I wanted to share with you my easy recipe for making your own oatmeal soap. This would be another great homemade Father's Day gift. Oatmeal Soap has a beautiful rustic look and it is a great exfoliant.
You may remember this soap mentioned in the Family Fun with Microwaves post. That is because my secret way to speed up making this soap is by microwaving it instead of taking a long time to shred it. This also adds a fun science project into the craft. (A video is in the microwave post.)
Ivory Soap is different because it floats. What you may not know is that it floats because it has a lot of air whipped into it. Air has moisture so when you microwave Ivory soap it expands into a big soft puff. The heat starts to soften the soap at the same time the air and moisture that was whipped into the soap expands. The big puff of soap is easy to break apart once it cools enough to touch.
Start by placing about 1/4 cup of oatmeal in a blender and do short pulses to break the oatmeal into smaller pieces. Be careful to not turn it into flour.
Place the microwaved Ivory Soap and the oatmeal into a pan and heat to medium.
Start adding a tablespoon of water at a time until it starts to soften and come together.
Place your soap into whatever shape mold you are using. You can also hand shape your soap for a more rustic look. Just be sure to let it cool some before handling.
Let the soap cool overnight and then remove it from the mold.
The longer you let your soap sit and dry out the longer it will last when you use it. This recipe makes one bar of oatmeal soap. You can multiply the recipe to make as many as you like.
When we think of the luck of the Irish and St Patrick's Day rainbows always come to mind. Here is a neat rainbow science experiment.
YOU WILL NEED
Wide-mouthed, smooth, circular glass jar or large plain drinking glass filled with water Small mirror Flashlight
HERE'S HOW
1. Place the mirror inside the water-filled jar. Tilt the mirror slightly upward.
2. In a very dark room with white walls, shine the flashlight onto the mirror. A rainbow appears! (Hint: If no rainbow appears at first, just change the angle of light from the flashlight or change the angle of the mirror.)
WHY?
The mirror reflects light that passes back through the water, traveling at an angle. The water refracts, or bends, the light. As light bends, it separates into the colors of the rainbow—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.
Winter is the time of year for a lot of static so what could be a better time to have a static electricity experiment. Kids always get a kick out of it when they touch something and get a shock. This experiment will be fun and educational.
**Materials
scissors
Styrofoam tray from your supermarket (ask at the meat or bakery counter for a clean, unused tray)
masking tape
aluminum pie tin
**Instructions
1. Cut an "L" shape off of the styrofoam try by cutting around one corner. 2. Tape the "L" shape onto the pie tin to make a handle 3. Rub the remaining styrofoam tray on your head to build up static. 4. Place the styrofoam on the table upside down. 5. Using the handle only, hold the pie tin a foot above the styrofoam tray and drop it on top. 6. Slowly touch just the pie pan with your finger. What a spark! 7. Carefully lift the pie pan up by the handle and touch it again for another great spark. 8. Drop it back down and begin again.
These steps can be repeated over and over again until the static charge runs out. Then just rub the styrofoam on your hair again. How about trying this in the dark? Check out what color the spark is. Kids will love doing this one in the dark so they can see the spark as well as feel it.
**What We Learned
Rubbing the styrofoam on your hair pulls electrons off of your hair and piles them up on the foam. Some of the electrons that are in metal are "free electrons". This means that they can move around freely. They want to get as far away from the styrofoam as possible so they jump to your finger giving you a spark.
When you pull the pie pan up and away from the styrofoam the electrons no longer want to move away. The pie pan is also short a few electrons since it gave them to you. When you touch the pie pan again it pulls the electrons back onto the pie pan giving you another spark.
**Is this how lightning is formed?
Lightning is when electrons move between clouds and the ground or cloud to cloud. The moving electrons heat up the air so hot that it is 5 times hotter than the sun. The heating up and expanding of the air creates a supersonic wave that is heard as thunder.
