The Science Chef

Last October, when we were up in Oregon, we visited the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, aka The OMSI. I've never been so captivated by a museum in my life. We enjoyed every single minute we were there. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see ALL of it, despite having spent 5 hours there. If you ever find yourself in Portland, Oregon, The OMSI is a must see.

At any rate, I couldn't leave the museum without having a gander at the gift shop. Museums always have the best selection of educational material for kids. Since The OMSI is geared towards kids, the gift shop was overflowing with goodies. I could've spent about 3 hours, and $3,000 of everything I wanted to carry out of there. Unfortunately, I only had about $50 to spend. I made the most of that $50. The lack of sales tax in Oregon was an added bonus. I picked up 2 games, a word of the day vocabulary book, and 3 other books. One of the books I picked is called The Science Chef. What a little gem this book is!

When creating our lesson plans for the year, I decided to use this book to get us started. The book contains 100 science experiments, with common household kitchen/pantry items. With each experiment, comes a short list of recipes. This gives me an opportunity to re-enforce the use of fractions, addition, and reading. Kai will also be learning how to cook and bake.

Our first experiment was finding out why popping corn pops. We learned that each kernel contains a drop of water. When that drop of water heats up inside the kernel, it expands. The energy builds up, until.....POP!! We dropped one kernel in the oil to watch how it pops. I don't know about you, but I've never done that before! We watched as the shell expanded. We could see the water inside, boiling with itty bitty bubbles. Then...suddenly....POP! Both kids squealed with excitement. Prior to popping, we dehydrated 1/2 cup of kernels, soaked another 1/2 cup, and left 1/2 untouched. We then popped each batch separately. We observed each batch after it was finished. What we found it that the untouched batch yielded the most pop corn, and best size popped kernel. The soaked batch, we thought would pop up the largest, and yield the most. However, it just proved that too much of a good thing can be bad. Lastly, the dehydrated batch yielded the least amount of popcorn, and turned out the smallest popped kernel. After the kids enjoyed a batch of pop corn, we made popcorn & raisin bars. Sweet, gooey, yummy goodness. Together, Kai and I recorded our findings, as pictured above. I recorded , while Kai dictated.

During our next science lesson, we will learn why onions make us cry....oy vey!