We had so much fun doing the naked egg experiment.  Click through to do the experiment yourself.  I love this experiment because it’s easy and only requiring items we already have in the house.  One of the best parts about this experiment is that you can leave it and forget about it without botching the results.  Trust me, I did forget it in the fridge as I let the eggs soak for days.

This experiment involves dissolving the egg shells with vinegar, hence the name “naked egg.” You are then left with the egg white and yolk encased in a semi-permeable membrane.  We then put one naked egg in water and another one in corn syrup to learn about osmosis, which is the process of water moving from more concentrated to less concentrated solution.  In the water solution, the egg expanded as the water moved inside the egg whereas in the corn syrup solution, the egg shrunk as the water inside the egg moved out.  After this, we reversed the process by putting the imploded egg in the water solution to expand it and the fat egg in the corn syrup solution to shrink it.  The results were fabulous and fun to play with.

Without further ado, here are  pictures documenting our experiment.

Here is the egg sitting in the vinegar solution, and as you can see, the shells are already dissolving and releasing bubbles.

After two days of soaking, the shells are completely dissolved.  To the left is the naked egg and to the right is the normal egg.  As you can see, the naked egg had already expanded and is larger compared to the regular egg.

The kids then took turns handling the naked egg and bouncing it gently.

After some fun, we put one naked egg in water solution (we added red food coloring to the water) and another in corn syrup.  After soaking for about two days, here are our shrunken and fat eggs.  Very cool, right?

We reversed the process by putting the red, fat egg in the corn syrup solution and the wrinkled egg in the water solution and let them soak for about two days.  Truth be told, we forgot about these eggs as they sat in the refrigerator so they sat in the solution for many days.

Our red, fat egg shrank.

Our shrunken egg is now revived and plump.  Because it was in the red water solution, it too became red (though a lighter shade than the first).

Once again we played with the eggs.  I dropped the fat egg in the bowl and it instantly popped as there was a lot of water content inside the egg.  The red blob to the right of the egg yolk is the membrane.

The kids took turn feeling the membrane and squishing the egg yolk out.

Now, on to the shrunken egg.  Here is Bethany feeling it and checking it out.

We bounced the egg from various heights to try to pop it.

Look at this boy’s hand!  That’s the perfect free-throw hand motion for basketball.  He was trying to score and he did.  The egg finally popped after many abuses from these kids.

Due to the low water content inside the egg, it was much harder to pop it.  And of course we have to mess with the insides just to see.

They sure love the gooey mess.  I was actually quite relaxed about this mess, only because it was well contained.  You see, this is the solution to everyone’s happiness.  Mess = happy children.  Well contained mess = happy mom.  When you have this combination, you have one happy family.

The aftermath of our much abused eggs.

For the conclusion of our experiment, I here present NATHANIEL!

His older brother thought it was cool to put an camouflage bandanna on him.

You may wonder what Nathaniel has to do with our experiment.  Well, nothing really.  It really doesn’t have to make sense.

My blog, my call.

That said, I posted his pictures for the following reasons:

1. My island-dwelling friend Andrea thinks he is cute so this is primarily for her viewing pleasure.
2. These pictures share the same memory space in my camera as the experiment.  I’m all about equality here.
3. Blogging is harder to come by these days due to sleep deprivation so squeezing everything I want to say all in one post is ideal.
4. Hmmmm. . . . I ran out of brain cells to actually say something.

Oh wait, few of my brain cells have returned.  We now have a nickname for this child!  We didn’t have troubles in the past coming up with nicknames for our children, except for Nathaniel.  For some reason we just didn’t have a good one for him, and once again I attribute it to brain cell depletion.  Before I reveal his real nickname, I must tell you about my failed nickname.  I affectionately call him “Man-Child.”  Notice that i used the present tense for “call” instead of past tense?  It’s because I still think in present tense and not willing to let go of this nickname.  I tried to convince the family that this name is biblical.  After all, biblical matriarchs and patriarchs call their sons man-child.  It’s gotta be in the Bible somewhere.  The family ignored me at first, not saying anything positive nor negative.  They eventually moved into the stage of frowning upon hearing this name.  They have now moved to the final stage of declaring this nick name as weird.  I think they’re really saying that I’m weird and to which I say. . . too bad I can’t argue against that.  Man-child isn’t sticking so we have to move on though I’m still holding out hope.

So my husband has the winning nick name of CHEEKS.  Nathaniel is all cheeks and we absolutely love those droopy, squeezable, and plumply cheeks.  Everyone in the family approves.  Even I have to succumb to such a cute nickname.  So, there you have it, a window into my scattered brain.

Check out our newest school organizer!

And it spins!  And it’s fun to spin, spin, spin!

This lazy susan was super easy to put together though I had to enlist my husband to do it because I can’t use a power drill.  All you need is a lazy susan from Ikea and seven buckets, also from Ikea.  The total cost was about $14.  Thanks to Pinterest for this inspiration and if you want to make one of your own, here is a photo tutorial.  I didn’t bother to paint the buckets nor the lazy susan because I actually like the way they look.