Summer is really becoming a reality. We have had 5 days of no school so far here. We had some make up snow days so it is already time to start summer school today. The girls are very excited. They picked some really fun classes. Noelle is the most excited because she is taking Jazz Band. She loves playing instruments. She already plays cello and clarinet. She got a guitar last Christmas and has wanted to get better at playing it. The band teacher told her that she can bring her guitar and clarinet for jazz band and he will help her learn more. So it will give her the opportunity to learn more guitar. She has been really looking forward to it.
On the other side of summer...
We still have to find fun things to do at home to keep the girls busy and entertained. So I think today will be Ooze. The girls love playing with Ooze. I love that even if they get it on everything it will not be a gooey mess because it turns right back into a powder as it dries. I hope you will try this recipe out and have fun with it.
Ooze
You will need
1 cup of dry cornstarch
large bowl or pan
food coloring (if you want)
1/2 cup of water
1. Make sure you work on an easy to clean surface and easy to clean floor. This stuff can drip and get messy but you just have to wipe it with a damp cloth because it dries really fast and turns right back to powder.
2. Put the cornstarch into the bowl. Add a drop or two of food coloring. (Use whatever colors you like.) Add water slowly, mixing the cornstarch and water with your fingers until all the powder is wet.
3. Keep adding water until the Ooze feels like a liquid when you're mixing it slowly. Then try tapping on the surface with your finger or a spoon.
When Ooze is just right, it won't splash. It will feel solid.If your Ooze is too powdery, add a little more water. If it's too wet, add more cornstarch. It will be hard to work with if you move too fast. You have to mix it slowly and trust that it really will work out.
It will start to dry out and turn back to powder after awhile so if you want to save it you should add some more water and put it in a ziplock.
Things to try
Pick up a handful and squeeze it. Stop squeezing and it will drip through your fingers.
Rest your fingers on the surface of the Ooze. Let them sink down to the bottom of the bowl. Then try to pull them out fast.
Take a blob and roll it between your hands to make a ball. Then stop rolling. The Ooze will trickle away between your fingers.
Put a small plastic toy on the surface. Does it stay there or does it sink?
Today is our first day of summer break! I am loving it so far. We are busy doing a whole bunch of nothing today. I wanted a nice long day of laziness. Maybe tomorrow we will do something productive. We have relatives coming to visit over the weekend so we should do a good scrub around the house. A fun family is not necessarily an always spotless family. :)
My kids keep wanting to do the Rubber Egg experiment so we have yet another one going on the kitchen counter. It is actually ready to pull out we just keep forgetting about it until James is home from work. He is not too fond of the vinegar smell so we keep putting it off. We should probably get around to it soon. I can only imagine that the smell must get worse with time.
The rubber egg experiment is a rather simple one. You just place a raw egg in a clear jar and fill it with vinegar. After around 24 hours you replace the vinegar in the jar with fresh vinegar. It will be done after about 7 days. Your kids will have fun watching the bubbles form around the egg as the vinegar breaks down the shell.
For the full instructions and the science lesson you can go to the Rubber Egg Experiment on the main site.
Today is going to be a busy one. Normally I have free time to work on my sites while the kids are at school. Today however is Noelle's graduation from 6th grade. Who knew it would be a bigger thing than her graduation from 5th grade! LOL
For those that have just started to get to know our family... We have had to move a lot because of James' work. We just moved to a small town in January. This town has 6th grade in elementary school so Noelle is yet again having a graduation. This time the girls are older so it is a big deal. I have been informed that I must straighten her hair, apply some make-up, and help with the dress. The graduation is during the normal school day so James is coming home from work early and I am unable to be entertaining in blog world. LOL
I decided that since there are a lot of new readers from Entrecard, I will repost one of my favorite posts from the pre-Entrecard era. For those that have already seen this I am sorry. For all you Entrecard readers, I hope you enjoy it. Now I am off to shower and get all beautified.
Repost
As I sat here today thinking about what to write about James called and asked me to fax him a grocery list. The girls and I started to check what we needed and soap was on the list. This is when Neona asked if we could microwave some Ivory soap this week and make some oatmeal soap. So I started to think about all the things people microwave for fun.
