit the paper.

3. Bring the paper back inside after 5 minutes or until desired amount of spreading has occured.

Little BBQ tore the paper trying to bring it inside, but the concept is still there.

Science Concept Learned:

Diffusion occurs when the water droplets hit the paint on the paper. The pigments from the paint are in high concentration on the paper, but the pigments begin to diffuse or spread out across the paper once the water hits the paint.

This post was featured on Carnival of Homeschooling. and Homeschool Showcase #60

The Colors of Spring

I love spring with all the wonderful flowers in bloom and the nice warm weather. On these beautiful spring days, I love to take learning outside. Today my 3 year old preschooler did a project on the colors of spring. We went outside and picked up pieces of nature for our collages. We made it a point to find all the different colors that we could to represent all the different colors of spring. Then, we came home and mounted our findings on corresponding colored construction paper. This simple project taught observation skills, sorting, eye hand coordination, and identification of things in nature (the names of different flowers).