So why do I like this organizer?  Because it keeps all the supplies centralized in one location, in the middle of our school table.  Whenever someone needs a pencil, pen, crayon, or a ruler, it’s right there!  Each child used to have a pencil box of his/her own where they store their own supplies.  I thought this was a great idea because each child felt special in having a box of his/her own.  Not only that, each person got to pick his/her color.  Well, inevitably whenever a child needs a pencil or a crayon, it’s missing from the box!!!!  So, I have to go and hunt for one.  To fix this problem, I have the child refill his box with more pencils or other supplies.  Guess what happens next?  Somehow they disappear again.  We must have a school supplies thief in the house.  In the end, having individual pencil boxes don’t work for us.  This new organizer solves our problem so no more hunting for more supplies.  We are loving it.

Today’s lesson for my three-year-old daughter was “B is for beer.”  Yup, you read that right, BEER!

This morning, my eldest took his little sister under his wing to begin her formal education.  He got her started with all the necessary materials (“just like” her older siblings): a pencil box, a binder, a pair of scissors, two pencils, and a few crayons.  Today, he taught her the letter B and began to show her what words start with this particular letter by cutting corresponding pictures from a grocery ad.  This explained why when I went to check the ad for a grocery shopping trip, there were many missing images and lots of holes in the ads.  This was not apparent to me initially, but after seeing my daughter’s lesson, the holey ads mystery was solved.  I chuckled when my son clipped a picture of beer, among other B letter words.

It was so sweet watching him teach his sister.  He was so patient with her and she reciprocated by being receptive to his teaching.

About twice a month, we experience a “negative tide” on the west coast, wherein the tide recedes well beyond its normal point and exposes a portion of the floor that typically lies underwater.

Even more rarely, that rare tide occurs durying the daytime on weekends when folks can go observe it.  Today, from 3-5 pm, we had the occasion to visit Moss Beach to check out marine life as a family and with friends.  It was really cool to see the rocks and sea life that one normally only gets to see at an aquarium.  Hermit crabs, anemones, and sea stars and other creatures were easily discovered by the thousands of people who were drawn by the same event to the area.  The weather was shockingly warm, and the sun shone brightly (great for people, tougher for photographers!).

Here are a few of the photos I snapped.  I didn’t get any particularly rare species (to my knowledge), but did capture a few very pretty shots of anemones up close.  I may even print & frame a couple of ‘em!

Call me easily excited or easily pleased, but no matter, I’m just so thrilled that I’ve finally found the best pencil sharpener ever!  Thanks to Kendra at Preschoolers and Peace who reviewed the product.  The pencil sharpener I speak of is the Classroom Pencil Sharpener at $19.95, free shipping included.  It’s sooooooooo worth the money.  I went through several electrical ones as well as some manual ones, and none and absolutely none, met the expectation of this pencil sharpener.  I’m in love!!!!!!!!  You see, I’m not that crazy.  We use a lot of pencils here in our homeschool and having a perfectly sharpened pencil is a necessity.  Now my dream and my children’s dreams of having a perfectly sharpened pencil every time are fulfilled.  When we first received the sharpener, I went and bought a box of pencils to test it out.  My kids and I took turn having fun sharpening each of the 50 pencils.  I’m happy to say that every single pencil resulted in a perfectly sharpened state.  After about two months of daily usage, the sharpener is still doing its job!  Yay!

The website offers videos of how this sharpener works as well as repairing it when a lead gets stuck inside the mechanism.  I’ve had to remove the lead several times and the video proved very helpful in getting the lead out.  I find that when I sharpen colored pencils, the lead tends to break off more easily, but it can be easily remedied.  Happy sharpening!

I couldn’t sleep last night for some reason and naturally it affected my morning.  I simply couldn’t get out of the bed, but fortunately for a wonderful husband and five lovely kids, they made me breakfast in bed.  After daddy set the kids to do some  school, he left for work.  The kids slowly, one by one, came to my room while I was still half comatose.  They had been playing a game and they explained that they now all have new names.  I was quite amused so I started calling them by their new names just for fun.  The boys are now known as Sharkie and Sparkie and the girls are Sarah, Clara, and Hope.  I have no idea where they got these names, but I have to admit that they’re quite creative.  I let them continue with their play while I still lie in bed.  This is one of those moments that makes me really appreciate homeschooling.  I don’t have to adhere to a schedule because life gets in the way.  We simply go with the flow and be flexible.  A little school in the morning, followed by lots of play, and because we’re flexible, we can make up later in the day or the following day.  It is indeed a blessing to be able to homeschool.  I’m also grateful for oodles of kids because they’re each other’s playmates and can keep themselves occupied without my constant attention.  That’s another wonderful blessing!

This week the boys had a fencing clinic along with some friends of ours.  It was a lot of fun for the kids as they learn the terms and techniques to fencing.

They started out with using fun noodles as foils or swords.  Now we’ll be purchasing some fun noodles for practices at home.

Now it’s time for the real thing, but they must put on their protective gear.

Let the bout begin!

And finally, a photo of a bout between brothers.  Yes, we’re promoting sibling rivalry, but in a pre-ordained fashion.  Looks like the younger brother won this round as his foil hit his older brother’s torso.