Every Monday, we go ice-skating. It’s very fun out there on the ice – I can get really fast! After the sessions, we usually go to IKEA and have lunch there and play Families there in the Showrooms – we pretend to be American, and say things like, “Who’s up for iiiice creeam?” like the Americans do (not that that’s bad; I like the American accent) and then we have to study and things for school with Swedish books in the library and fake plastic keyboards and computers. Tilly even invented how we had to go to the prom with someone – I don’t think anyone liked that part 😉 I would always be the quick-typer and the one who had the best essays for school – the school would sometimes take in my books to study on; Tilly would be a really good artist and the school used her paintings to study on; and Grace was awesome at making clothes and she sold them to the school. It was fun! “C’mon, let’s study, guys!”..”I don’t know – should it be Johnny or Michael?”.. “I do hope so, duh!”.. “This essay is typical, Sylvia! I want it in before Thursday!”..
As you know, we’ve been learning about science a lot, and we have started doing some chemistry experiments.
I’ve talked about sewing up atoms and things, but this time we made our own (enlarged..) atoms out of marshmallows! We talked about how the atoms shared their electrons and how they made bonds to make molecules and suchlike. It was really fun. We made the bonds out of cocktail sticks and the atoms out of big or small or medium-sized marshmallows of different colours. We made some water molecules and some oxygen molecules. We made a gigantic glucose molecule, too, out of the Mega Marshmallows.
We learned about the chemical reactions, which is where atoms from different substances rearrange themselves to make one or more new substances. We put something in egg (we’ve forgotten what the ‘something’ was) so that we could see chemical reaction and things. We also mixed borax with glue to make a gloopy ball that you could pull corners off. Weird defintion. It was really fun.
We talked to William about what it was like doing science at his school. He said, “We get to go in a lab and everything, with all the bottles and experiment bubbly stuff around us!” We asked him to explain what he did, and he said, “Well, we’ve never actually (ever!) done an experiment in the lab, we just sit in it and do some worksheets.” How typical is that?! We blew up a balloon with white vinegar and barcarbonate of soda! Here’s how you do it:
Take an empty balloon and fill it with bicarbonate of soda. Then fill the very bottom of the vase with a couple of spoons of white vinegar. On the count of three, turn over the balloon and clap the end of it onto the top of the vase, making sure it’s pulled fully over the sides. Watch as the bicarbonate of soda falls into the vinegar and yes, the explosion begins! I thought it was really cool how the solid hit the liquid and the carbon and sodium mixed to make the atoms excited, and turn the solid and liquid into a gas. The gas (carbon dioxide) then pushed up to fill its container and poof! it filled up the balloon, blowing it up for us.
We did lots more fun experiments too. The vase is still sitting on our windowledge – it’s fun to see it deflating over the days!
Andy recorded me singing Naughty with all the equipment and things he used in his band. It was really amazing! He did it in case I wasn’t loud enough singing live at the real performance; but I really want to sing live and I think I’ll do alright. I sang into a microphone with the headphones and complicated things like that.