Microscope books

Here is a great collection of public domain books on the subject of microscopes, their history and activities you can do with them at home. Just click on the picture below to get the links. Enjoy!!

Naked egg

This is a pretty cool experiment that uses only a few items, but provides a fascinating result. An egg is a perfect example of one animal cell that you can actually study without a microscope, plus who does not want to see what an uncooked, unbroken egg would look like sans shell...

If you ever wondered, here is the way to do it. :)

Materials: One egg, a glass container to hold it, and enough vinager to submerge the whole egg.

Steps:
Place egg in the container. Cover it with vinager. Wait for a few days (you can place it in the refrigerator if you want).

 The acid in the vinagre is going to dissolve the shell completely. You can help the process by gently wiping it with a moist paper towel.

This is what is going to look like:

 
Enjoy! Handle with care, and discard after you are done. You definitely do not want to make an poached egg with this one :)

Science experiment - Digestion

I got the idea for this experiment from this blog. We just modified it slightly.
The objective is to show how our stomach acids aid the digestion process. There is a bit of gross factor here, so don't read on if you are sensitive :)

You'll need:
A zip lock bag
Some white vinager
A cracker (or cheerios or a piece of bread, etc)

Premoist the cracker. Explain to the child that this is what salive and mastication do for us.

Fill the bag with vinager. Explain that our stomachs hold acid inside, and briefly describe its properties.

Drop the food in. Close the bag tightly and swish the contents around, gently massaging the bag, too, to emulate the action of the stomach walls.

Describe what happens. Make notes and observations.

(My boys loved it!!!) :)