There are many people that microwave things that are dangerous but I have no interest in buying a new microwave right now. There are a lot of everyday things that you can microwave that will not break your microwave. You can even teach your kids a science lesson while having fun. They may get a little messy though.
***I should now let you in on a little secret just in case you do not know already. Restaurants use this method all the time and no one has messier microwaves than them. To clean a microwave with the least amount of work you just need to microwave a wet washcloth for 1 minute. Keep the door closed while the cloth cools off. The steam softens whatever might be hard to scrub. After the cloth has cooled off enough you should be able to just wipe the microwave clean. For really hard jobs you may need to do this twice. This method also eliminates the need for strong chemicals that can get into your food when you cook it.
Things to remember...
You should always microwave things on a paper towel or microwave safe plate so clean up is easier.
As much as you want to feel things afterwards remember that they will be very hot.
Soaking plates in water afterward will make it easier to clean them but you HAVE to wait until they are cooled down all the way.
Marshmallows can still be eaten but you HAVE to wait or you will really burn yourself.
Do not EVER leave things in the microwave unattended unless you know the results. These things are not meant to be microwaved for very long.
I covered this on the main website already. Summary - Microwave Ivory soap on top of a paper towel for 2 minutes. Ivory soap is whipped full of air. Air has water vapors in it so when it is microwaved it expands into a big soap cloud. Remember that after you try this one you can use the soap to make the oatmeal soap craft. The Ivory soap ends up having a very weird waxy paper like feel. (remember to wait until it cools down)
Marshmallows
This is one the kids like to do when we have just a few leftover after a bon fire. Place a marshmallow or peeps on a microwave safe plate for about 1 minute. It will swell up much larger than the original size. If you cook them too long they will burn and have black spots. Burnt marshmallows turn into rocks that are not edible. They are also very hard to get off of plates and silverware.
Gummy candies
You can microwave any kind of soft candy like gummies or jelly beans. Be very careful though because they turn into a pile of hot bubbling sugar lava. Again, let cool off fully and then soak the plate in water to dissolve the sugar.
Have fun trying different things at home. Remember the basic microwave safety rules though. I have included some videos from YouTube if you would rather just watch some things getting done and not make a mess. LOL
I have not tried the grape plasma one yet. I do not know how much I feel safe with that one. The egg one can be bad too if the microwave is too small or the egg is put into a bowl. Remember that any explosion creates a force so anything that is too close to the force can break.
*If you are viewing this post offsite as a feed you will need to click over to the actual blog to view the video player.
The kids have no school this week. They have off for conferences the first three days and then the end of the week is Thanksgiving break. It worked out really nice. This way they get a week off so families can go somewhere for the holiday. This family however will not be going any where. We will just be cleaning and organizing. Yippy.
The girls went into vacation mode the second they got home from school Friday. They kept trying to tell me it was their break so they should have a break from chores too. I let the chores get backed up so they could have some fun time before we start the major work. All they have wanted to do all weekend is play video games. They do not normally get to just sit around playing video games.
This weekend I told them they could do whatever they wanted and stay up as late as they wanted but starting Monday we have work to do. I was shocked to find that given the opportunity to do anything all they wanted to do was nonstop video games. So first thing this morning they tried to play video games. This is when they got informed that there will be no video games all day. I may actually extend it longer if they are still so preoccupied with them tomorrow.
Well, I told the girls that for everyday that they get a lot of cleaning done we will do a science experiment. Today we are going to go with probably the easiest one I can think of. I like easy and not too messy.
Place an ice cube on a flat surface. Sprinkle salt on top of the ice cube. Press another ice cube onto the salted area. Hold the second cube in place for 30 seconds.
Continue adding salt and ice cubes until your tower topples.
*The salt melts some of the ice, turning it into water. When you place another ice cube over the salt and press down, the water refreezes and joins the cubes together.
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